Amtrekker

Hey Team,

Enjoy the New Year’s Eve shenanigans! Here’s my gift to you (inspired by a desire to vindicate myself in the face of that crazy SOB William Shatner).

“Amtrekker travels to Beulah, MI to create a crop circle!

Failures and ethnically insensitive impressions ensue.”

I’m done.

Brett.

Hey Team,

Here’s the rest of the crop circle adventure.

On day two Amber and I spent a little over an hour outlining the crop circle design using stakes and 1000 ft of cheap twine I picked up at the local dollar store. After the entire thing was laid out and the string pulled tight it was clear that there was NO WAY we were going to be able to tell if we made what we were shooting for or not.

It was so big that we couldn’t see one end of the design from the other so even trying to tell if the lines were straight was impossible…much less whether or not the proportions looked right. Even after another four hours of fighting to the death “mano a Russian Knapweed” I was convinced we had just spent two days and nearly 24 man-hours making a pretty mediocre looking “crop circle.”

By the time we were finished and pulled up all of our lines darkness was creeping up again and there wasn’t going to be enough time to try to figure out how we were going to get a picture to confirm our mediocrity. Instead we got up early the next morning and hit up the local airport. It’s a small strip with only a handful of hangars all occupied by private pilots so I hoped that we could just ask someone nicely to take a look around from the air and try to get a picture.

Enter Nigel the student pilot who, although unable to fly with a passenger because of his student status, agreed to take my video camera up with him and get some shots of the field. Unfortunately he turned out not to be the sharpest light bulb in the shed when it comes to direction and ended up miles from where we put in all the effort. (Not that I didn’t appreciate his help.)

Next we tried the local glider club that takes people on rides for a fee. The gliders wouldn’t be able to make it out to the field but we were hoping that maybe the tow plane could take the camera up and get a few shots. After a few hours of social finagling and some help from Andy of Papano’s Pizza fame we finally found a window where Jens, the tow pilot for the North West Soaring Club could take me up!

And since pictures are worth hundreds of thousands of my words:

And the rest.

I’m done.

Brett.

Just for the record. Bookingbuddy really is a pretty rad website if you’re looking to plan a trip. It actually allows you to search most of the top website from one location. Pretty handy! But more importantly…our new affiliation with bookingbuddy.com means all you have to do to help out Amtrekker is click on one of their ads and sign up for an awesome newsletter filled with travel deals! Thanks everyone!

Thanks!

Hey Team,

Sorry for keeping you guys in the dark during the whole crop circle adventure. I’ve been living life without the internet all week and let me just be the first to say, “A life without the internet is no life at all.”

Now I’m in the backseat of a Subaru with two spaniels named Bo and Carl jockeying for lap position with Charley. More importantly…I have an internet connection!

Here’s the short version and I’ll give you an update with pictures later tonight or tomorrow morning:

I spent the week in Beulah, MI where I had permission to destroy 80 acres of cover crop (Russian Knapweed) in an effort to “create a crop circle.” I checked out the field in the daylight the first full day I was in town and was super pumped about the prospect of creating my own hundred foot high design in plant life. The crop was waist high and on the dying side and looked like it was going to be perfect! AND, when I walked off the field I discovered it was about 250 ft wide by 2100 ft long so there was plenty of room to do whatever I wanted.

Which was the first problem. When I was confronted with such an open ended blank page full of so many possibilities I suddenly couldn’t decide what to create. Lots of tossed out doodles and MANY suggestions via the twitter faithful later it was coming down to the wire. Darkness was upon us and all of the preparations for the circle had been made…but I still didn’t know what design to imprint on the Earth…

Rough drawings in hand, Team Amtrekker (composed of Amber, Colton and Brandon with Andy joining in later) headed out to the field under cover of night in an effort to be as genuine as possible. The rest of the team pulled out boards and rope to start making our stomping tools while I took a ruler to an extremely rough sketch in an effort to figure out the dimensions of this soon to be nightmare.

As soon as we laid out our first line and started stomping the evil commie weed we knew something wasn’t right. Despite repeated stompings the plants would slowly but surely rise back up like we had never touched them. Ignoring the problem we continued to stomp a large portion of the outline until frustration finally set in. Close to midnight we packed up and decided to reevaluate the situation in daylight.

But of course the next morning when I showed up to the field with Amber and Colton it was impossible to tell we had even been there the previous night. Armed with new tools but unsure even that would work we stared at the field for awhile listing all of the problems…including, even if we DID find a way to make it work how in the world were we going to get a picture of it?!

As a side effect to my rampant optimism, when I’m confronted with that many problems at once I tend to break things into tiny pieces until I find something I CAN do.

“Okay, let’s take the twine and stakes and lay this out.”

“But how are we going to get the plants to lay down?”

“Don’t know.”

“How are we going to get a picture of it when we’re done.”

“I don’t know. Where’s the twine?”

I’ll leave you there for now, Team. Carl seems kind of fed up with all the attention Charley is getting.

I’ll be back soon.

Brett.

Just for the record. Bookingbuddy really is a pretty rad website if you’re looking to plan a trip. It actually allows you to search most of the top website from one location. Pretty handy! But more importantly…our new affiliation with bookingbuddy.com means all you have to do to help out Amtrekker is click on one of their ads and sign up for an awesome newsletter filled with travel deals! Thanks everyone!

Thanks!

Hey Team,

If you like watching me do stupid things (and I know you do) then you’re going to like this one…

“Amtrekker travels to Virginia City, NV to take part in the 49th Annual International Camel Races (Specifically the ostrich racing portion of the weekend)!

Watch as a terrified Brett mans up and falls down.”

AND, as usual…here’s the external video link.

Thanks!

I’m done.

Brett.

Just for the record. Bookingbuddy really is a pretty rad website if you’re looking to plan a trip. It actually allows you to search most of the top website from one location. Pretty handy! But more importantly…our new affiliation with bookingbuddy.com means all you have to do to help out Amtrekker is click on one of their ads and sign up for an awesome newsletter filled with travel deals! Thanks everyone!

Thanks!

Hey Team,

Let me tell you a few things I recently learned about ostriches…but first I should put things in a little bit of context.

July 4th of 2007 I left home on this little Amtrekker adventure of mine thinking, “Remember Swiss Family Robinson? Man, that kid on the ostrich looked like he was having a blast!”

Fast-forward eight months to the first time I ever got a close look at an ostrich…or as I like to call them, “Giant feathered dinosaurs.” Suddenly, I was thinking, “Huh, I don’t remember seeing that kid in any other movies. I wonder if he survived the filming.”

Now that I had let fear into my heart it became VERY important to me that I find an ostrich that was used to being ridden. Preferably one that REALLY enjoyed being ridden. Maybe an ostrich somewhere that loved having people on its back so much that it would seek out interaction, softly cooing and nuzzling you until you gave in and jumped on his back making him the happiest ostrich in all the land.

I found the next best thing. Joe Hedrick makes his living raising exotic animals and traveling the country doing shows and setting up ostrich and camel races. I got in touch with him months ago but never managed to cross paths with him until now.

Yesterday I was in Virginia City, Nevada for the 49th annual Virginia City International Camel Races and Joe went out of his way to insure that I got on top of an ostrich. Except that once I actually arrived I was instantly reminded of how terrifying ostriches look. And act. (Not to mention all the horror stories involving ostrich instigated hospitalizations people have shared with me over the last year.)

I don’t know if the video shows it (I really hope it doesn’t) but I was noticeably shaking while interviewing Joe inside the ostrich pen. With the ostriches. Nothing between them and us. Maybe I’m a big sissy. Okay…I AM a big sissy. But things didn’t improve.

Just before the race Joe and I walked out into the center of the arena and talked at the crowd a little bit telling them my story and whatnot.

“Are you ready?”

“Well, I’m a little terrified but let’s make this happen!”

Then Joe addressed the crowd, “Brett here weighs about 150 pounds. The average ostrich weighs about 450 pounds and can kill a man with one kick. Standing in front of a tractor they can kick forward and pop the tired without even trying.”

“Okay, well now that you say all that I feel much bet– Are you KIDDING ME?!”

All this on top of the earlier lesson where I learned that ostrich’s eyeballs are actually bigger than their brains. So despite being assured that ostriches are only dangerous when they’re around a breeding female, in my mind I had just heard, “Driven by pure animal instinct ostriches are perfect killing machines that can outrun you and put their foot through your skull without even thinking.”

Maybe that isn’t necessarily what was said but needless to say I was nervous.

I jumped on top of the giant feathered dinosaur in the starting gate and he started to buck.

“How do I steer this thing?”

“Just hold on tight, keep your balance and hope he goes where you want him to.”

I was mostly speechless (unusual) but I’m pretty sure the look I gave the wrangler said something like, “What am I doing here?”

Over the intercom I hear, “Okay, Brett! Are you ready?!”

What the heck. This is what I came for…time to suck it up. “Let’s go!”

The ostrich leapt out of the chute and I suddenly understood what everyone was saying about trying to stay balanced on top of a 450-pound football. It’s not easy. I was mostly focused on my hands as I hung on for dear life so I missed out on quite a bit of what happened but from what I hear I started in second place and briefly held first just before my ostrich decided to sit down.

Yeah. He sat down.

I only made it through about a quarter of the race before he gave up. I jumped off the back and waited for him to stand up. Meanwhile, he waited for me to go away.

A few minutes passed and once it he decided I wasn’t paying attention anymore he jumped up and bolted for the fence. It was definitely exciting but less than completely satisfying…so when Joe asked if I wanted to go again I jumped at the opportunity.

Knowing what I was in for made round two much less nerve-racking. My ostrich jumped out to an early lead and left the competition behind. It was a slightly bigger bird and much easier to balance on so I was feeling pretty good. Apparently he sensed my glee and stopped in his tracks, turned a full 180 and made a mad dash towards where we had just come from. At some point he decided it was a good idea to stay at a full gallop despite the metal fence in front of us.

“Whoa, Ostrich! You aren’t really going to–? You are, aren’t you!”

I stuck out my feet and hit the fence at a full run. Deciding it probably wasn’t healthy for either myself or the ostrich if I continued to hang on I rolled off the back and hit the ground, quickly thinking back to Life Lesson #9 (“When in doubt, assume the fetal position.”)

At some point I got stepped on…I definitely have a bruise and a little bit of swelling but nothing you couldn’t earn at an average pick-up soccer game. I jumped up smiling and brushing the dust off. Gave the camera a thumbs up and brought my ostrich racing career to a close.

I’m actually really happy with the way things went down. If you can’t win you should at least have an epic crash to brag about.

I’m done.

Brett.

Quick thanks to Joe Hedrick and the folks from Team Amtrekker that came out to watch. It was great meeting all of you and thanks a ton for the pictures, Teri!

Just for the record. Bookingbuddy really is a pretty rad website if you’re looking to plan a trip. It actually allows you to search most of the top website from one location. Pretty handy! But more importantly…our new affiliation with bookingbuddy.com means all you have to do to help out Amtrekker is click on one of their ads and sign up for an awesome newsletter filled with travel deals! Thanks everyone!

Thanks!

Hey Team,

Obviously my self imposed deadlines have been a joke since I bought the Greyhound bus pass. BUT, never fear…the videos are still coming. I just get fewer opportunities to team up with Charley and get them done lately.

Oh, look! Here’s one right here! Handy.

“Team Amtrekker travels to the Grand Canyon National Park on a three day journey to the world’s most famous hole in the ground!

Immense beauty and heavy breathing ensues.”

AND, as usual…here’s the youtube link.

Thanks!

I’m done.

Brett.

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