Amtrekker

Hey Team,

I seem to be in New York. I’m not sure how these things happen. A few hours ago I was still in the relative warmth and comfort of California and undecided as to what New Year’s Eve would bring.

Last night I finally decided to cash in on an offer to join some people in Times Square for New Years (it being so iconic and all) and thanks to Spence and a buddy pass issued to Butt Rounsaville (no joke), I’m sitting in La Guardia Airport typing this update.

I’m not sure what amazes me more. That thanks to an ever growing network I have no qualms about jumping on a plane and heading to a frozen wasteland like New York (you heard me) and assuming I’ll have a place to stay. Or that Butt Rounsaville can check in for his flight in Sacramento, go through an intensive “random” security check with TSA and board two different planes without ever being questioned as to why his ID insists his name is Brett.

Best moment of the night:

[Over the PA in Sacramento]

“Could passenger Rounsaville, B– HAHA–”

“Could passenger Rounsaville please report to the service counter.”

Classic.

Okay, so if anyone is near the NYC area give me a call or email and we’ll meet up for some New Year’s fun and excitement.

I’m done.

Brett.

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Fun!

Hey Team,

I just made the trek up to Northern California to meet with a couple people before deciding on New Years plans (of course I suddenly realize the new year is closing in fast). But let’s take a quick step backwards to Christmas.

It was good to see the family again, even if it was in such an untraditional setting (not that my family relies very heavily on tradition). I can always count on them to keep me grounded. (That statement can be taken very literally regarding my childhood. I realize memories are inherently flawed but I have NO idea how I managed to be in trouble as often as I was back then.) I said it before, but I’ll say it again anyway:

My family is incredibly supportive of everything I’m doing and they all understand what it’s like to be trapped in the 8 to 5 and never have the chance to get out and see the world. That being said, it’s a tough thing to be in a house full of my family members and not spend the entire evening dodging jokes made at your expense and countering with slander. (That’s what makes family FUN!)

I thought in my next podcast I would answer that question I get so often about what my family thinks of this adventure by throwing in actual interviews with the family members themselves. Of course the family members had other ideas about that i.e. I got more than one “turn that camera off and leave me alone.” And when asked what Popamtrekker thought about the trip I’m pretty sure he said something along the lines of, “As long as I don’t have to feed you I don’t care what you’re doing.”

So, long story short, good times were had by all, and despite the image I may have just painted, my family is all for this trip and love flew all over the place during this wacky disjointed holiday.

Merry Four-Days-After-Christmas and a Happy Seventeen-Days-After-Hanukah!

I’m done.

Brett.

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Fun!

Hey Team,

I learned another very important lesson today. No matter how dopey and stupid and slow cows look…they’re not. It’s just a scam perpetrated by the entire species to lull us into a false sense of superiority. Unfortunately for me, every once in a while one of these little critters decides to show it’s true colors.

Enter Cue Ball, an unassuming cow-shaped cow that doesn’t appear to be particularly bright or large but nonetheless managed to make me look like a complete idiot in short order.

My date with Cue Ball started out innocently enough: tied to a hitching post with a brush in my hand Cue Ball managed to seem pretty calm. Scratching under the chin elicited a response not unlike your average puppy even.

After a good thorough “getting to know you” period, Cue Ball was led out into a nice soft field with plenty of open space to run and I was handed the harness rope.

“Okay, good luck.” The smile on my Aunt’s face was less than comforting.

“Okay, new friend, I’m not looking forward to this anymore than you are.” I tried to bond with the cow. “It’s okay, I don’t want to hurt you and you don’t want to hurt ME. HA!” I jumped on Cue Ball’s back and committed fully to staying on that cow as long as humanly possible. I laid out flat across it’s back grabbing for anything that felt like it might help me to hold on until the cow got tired and slowed down enough for me to gracefully dismount.

This all happened in approximately a one and a half second span.

By the second second I was somersaulting through the dirt trying to figure out what had just happened.

Not the most auspicious start to my cowboy career. And to make things more difficult, Cue Ball didn’t seem to be too impressed by the performance either. In fact, I spent the next five minutes trying to corner the stupid cow, which was much harder than you’d think despite having a bona fide horse-mounted cowgirl on my side in the form of my cousin Lisa.

Turns out cows are FAST.

The second ride went a little bit better. I must have traveled a full 20-25 feet before being forced head over heels into the dirt one more time.

Did I mention cows are fast?

Now that Cue Ball’s hatred of me had some time to fester it was becoming painfully clear that things were not going to get any better (the painful part comes in when the cow drags me into a fence as I hold onto the harness rope for dear life so that it doesn’t get away).

I don’t think it was so much a disease…but this was one mad cow.

Unfortunately the second ride didn’t make it on tape so I decided one more try was in order. As would be expected this one ended very quickly with me doing a barrel roll through the dirt…again.

From then on Cue Ball wouldn’t have anything to do with anyone. This was no stupid cow and it definitely wasn’t happy. Despite lots of running and cornering on everyone’s part it seemed the best thing to do was give it some time to cool down while I left the arena to lick my wounds and ponder my accomplishments.

That was awesome! It totally caught me off guard how big and strong (and fast) cows were! It was WAY more challenging to ride a cow than I thought it would be and that made the whole experience that much more of an adventure! But ride a cow I did and Ka-COW (you see what I did there?) number 40 is off the list!

Thanks to everyone that helped with the cow riding adventure today! My Aunt Wendy provided Cue Ball and of course I already mentioned Cousin Lisa, the girl on horseback and happily Momamtrekker and Popamtrekker were able to be part of one of the items on my list. And Jess made her second appearance on the list crossing excitement!

Okay, I’m done.

Brett.

Like seeing me cross stuff off my list? Then make a donation and keep things going!

Fun!

Hey Team,

This might be the strangest Christmas I have had the opportunity to live though. Bare in mind, that’s saying quite a bit. My family isn’t one that is necessarily steeped in tradition and as such I’ve seen Christmas’s celebrated out of suitcases packed with fake Christmas trees come and go, with carols being sung in Florida, Southern California…and maybe even Vegas.

But I think Popamtrekker said it best when he said something along the lines of, “Next year I want to have our own Christmas. I don’t want to have to borrow everyone else’s.”

I don’t want to get too deep into Christmas right now, maybe later; this post is really just here for two reasons.

1. To let you guys know I’m going to go see what I can do about riding a cow as soon as I finish writing this.

And

2. To ask the question: What should I be doing for New Years this year? I’ve had a few cool invitations that I would LOVE to go take part in but I’m not sure how far I’m going to be able to travel in the next several days. Shout it out and I’ll see what I can do though!

Okay, time to go hunt down that ferocious man eating cow and show him who’s boss.

I’m done.

Brett.

Tired of skinny Santas that smell like booze ringing a bell and asking for hand-outs?

Ding-a-ling.

Hey Team,

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Hope you all enjoy my present to you this year! (I’m just going to go ahead and assume your gift to me is going to be spreading the word about www.amtrekker.com.)

And for all you folks out there in the same boat as illot the douchebag and Dan…here’s your youtube link.

I’m done.

Brett.

Tired of skinny Santas that smell like booze ringing a bell and asking for hand-outs?

Ding-a-ling.

Hey Team,

So, let’s try to answer that “home question” today. Home has become such a nebulous concept for me lately…especially since technically, I don’t have one. I’ve always said, “I’m not going home until EVERYTHING is crossed off the list.” And of course, I don’t intend to, but after being away from home for so long already “home” has come to encompass something more along the lines of a comfort zone than an actual residence.

I’ll try to explain. I left home to embark on this Amtrekker adventure. Things got very uncomfortable very quickly. I didn’t feel like I was at home. Now I’ve gotten very good at being uncomfortable and as a result, relatively speaking, LOTS of places that I NEVER would have considered calling home before leaving on this trip suddenly start feeling a lot more like home.

I’ve even found myself slipping on a number of occasions after a couple days with particularly cool couch surfers and saying things like, “That was fun but I think after this I’m ready to just go home.” Of course on the surface I mean THEIR home…but I don’t think I’d phrase it like that if I weren’t super comfortable in my surroundings.

After that I found myself believing more and more in the “Home is where you hang your hat” philosophy. And if that’s what I was thinking in other parts of the country just imagine how I feel now that I’m in a place where I actually know my way around. California just feels so comfortable that I can’t help feeling like a cheater no matter where I go.

So far I’ve been justifying things by never going places where any of my belongings are (outside of my backpack) stashed. But it doesn’t change the fact that feeling so comfortable is making me uncomfortable and I’m already kind of looking forward to being on the road again so I don’t have to think about what my idea of home has come to be defined as.

In fact, it’s already giving me a headache trying to wrap my brain around this concept and explain it in less than 500 words to you guys when I can’t even explain it to myself after a week of effort.

Does any of this make sense? I think I’d like to hear your thoughts. On home in general and on my situation specifically. Go.

Comments or forum…your choice.

I’m done.

Brett.

If you liked this post then feel free to buy me some advil.

Don’t let me stop you.