Amtrekker

Hey Team,

Here’s a quick update to keep all you crazy kids in the loop. I haven’t had a chance to edit the horse through the covered bridge footage or the Amtrekkapalooza footage yet but those will be the next two videos and they should both be up by the middle of next week.

The most notable reasons for this not being done yet are 1) I came down with some sort of rabid Greyhound virus literally the DAY I got back home (seriously, it probably would have killed a lesser trekker) and 2) I’ve been working on what is quite possibly the world’s most AMAZING Halloween costume! I’ll call the Guiness people tonight and find out for sure. I’ll let you know when I know.

In other news: Here’s a link to www.podcacher.com where Sonny and Sandy have posted audio from the big finish on show #189. Go check them out!

AND…here’s a link to some pictures from the big party courtesy of Tom Arthur! If anyone else has any pictures feel free to send them my way!

Last thing. The Boston guys are geniuses. This is how I’m going to spend NovemBEARD.

I’m done.

Brett.

Seriously, team. No joke. BookingBuddy is AWESOME. It’s like a travel website aggregator aggregator. (Yep, two aggregators.) I just used it to hunt down deals to get back to California from Atlanta and boy howdy was it 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,

Because of some weird technical stuff that isn’t worth explaining I had to bury today’s post deeper in the site.

It’s videos from some of the folks that couldn’t make it to the big Amtrekkapalooza! It will take awhile to load. LOTS of videos.

It’s right here.

Thanks!

Brett.

Hey Team,

I’m done.

That’s the first time I’ve ever had the chance to START a post with that line. Yesterday was completely surreal. Driving up to my house my stomach was filled with butterflies and I was even shaking with anticipation. As we pulled up to the gate of the two acre parcel my folks live on in Middle-Of-Nowhere, CA Ron Fairbanks walked up and blocked my entry.

Apparently, in my absence a vote was taken and I wasn’t even going to be allowed on the property where the homecoming party was being held until I found the final geocache. Eventually a horde of people gathered around and suddenly I was practically onstage wandering around in circles following a GPS I had never used before…poorly. I thought, “Geez, all these people are here just to watch me find a geocache…this is pretty intimidating. I guess I should at least make a show of it.”

Near ground zero according to the GPS was a small DSL box with the wiring running down a post. I figured I might as well look in a few places it was OBVIOUSLY never going to be hidden just to keep things interesting. I opened the DSL box and…Ka-KOW! The cache fell out onto my foot!

Everyone cheered. I continued to shake and my heart continued to pound. Hugs all around. I walk toward the house hugging my mom and smiling too big for my head not to come unhinged.

The rest of the day was a blur of telling stories and faces from the “past.” And more importantly, trying to come up with an answer to the question, “Now what?”

I know you guys are all wondering the same thing so here’s the best answer I’ve been able to come up with so far:

I have enough footage of awesome adventures and I’m far enough behind on the editing that Amtrekker.com will continue to post new episodes for a few more months as “Tales From the Wayback Machine!” It’s going to be exciting to be able to sit down and put a little more effort into the production of these so keep a weathered eye out. The party podcast will be up in a couple days then we’ll start traveling backwards.

There’s a book proposal to be written and I have to choose between a handful of excited literary agents so things are looking good on that front.

There may be an opportunity to start producing some segments for a syndicated television show that hopefully I can say more about after next week.

AND…I’ll be shooting the “pilot” for a new web series similar to Amtrekker but with the focus on YOU GUYS instead of this old dog (of course by “old” I mean “young” and by “dog” I mean “super cool dude”). I think it could be really special and a LOT of fun. It may not appear for several months and it’s also going to be a very low budget independent undertaking but I’m super stoked about it. So send in your fifty lists and maybe we can make some magic happen!

I’m done! (kinda)

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 websites 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,

When I first moved to Los Angeles after college, before I had even landed my first job at an ad agency, I was watching a LOT of news. (The burden of being broke, unemployed and in a strange city without friends.) Naturally it didn’t take long before I started getting REALLY depressed. You all know as well as I do that local news is notorious for its overwhelmingly negative bent. Who among you has never asked the question, “Why don’t they ever have GOOD news?”

Yesterday I had my mind blown.

All of the credit for my exploding brain goes to Jaron Lowenstein. Although you could never change my mind on the subject of how debilitatingly depressing local news can be he did offer an enlightened viewpoint that I had never considered. I’ll just paraphrase:

It sucks that all you ever see on TV are shootings and wife beatings but there’s something reassuring in knowing that those actions are still out of the ordinary. We’re shown these things because they’re still shocking. It’s comforting when you think that people aren’t interested in seeing a story about how some guy takes little Johnny to school everyday and loves his wife because that’s what society expects EVERYONE to do.

Like I said, this isn’t going to convince me to watch the news more but he’s right. There IS something comforting in knowing that we, as people in America, still expect the best of others and I think that, if nothing else, the last 478 days of my life have shown me that more often than not we get just that from the strangers with whom we’re willing to share experiences.

I think society is in better shape than we give it credit for and if we all put in the effort it can only get better, right?

Right?

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 websites 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,

Wow! It finally happened. For the last week and a half the awesome team over at CNN’s News To Me has been scrambling to try to put me, a horse and a covered bridge together at the same point in time and space. I can’t tell you how many calls I got from the Associate Producer, Grayson, that went something like this:

“Brett, that horse contact fell through but I think we might have another one…maybe.”

“Brett, there’s no way that bridge is going to work. It looks like we’re back to square one.”

“Brett, the other bridge I wanted to use is under construction right now…”

Meanwhile I was trying to get in touch with everyone I know in the Atlanta area in the hopes that someone could help out while watching the days on the calendar tick away. And yet, after almost a year and a half of similar situations working out time and again, even with the deadline of the Amtrekker party looming, I kind of felt like Geoffrey Rush’s character in Shakespeare in Love.

“Brett, I’m so sorry this isn’t working out. I feel terrible for getting you all the way out here and not being able to get you on a horse. How worried should I be? What happens if we can’t make this work?”

“Don’t worry about it, man. It will all work out. I trust you.”

How? I don’t know. It’s a mystery.

Final, yesterday, I found myself standing next to a creek down the road from a BEAUTIFUL covered bridge. It was only five minutes before Betty Ann was supposed to meet us with her horse and things were STILL up in the air. Would she be able to get the horse trailer to the location? Would the horse tolerate all the traffic? Would it walk through a covered bridge? (Something I never considered but have been told repeatedly in the last year is that horses strongly dislike walking through low covered spaces.)

Then Betty Ann showed up with her daughter, Ginger, and Ginger’s Appaloosa, Danket a.k.a. the sweetest horse ever (and possibly most disproportionate).

Grayson and Betty Ann blocked traffic on either side of the one lane bridge while I hopped up on Danket and Ginger helped lead him through the bridge while Chase (another member of Team Amtrekker that I met almost a year ago when I hitchhiked to his house) filmed the goings on.

I opted out of wearing the flaming pumpkin on my head and threatening passersby a la The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (the inspiration behind this item making the list in the first place) figuring the last thing I need to do at this point was complicate matters further and scare Danket.

Betty Ann, Ginger, Grayson and Chase were all awesome out there and I love seeing people come together to make something like this happen. Especially when it’s so clear that everyone is enjoying the adventure. It’s really the backbone of why this trip was possible (and I never really knew for sure that it was) but it’s an important lesson to learn and I’ll toss out a few theories after this adventure officially closes.

I’ve learned a LOT about people in the last 476 days and I can’t wait to share it with everyone.

Thanks SO MUCH everyone. See you Saturday!!!

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 websites 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,

Here a copy of the email I sent out a couple days ago (follow the instructions therein if you haven’t already):

I just had a GREAT suggestion for all you folks that absolutely, without a doubt, don’t have a chance of making it this Saturday for the big homecoming! (For those of you that do have a chance, however slim, stop crying like little babies, suck it up and come have fun!)

If you can’t make it then it would be SUPER cool if you could just make a really quick video of yourself (quality doesn’t matter just shoot it on your webcam and I’ll be happy) that we can show at the celebration.

It doesn’t have to be impressive just a minute or two (or more, I’m not particular) of what your part in this grand play was, maybe an anecdote about how we met or what we did together or what you thought about me or the trip in general. Have fun! And if you can get me something in the next two or three days I promise to be your friend forever (depending on what you actually say about me I suppose).

Thanks, Team! This could be REALLY awesome and I’d TOTALLY appreciate it!

Brett.

Oh, and if I hear anyone crying about how awkward it is to talk to yourself into a camera you will get NO sympathy from me.

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 websites 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!