Completed Objectives
#15 Arkansas Crater of Diamonds [podcast]
Dec 21st
Hey Team,
Yep. Still behind on videos. But here’s your early Christmas present, and furthermore, you have my solemn word that the next video will be there for you by Christmas morning so you can sit down next to your nice warm coal fueled fire and see what I’ve been up to in my never-ending travels.
That being said here’s a little video in which Amtrekker visits the great mud pit that is the Arkansas Crater of Diamonds State Park and spends the day looking for diamonds, talking to strangers and talking to himself…a lot.
Searching ensues.
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Okay, Team…
I’m done.
Brett.
If you liked the video and want to make up for my lack of diamond finding then feel free to…
Don’t More >
Y’all Come Back Now…
Dec 18th
Hey Team,
Wow…rough travel week.
Just when I thought I had recovered from that 43-hour marathon of suck, I end up in a westbound car for a solid 22 straight hours of travel time. As a result y’all (Texas hasn’t worn off yet.) are just going to have to stop being all snooty about this weeks sporadic updates.
And since we’re on the subject of updates…here’s the important bit.
The Alamo Drafthouse is god’s gift to movie going debauchery. (And by debauchery I mostly mean pizza and drinks.)
And even cooler than being served food and drinks inside a plush movie theater with a full service wait staff is the fact that the Drafthouse doesn’t just waste its time on the newest trashiest excuse for cultural entertainment…they also spend some time on old trashy cultural entertainment.
The day before I left Austin (I wish I could tell you what day that was but everything kind of bleeds together when you live 40 hour days.) I went to a midnight showing of Home Alone to cross number 46 off my list!
Now, this was no average showing of Home Alone. This was what the Drafthouse folks call the Master Pancake Theater showing of Home Alone. For those of More >
#15 Hitchhiking! [podcast (finally!)]
Dec 13th
Hey Team,
Here it is! No more waiting! No more angry emails! No more middle of nowhere! Just 10 minutes and 37 seconds of entertainment!
Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player. var WT2_2 = { params : { wmode : "opaque", allowscriptaccess : "always", allownetworking : "all", allowfullscreen : "true"}, flashvars : { file : "http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amtrekker.com%2Findex.php%3Fxspf%3Dtrue%26id%3D33", volume : "80", bufferlength : "5", controlbar : "over", 'logo.hide' : "false", shuffle : "false", playlist : "bottom"}, attr : { id : "WT2", name : "WT2"}, start : function() { swfobject.embedSWF("http://www.amtrekker.com/wp-content/uploads/player.swf", "WT2_2", "437", "522", "9.0.0", false, this.flashvars, this.params , this.attr ); } } WT2_2.start();And the obligatory you tube link is right here.
That’s it. No more words! I’m done.
Brett.
Okay a couple more words…
AKPC_IDS += "145,";
Crater of Mud State Park
Dec 11th
Hey Team,
I’ve been stuck in the middle of nowhere without a signal for the last several days now, hence no updates. Lucky for you, now I’m stuck in the middle of somewhere. (Still stuck…but now I have a signal.)
Okay, on to the good stuff! Say goodbye to number 35 and hello to fame and fortune! (Minus both notoriety and wealth…don’t ask how that works.) But the important thing is that I spent the day exploring the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas (a.k.a. the giant mud pit). It was definitely lacking in “the pretty” that I’ve become accustomed to seeing in other state parks but I suppose it made up for that in the “potential to make you ridiculously wealthy” department.
In fact I found, amongst other treasures, a piece of polished glass, some quartz, mica, a piece of a shovel, two rusted nails and a chewed piece of gum! Not bad for a couple hours of scouring.
Treasure aside, the highlight of the day was meeting the regulars. One man I talked to, Denis, found a diamond EVERY SINGLE DAY during the month of October. Of course he has a pretty intricate set-up that he has built on a plot More >
Bald Knob (for realsies)
Dec 9th
Hey Team,
I’m staying in a little town outside Little Rock, Arkansas called Bald Knob (no…seriously) tonight with a friend of my grandparents, Jim.
Jim totally came to my rescue today after a near hellish trek just trying to get to Arkansas. (It was ALMOST as bad as when I was frantically trying to get to Vancouver to trespass in a closed hedge maze.)
After yesterday’s aforementioned miserable failure of a hitchhiking attempt I went back to Nashville and hung out with my new friends there for a couple more hours before getting dropped off at the bus station around 2am to catch the 3:15 bus…which left at 6:30.
I fell asleep shortly after getting on the bus at 3:15 and before the bus even had time to leave the station I woke up drenched in sweat to the sound of the bus driver’s PA announcement about the broken air conditioning preventing us from leaving on time.
“Everyone please get off the bus and head back into the station while we get this checked out.”
Almost three and a half hours later (it felt like less, I was curled up in a little ball on the floor using my backpack full of technology as a pillow) More >
Virginia Geocaching [podcast]
Dec 4th
Hey Team,
Sorry I haven’t gotten a video up in a few days. My internet connection in Virginia was just WAY too slow. Here’s one of the videos from last week and the next podcast will skip ahead to my hitchhiking adventure to keep things on track!
Enjoy.
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Brett.
Lookit what you can do!
Or you could just donate your time to promotion…that would work too.
AKPC_IDS += "135,";
Beware Rampant Optimism
Dec 3rd
Hey Team,
You know how I said that in my head I believe I lead a semi-charmed life? Well, something terrible happened today.
I intended to set out in the early morning to maximize time spent by the side of the road in the hopes of hitchhiking to Nashville, TN from Charlottesville, VA. Unfortunately, because I was up until 6am trying to organize a place to stay, just in case by some miracle I actually made it the 548 miles to Nashville, I ended up sleeping until 10am and wasn’t packed and ready to leave until 11:30.
Then an awesome goodbye lunch and a generous ride to the freeway, both courtesy of Mitchell, meant I wasn’t officially trying to catch a ride until almost 1pm. From there things went pretty much on par with the first hitchhiking attempt. It was a lot of standing around in the bitter cold, with a cardboard sign, vainly hoping for a little generosity. About an hour deep into “the boring” I decided my sign was to blame and made a newer, less informative sign in the hopes it would be easier to read at high speed.
Another half hour later I got my first bite. “Which way More >
Cranberries and Pennsylvanians [video]
Nov 26th
Hey Team,
I made it to Charlottesville, Virginia this morning safe and sound after driving straight through the night with Ryan, a Mansfield, PA resident, suffering from only very minor exhaustion. (And by minor I mean I only slid into unconsciousness against my will when I was sitting down or standing still, never when I was walking. Of course that made for a pretty embarrassing stretch at a local Starbucks. Lucky for Charley, I don’t drool.)
I was planning on writing up a rundown of my holiday layover spent under the care of the Pennsylvania ladies (Up, down, over, under…geez, I’m clever.) but I had a little extra time this morning and managed to finish up the cranberry podcast.
So, I’ll just say I had a great time with all of Jena and Theresa’s family members over the last few days and I’m a little disappointed I had to say goodbye again. Easily the toughest aspect of this adventure is constantly saying goodbye to all the awesome people I meet.
Okay…let’s get right to more of Brett being a sissy and making a fool of himself.
Leave comments, digg the page and podcast and…enjoy!
Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player. var WT4_4 More >