Road Trip with Andy Part I

Colorado Utah Arizona (10 - 17 March 2007)

When I moved to Colorado, I told my brother Andrew how awesome the place was and that he just had to come over & visit while I was here, as there was no better time with the exchange rate, the epic winter & having a place to stay. So just days after the 1 year mark had passed since my arrival in the States, Andy jumped on the same Qantas BNE-LAX-DEN flight, at the expense of nearly 3 grand for a return trip!

Ahead of his arrival, I worked up some overtime to take leave, managed to arrange 6 days without pay, and spent hours researching, asking around & planning a mad road trip. Finally, all preparations were made; food bought, good ol Google Maps printouts of key towns etc, timeline and main destinations planned. I'd managed to keep everything secret from Andy, a total surprise, and on a snowy saturday afternoon I headed down to Denver.

Andy hadn't even arrived when the drama started for me, got the low fuel light on the highway approaching the airport, with no servos in sight. Coming into the west-side arrivals (new to me) looking for American Airlines, I finally saw it & took the first left entry to the carpark. I quickly realised I'd turned into a police-only parking bay from the 20 or so cop cars, so hastily did a u-ie, then had to take the next & last parking entry before the arrivals exit. But this was Valet parking! I hate Valet parking, and try to avoid it as much as possible (just don't like not knowing where my car is, or having someone else park it), but I was worried I'd run out of fuel if I had to drive the long loop around again. So Valet parking it was, for the first time in my life. A half hour later after going crazy scanning the crowd of arrivals for a familiar face, I spotted Andy on the escalators. It was so great to see him, same old, he hadn't slept at all aside from a quick nap on the LAX-DEN flight, so he was pretty flogged. He didn't take well to the mild stress of looking for a gas station before running out of fuel :) but I found one. Then we headed to my new favourite store, Big 5 sports, to buy him a bunch of gear for the snow. All expenses were on me for his 13 day stay, and I hooked him up with snowboard pants, socks, goggles, beanie, base layer shirt, some other stuff I can't remember, all at least 40% off. And I scored for myself new snowboard boots & jacket, shoes and best of all, a $280 Wilson K-Six-One tennis racket for $80, BARGAIN! In Oz all this gear prob would have cost a grand, I paid somewhere around $350 gotta love the USA.

I'd driven through snow on the east side of the divide on the way over... sure enough, now in the dark, we went back into the snowfall. Like me, Andy had never seen real falling snow in his life before coming here, and I was stoked to be there to see it. I found it funny how he reacted to being driven by me on the opposite side of the road in increasingly heavy snow, he was stressing a fair bit. I assured him it was still quite safe, the snow was melting on contact with the road; the only accumulation was right near the top of the pass and nothing to worry about. We talked the whole way home even though I expected him to sleep. At one point I asked him if I sounded the same...when he said "yeah you do" I was SO glad. Survived one year without any American accent! When we got home I offered him my bed and I slept on the couch to give him the best chance to recover from his flights and jet lag.

Next day was a glorious day for snowboarding, fine blue skies, as I helped Andy get organized to hit the Beav. Remembering my own snowboard learning curve back in January, I was curious to see how he'd go getting back to where he left off in Thredbo 2½ years ago. On the chairlift rides to the top, we heard sirens and saw an army of over a dozen grooming machines heading out below us. In a tactic I hadn't seen before or since, they were all staggered side-by-side & grooming the entire run in a single pass. On our first green run, we encountered them again coming uphill & in their wake was pristine groomed snow. One snowboarder came cruising past a minute later, spinning consecutive 180's & 360's on the tips of his board without jumping or slowing down, almost like he was dancing, clearly enjoying the perfect snow surface, pretty amazing to see. Andy & I eventually met up with my neighbour Blair Gorski (I call her Blairski), and we headed for Bachelor Gulch. Andy took the stack of the day on a particularly bad catwalk (Primrose) and I saw it all, as he slid sideways, caught his heel edge, and flew through the air to land full on his butt. I came up to him gasping and moaning, he was hurting haha it was great, took a minute to get going again.

Down at the base of Bachelor's Gulch is the 5 star Ritz Carlton, where Blair's roomie Garret works behind the bar at the Spargo restaurant. Blair, Andy & I rocked up to the luxury engraved stainless steel bar & he hooked us up with tall glasses of a great pale ale beer. After 2 glasses, and what Blair couldn't finish, I was feeling some effect on an empty stomach so we went outside to soak up some sunshine. I think Andy agreed with me that the Ritz courtyard is the best place in all of Colorado to hang out in the winter, with the music, the scent of wood, the slopes & procession of skiiers at the lift, kids on the bunny hill learning to ski, wealthy guests walking around with their dogs...everyone is so obviously enjoying life, it's infectious.

Got a few more runs in before lift close, Andy taking his time down the middle while I scooted into the trees and hit small jumps, then we took "Leav the Beav" exploring the run to ski out all the way down to the carpark. Then Blair & I introduced Andy to Moe's for a very late lunch, and since it was a beautiful afternoon I drove us all across town & up to a cul de sac in Wild Ridge where you can walk out along a ridge to the end where there's 360 degree views of Avon, Beaver Creek, Edwards, Wild Ridge and the mountains. Blair & I were laughing at Andy, because he wasn't yet acclimatized to altitude; he was heaving & puffing & lagging behind while we walked up the gentle slope.

We packed the Jeep that night for the next 8 days, heading out at dawn for a big day on the road to Arches National Park, and Moab, Utah. First point of interest is the Glen Canyon heading west towards Glenwood Springs, it was Andy's first taste of canyons & the highway takes an impressive elevated route westbound on a winding bridge. We listened a bit to the radio to the country songs which we both find ridiculous, one song about some guy who 'fell into the ring of fire' had us laughing, playing it full volume so we didn't miss any of the thick country accent.

Had to pull into Palisade on the way out to Grand Junction for fuel, came up behind some white van covered in dirt, and someone had written 'This car is a piece of s$%!' and I got a good pic of the owner having to put air in the tyres. Andy was in good form with his camera at the border, completely missing the Leaving Colourful Colorado sign, and shooting the Welcome To Utah sign as we were almost level with it. Useless, but I still managed to get them both, always got the camera ready for a quick snap on the road.

Soon we turned onto the Dinosaur Diamond Prehistoric Highway that heads south, skirting the east border of Arches National Park, and fairly suddenly we entered an awesome canyon. I don't know its name but the highway follows the Colorado River and the further you go the more impressive the canyon gets, starting down a narrow arm, joinging a wide delta, then the road is squeezed between the sheer red cliffs & the river. All through the canyon there is cycling tracks and signs for hiking, mountainbiking & rafting. We didn't stop anywhere for long because our next stop was Arches National Park & I wanted to do two hikes that afternoon.

Arches entrance is just past the turnoff to Moab. Once past the visitor center (which we skipped hoping to catch it later) the road winds up a steep climb onto a plateau covered in sandstone hills. The first major spectacle is the Courthouse Towers, two massive sandstone columns of vertical sides at least 500ft high. Then the Balancing Rock is fairly impressive, but not as good as the Balancing Rock on the Pyramids of Girraween National Park back home. What was impressive though is the Fiery Furnace, a maze of parallel fins of sandstone that really defies description, but is a great example of how arches form, where the bridge of a fin is left after its weaker center erodes away. The Devil's Garden is like the Fiery Furnace, and in it is where the incredible Landscape Arch exists, the widest arch in the park at 306ft and to the eye, appears to be really fragile! A sign has a tourist's photo of the last 180 ton chunk of rock to break away under the arch in 1991.

Then it was on towards Delicate Arch, the icon of Utah, and our second hike of the day. On the way up the slickrock towards the rock mountain & canyons that hide the Arch, I was reminded about walking up the bare surface of Bald Rock in Australia. What it lacked in steepness it made up for in the last hundred yards with a walk along a 2m wide shelf that seemed unnaturally convenient, a flat path at the base of a vertical cliff, above a drop into a canyon arm. I was walking along this narrow stretch listening to the quiet, looking at the canyon formations and watching black ravens soar effortlessly along the cliffs, when quite suddenly, you round a corner, and there's the Arch. Incomparable to the other features in the park, my reaction was to grin, nod & say "wow". Positioned on the far edge of a big bowl-shaped concavity in the rock, on the brink of an edge that drops away out of sight, against a distant backdrop of canyons and snow capped mountains, is the awesome Delicate Arch. The many parallel layers of rock up the arch show strong & weak points; Delicate is a very fitting description for it. And what an extraordinary position it was in! Straight away I wanted to scoot over there & get a photo standing under the arch, while Andy argued that it might ruin the view of the 5 other guys who were there. I guess we just think differently, I'm sure they wouldn't mind waiting while I ran over to the arch which I came a long way to see, for a quick photo there and back in a minute. Soon two other guys did that very thing so we all agreed to swap & get a turn under the arch. We spent a while up there, it was a very exotic environment to be in, with the warm sun, the blue sky & scattered clouds, the red rock & crazy formations, distant mountains of snow, the noise of wind in the canyons and watching those ravens soar in enviable freedom and ease around the cliffs.

Our timing was great coz walking back we passed about 2 bus loads of people, individual shots under the arch would have been impossible with that crowd! We went & checked out Balancing Rock a second time close up & then tried to make the visitor center before close time but just missed it by 15 mins! So we headed back to Moab to search for accommodation, as my plan this first night was to wing it. We also found souvenir shops to make up for the closed visitor center...after 10 mins we were walking back the car & I saw a cop double parked in the street, walking over to look at my car! I quickened my pace as he pulled out his book while Andy showed his support by turning into the nearest shop. I got to the officer & asked if there was a problem; he said I was parked illegally. Sure enough in my sudden discovery of a spare bit of curb I missed the red paint on the gutter marking a fire hydrant. I explained how I hadn't seen it & after thinking a while, the cop asked where I was from since I didn't have Utah plates, & how long I was staying. He let me off the hook after asking whether I was going to park in front of a fire hydrant again, to which I said of course not, and he left, while I took the recently vacated parking spot in front. Lucky I came back in time! I initially thought he was stinging me coz I had plates with a March expiry and it was March :) I thought as I walked back to find Andy, how given my track record, I fully expected drama on my holidays, & couldn't help but laugh to myself that it was only Day 1. After more hunting around we settled on a great new Super 8 Motel with spas, hot breakfast & wireless internet. We headed straight for the spa & spent the rest of the afternoon talking about jobs, property, travel & other deep conversations until the sun's rays set on the ridge that defines Moab's skyline.

The famous Moab Brewery was our stop for dinner... the place is awesome, furnished with jeeps, kayaks, rafts, mountain bikes, climbing gear and tables spread throughout. We tried a couple of their brews, my favourite was the Dead Horse Pale Ale with the funny logo of an native-style painting of a horse on its back with its legs in the air, with the slogan 'you can't beat a dead horse!' I ended up buying the glass.

After a good sleep we got up for Day 2, checked out, & stopped by an outdoors shop looking for a shovel, as I expected to do four wheel driving of unknown difficulty that day & didn't have anything for digging myself out of trouble. You'd think that there would be loads of shovels in Moab, the offroading capital of America, but no, had to go to 3 stores before I found a small (but not travel-designed) shovel. Haven't used it yet, I might just go & shovel some snow around the garden tomorrow to try & make the purchase seem worthwhile, just annoys me for some reason, that I have this stupid shiny new bulky useless shovel.

We headed for Canyonlands National Park. Canyonlands is an enormous national park with three districts that are completely separated from each other by the Colorado and Green Rivers. These are the Island In The Sky, the Maze and the Needles; we were headed for the Needles as it was on our way towards Lake Powell. After driving west we wound our way downhill & discovered that we had entered the end of an arm of a canyon. As we drove on, we began rounding new turns that beheld sights that got more and more awesome. Soon we were driving around the flat valley floor of a massive canyon system, more rubbly and weathered looking than the other canyons we'd seen, but far more vast. After driving for a while, we crossed the national park boundary, & stopped by the visitor center for info. The staff convinced me to change my plans I'd researched on the Internet, as the Confluence Overlook drive (where the Colorado and Green rivers meet) is a fairly technical drive. We drove to the Needles viewpoint, which was similar to the fiery furnace but less spectacular from this distance. I was beginning to think Canyonlands might be a bit of a let down.

On our way back to the visitors center we found a spot that looked like a quick hike. Andy & I set out on the slickrock trail, following cairns of rock piles around some hill that converged with several canyons. The short hike turned into a trail that felt like it went on forever, & as flustered as I got with the time, it did ram home the realization that this place would be near impossible to navigate. Any wonder the Mormon pioneers on the Hole In The Rock expedition took forever to get across the barren maze of a landscape, it's a true wonder they didn't all perish. After missing a couple of rock cairns and having to backtrack, we finally hustled out of there, glad to get out & only then finding a sign saying it was a 3+ mile trail!

Back on the road, we headed back to the Colorado River Overlook road, passing the sign that warned it was for 'Four Wheel Drive Only'. After cruising out on the sand roads & crossing a couple of dry creek beds, we started hitting patches of rock, & soon it was time for 4Hi, & then 4Lo. Andy was concerned about the knocks & clatters coming out of my car (that have since been fixed) and I told him not to worry while silently willing my car to keep it together :) coz it would really suck to break down in such a place; we passed two cyclists & one car the whole time! Soon I was driving down rock steps over a foot high & over bumpy, cragged slickrock. Towards the rough end of the last mile & a half, barely getting over a walking pace, the scale of the place was really setting in. When the trail didn't require close attention, I looked out across the bare vegetation, out past the cliff edge we were following perhaps 50ft to our right, gazing at the endless lines of canyon walls far as the eye could see. When we finally reached our destination, the Overlook to the mighty Colorado River far surpassed my expectations, as cliffs dropped away 800 to 1000ft below us to the river, & we were on an intersecting point with another canyon, the Little Spring Canyon.

I found a photo opportunity sure to please mum & dad, kneeling out on the edge of an overhanging rock above the cliff, ignoring Andy's shouts and demands to get away from the edge haha. Despite his stress he got some good vertigo-inducing shots :)
Taking in the incredible scenery there in the very heart of Canyonlands, along with the absolute total silence, really gave you a profound sense of remoteness in that harsh land. Seeing the terrain on the ground & remembering the satellite images I'd seen on Google Maps, it's awesome and fearsome at the same time. Navigating without these established trails or GPS technology just seems like it would be an insurmountable challenge.

We'd planned tinned spaghetti & baked beans for lunch, but I didn't bring a can opener. While Andy siezed the opportunity to step up his efforts in rubbishing me non-stop, I realised my multitool I got for xmas has an old-school can opener on it. So Andy decided to make an amusing film ridiculing me while I figured out how to use the can opener. Here's the vid:
Instead of filming & ridiculing he should have paid more attention to watching & learning; when his turn came around, I enjoyed filming HIM completely failing in his can opening attempt:
And my spaghetti looked & tasted better than his baked beans, so sweet justice.

The Jeep survived a slightly faster & bumpier return trip & then we had to move it as we'd spent a good deal longer in Canyonlands than intended, plus we still had to get all the way south west to Halls Crossing at Lake Powell. It was pretty obvious we would be arriving late, and given the trouble I'd had communicating with the remote community a few weeks beforehand, I started trying to call ahead to find out where our accommodation was. No answers, no voicemail. Finally I'd had enough and stopping for gas in the last town before the expanse of nothing, I enlisted the staff to help get in contact with someone. After a few phone calls, I finally got hold of a lady in Bullfrog (the town across the lake's ferry route from Halls Crossing), who told me where I'd need to go.

Back on the road, I'd planned to see the Natural Bridges Monument on the way to Lake Powell. After arguing with Andy that we were already late and it was unlikely we'd ever come by this way again, Andy was overruled (coz I was driving and I'm older) and we checked out Natural Bridges right on dusk. Turned out to be pretty ordinary though haha & I got splinters in my feet when I tried to walk barefoot to take photos in a hurry (coz I like driving barefoot). Damned desert vegetation sided with Andrew and I drove with splinters in my feet all the way to Lake Powell, which we arrived at in the darkness around 8:30pm. Halls Crossing is seriously in the middle of nowhere, there is nothing there apart from some trailers, a store, a gas pump & the road to the marina. Apparently a sheet of paper was supposed to be on the store window for late arrivals with names and trailer numbers, the keys inside the unlocked trailer. I couldn't find my name, so called the lady from Bullfrog again, who checked the accommodation system from over there and couldn't find a reservation for me! I couldn't believe it. She called the lady who runs the store who 10 minutes later came down the road to open the shop & get us a trailer to stay in. While trying to figure out what'd happened to my booking, checking my bank account to ensure they hadn't already charged me, the lady (who was very nice) confessed that the year before they had several bookings disappear on them. Just my luck; I wish I took a confirmation number down on the first phone call. Andy's mood improved a lot when he could finally get indoors, shower & go to bed, no doubt wondering what more drama could possibly happen now that day 2 was over...

This will do for part 1! I've finished photos and will soon finish the story for the rest of the trip. :)

Austin, Texas, and floating

On the weekend of the 13th-15th of July, I headed down to Austin, Texas to meet up with Jessi who had recently moved there temporarily while she looks for work in Germany. It was a fun-filled weekend, where I was introduced to a favourite sport among the locals.. Toobing!

I had initial plans to go to the Schlitterbahn Water Park in New Braunfels, which is apparently the biggest and best water park in the US. But the word on the street was that the big kid's Schlitterbahn was floating the Guadelupe river (one of many), which involves lots of young people, sun, skin, alcohol and no queues. The lure of hydro-coasters and surf chutes and waterslides was strong, but finally I was convinced.

Saturday morning was stormy but everyone was keen to go, and from when we arrived at midday, loaded with cans of various beers and pre-mixed drinks and margaritas, the weather was fining up. I quickly got the impression that it was rather popular, by the dozens and dozens of people walking around in swimwear and the big warehouse with hundreds of truck inner tubes stacked to the ceiling. $20 got you a tube, with or without a wooden board lashed to the bottom, a bus trip back from the finish, and a tube with a bottom for a cooler and a mesh bag for rubbish.

The river was huge, it reminded me of the Logan Creek at Big Riggen that I floated down on tubes as a kid, only about 20 times the scale. It is fed by a freshwater aquifer that is 68F (20C) all year round, perfectly refreshing on a hot summer day. After the initial traffic jam on the shores while everyone got into the water and into groups, we were off. It was just minutes before we hit the first set of rapids, which turned out to be the most severe of the whole trip!

If you can imagine a scene of absolute chaos, Jessi flipped and scrambled for her tube, I got dunked but stayed upright, the sound of rushing water, everywhere people were calling out, trying to re-group, swimming around to pick up tubes, hats, thongs. There were unopened cans of beer floating down the river at a rate of one every 10 seconds because some poor person had upended their cooler tube, the contents emptying into the river. We lost the contents of the smaller of our two coolers, thank god because my Jimmys were in the big one, and I'd already dropped mine (which sank!) because I was paddling about retrieving 4 other beers that were floating past!

After we re-grouped and resumed drinking, floating in the cool water in the hot afternoon sun through the lush green countryside, it was right up there with some of my most favourite experiences. My waterproof camera drew a fair bit of attention, I had it strapped to my rip cord which was strapped to my key cord in my pocket. So many funny things happen on the river. Jessi was scared of the fearsome snapping turtles (I saw at least a half dozen of them), while she squealed and scrambled to lift her butt out of the water she tried to convince everyone that they could bite your finger off. Some guys had a blow up doll. Others had waterproof speakers. We had to drink from our unnatural hand, if someone spotted you using the other hand they'd cry 'buffalo!' and you'd have to skull/chug the rest. I asked 'why Buffalo? What's that go to do with drinking, or using the wrong hand?' I was missing the point, you could say anything, Buffalo was a country thing. I was in Texas, after all. Guys were doing flips and jumping off a rope swing, I saw two guys with their heads split open, cuts that definitely needed stitches coz they banged their head on a rock. And then with each set of rapids, protect the cooler! Eric and I were ready to put our bodies on the line to save our remaining drinks, only he got swept down the main rapid while I got swept in another direction, the cooler nearly went on its side but he held it down with one hand, the other holding his hat, legs in the air with a classic 'oh sh$!' look on his face. It was legendary.

By the end, several rapids and 4 hours of drinking later, we were all thoroughly plastered, and the last rapid ends quickly and you have to get to the side before you get swept under a low bridge. A girl had drowned under the bridge the day before, and so event organisers sat on the bridge instructing wayward floaters how to safely go under, and cops were walking about. Other staff lugged around 5ft tall bags full of empty cans. I didn't notice until later the little slashes I'd inflicted on my foot. We piled aboard the old school bus that was our ride back to the start, and off we went, at a blistering pace of 15mph, driver had a cowboy hat on, Texas country music blaring, non-stop chatter and shouting, and I thought to myself 'hmm, I'm definitely in Texas.'

Apart from the river float, Austin was absolutely beautiful, with neighbourhoods the likes of which I'd never seen, hands down the best place to live that I've seen since coming to the states. Jessi, her brother Eric and his partner Ali, and their friends made me wanting to stay, and the 6 hour drive back to Todd's house and my home was not as exciting as it usually is.

I have made my first web album of photos with Google's Picasa, which is awesome by the way, and I'm going to use it to share all of my photos from now on. The link for Austin pix is below.

Austin, Texas (13-15 July 2007)

Oklahoma D-Day 2007

For those who want to skip my little story (u slackers) and just check out the photos and videos, go ahead and click the link below.

D-Day, Wyandotte, Oklahoma (7-10 June 2007)

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=dineroseguro

A few weeks ago, at the end of May, I was on the net searching for 4WD destinations within Oklahoma, looking for an easy trail to christen my Jeep. There's not very much, one hit finally claimed to have trails, but off-roading wasn't the main attraction of the place. Called the D-Day Adventure Park, it hosts an annual event named Oklahoma D-Day, which claims to be the largest paintball event in the world. Intrigued I read on, and learnt of how it's classed as 'woods' scenario paintball, with Allies vs Germans in a re-creation of the battles of D-Day 1944 in Normandy. I then noticed with a shock that the start date was less than a week away! June 4th to 10th, it's a week long event with a series of scenarios and skirmishes, including a night game, culminating in the day-long battle of D-Day involving 4000 players!

My other plans for the night went out the window as I read through the facts, history and discussion forums, all the while forming a plan to go, as it was guaranteed to be an experience unlike any other, and it was the 10th anniversary of the event. I found a forum post from a guy named Patrick from Indiana, who had 3 friends drop out recently and was selling cheap tickets. Online registration was ending the next day, and the ticket price of $65 was about to go up to $110. I told Todd, asked him to pass it onto his mates, next day I told a bunch of people at work, the original plan was to go just to the night game taking place the following thursday night. I emailed & left a voice message for Patrick letting him know I was keen for those tickets. Only my work neighbour Kevin actually committed, being too expensive or short-notice for everybody else, and late that night Patrick called me back and I had the tickets for $35 each. Unfortunately, wednesday morning Kevin broke his thumb in an accident at his rowing club when he was moving a boat rack. So plans changed, and I ended up getting my boss to agree to giving me friday off, and I would go solo staying from thursday right through to sunday.

During the remaining days up to thursday I was hunting for gear, I went all the way to Del City (20 miles) in my lunchbreak only to find the army surplus store closed due to family emergency (what can you do). But in Okla city's surplus store I bought camo pants & matching jacket (even with the 552nd AGS insignia patches still sewn on), $15 each. Cheap boots from Wal-Mart for $15, borrowed an esky from Todd, a marker (paintball gun) from Nate with all the gear, and set up homemade fly screens for my Jeep as I would finally test out sleeping in the car.

Struggled through work thursday and scooted early in the arvo to haul ass up to Wyandotte in the NE corner of the state near the Missouri border and Grand Lake. That area is called Green Country, and is quite scenic, where patches of thick forest hang over the roads and rolling hills. It's the most scenic country I've seen since the plains infront of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. I got to the D-Day park & met Patrick at the entrance, following him the short distance to the left where he was camped with the rest of Charlie company, 1st Infantry Division. Everyone was camped according to which forces they were assigned to, to improve group coordination, communication and to not disturb others with differing deployment times. I met Travis, Patrick's mate, a likeable bearded 19yr old who looked my age. All I had time to do was queue up for registration, get my blue allied hopper cover (a hopper is the paintball container attatched on top of the marker, which is the gun), watch the introduction video, jump in my camo, grab Travis' spare Tippmann 68 Carbine and head over to chrono. 'Chrono' is firing the marker through a chronograph so that it shoots paintballs at 250fps (feet per second). This was lower than the standard 285fps because the night game involved close quarters combat, sometimes point blank. After chrono, we went to the assembly area to form up with Charlie company.

I was amazed at the number of players, everyone fully decked out in battle gear vastly exceeding anything I'd ever seen at a paintball game, looking seriously fearsome. At least I looked the part, except these guys had belts strapped with pods of paintball ammo, allowing them to easily carry several hundred, even 1000 paintballs. the Allies had won the toss apparently and elected to assault a place called Coleville, the Germans defending. In the failing light, our company marched off along the road through the forest to the area on the map that represents Coleville, a large circular clearing containing concrete bunkers, tubes, and grassy trenches and mounds, with a single flagpole near a tower in the center flying the red German flag. It was very intimidating looking through my yellow visor to see all of the German forces dug in all throughout Coleville right to the outermost trenches, some barely 10m from the Allied lines! As we encircled them, exchanging humourous trash talk, I had a feeling I was jumping in the deep end. I was to find out later that the numbers were roughly 500 on 500, all contained within Coleville, less than 200m across. The stars were coming out, the night air was warm, the last twilight glow had 15mins left to live, and the German trenches crawled with silhouettes moving about. Referees stood spread out between the lines in bright fluorescent clothing that begged 'don't shoot me'. A megaphone announcement sounded 1 minute to game on, and all the movement stopped; everyone was ready. I focused on my objective, the nearest mound, left of straight ahead about 15m away...

Game on was an explosion of sound, the combined noise of overhead fireworks, booming concussion explosions, shouting, the rumble of soft thudding boots running on grass, and an amazing crackle of gunfire. I could hear my breathing inside my mask as I sprinted with a couple dozen allies for the mound and half-dove to the ground behind it, those who didn't fit lay flat on the ground behind. I lost Patrick and Travis within the first minute and didn't see them for the rest of the game. The sound of gunfire was constant until the last glow of twilight had gone, and then it reduced to sporadic popping and short bursts. During the dark, quieter periods, troops strategised, grouped and made advances. You couldn't see much beyond the nearest 5-10m. But every few minutes, the organisers would fire off some kind of pyrotechnics, the best of which were flares. Suddenly a whizzing orange light would shoot up from the forest line high into the air to the windward side of Coleville, and people would start shouting "Flare, Flare!" as a sign to either get ready to shoot, or take cover. The flare would fly 100m high I guess, and then there'd be a pop (parachute deployed) and then gradually over about 5 seconds, an eerie orange glow illuminated everything and everyone around you. Every single flare was the trigger for a massive firefight that would last a minute until the flare burned out, and the scene would reduce back to darkness, the gunfire reducing again to bursts and pops shortly afterwards. Travis later told me he was in the middle of crawling prone on the ground between trenches when a flare went off, and he just laid still and somehow wasn't seen (or shot). It sure was a spectacle, on a couple of occasions I stayed behind cover and simply watched, as a flare began burning and illuminated dozens of allied players all laying on the ground around me, half of them shooting like crazy, some of them getting shot with blotches of orange paint, turning and raising their gun in the air and getting quickly out of the line of fire. The din of gunfire was as if you filled a microwave with popcorn and turned it on, multiplied by 100x. Paintballs whizzed through the grass just above my head, and dozens more spattered on the concrete tube just above & next to me where a couple of Allies hid behind, leaning out to shoot briefly before pulling their bodies back and drawing heavy fire.

I heard a few good stories later about the gameplay, apparently a lone German came from the side upon a trench full of unsuspecting Allies in the dark, and after asking them if they were Allies, he ran along the trench barrel tagging about 8 players before someone shot him. A barrel tag is where, in extreme close quarters (ie. next to each other), instead of shooting at point blank, you either demand surrender or you touch the opponent with your gun. Patrick also told me he was involved in probably the biggest Allied push of the night towards the flagpole near the end of the game, and he ran and jumped and touched the flag, but got 'lit up' (slang for being shot several times) by the surrounding Germans. I got shot a couple of times, resulting in trips to the 'Dead Zone' where dead people wait until every quarter hour a field commander regrouped everyone and marched them back out to re-insert into battle. After an hour of play, a fierce storm with constant lightning had been approaching from the south, adding to the amazing atmosphere as flashes of lightning mixed with fireworks. But before the Allies could take the flagpole, drop the red and raise the blue flag, the game was called 45mins early on account of the impending severe storm, so the Germans won one of their few victories of the event.

It turned out to be one hell of a stormy night. Half of the campers had left earlier in the day ditching the night game, booking out motels for miles around, as everyone had advance warning throughout the day. Those who remained (the better half) were told by organisers on the PA to secure all their gear and take cover in their 've-hicles'. I'd barely had enough time to walk back, snap some lightning pics and change when the first storm hit. What's funny was the boys had put together a neat pile of wood and were attempting to light a big fire, squirting something flammable onto it just as the first gusts of wind blew through. It lifted all this dust from the road and I rushed to close my car doors and jump inside, and then the rain hit and the guys went scrambling for their cars and the fire was out in seconds. I ate dinner (trail mix sandwiches) safe inside while outside it all went pretty nuts for about 10mins. Then it was over, organisers drove around announcing it was over (duh), and said there was a 'slight chance of some more rain but the worst had gone'. I was woken up at about 12:30am by a second, even bigger storm, with constant lightning, wind rocking the car and rain lashing the sides. I could see, with each flash of lightning, the big-top in the center of the grounds waving about wildly, directly upwind of me. Then my phone rang and it was Jessi, she was out clubbing and had seen a tornado warning issued for my county and called to see whether I was in the storm. I said 'yeah, im pretty sure we're in it' as the wind gusted in a circle around my car so rain lashed the left side, then paused, then the right side. I spoke to her for a while and watched the tents around me being blown flat by gusts of wind, and while I was glad I was sleeping in the Jeep, it was tense watching that big top, for if it blew apart, who knows what destruction it would cause for the tents all around me.

Finally, it was all over, and I heard raised voices, some dude was complaining loudly and swearing about all his gear being soaked. I was thinking about telling him to give it a rest when he yelled 'nobody told me I was in the f%&$#ng amphibious unit!' I laughed out loud in my car and greatly lifted my opinion of him, and found out the next day it was actually Travis! Yeah, the next day I woke up, and people were laying all of their gear out in the sun, some tents had collapsed, and news was getting around that there had actually been a tornado a few miles away approaching Wyandotte, but it'd dissipated before it hit any inhabited areas. It was the second time in the 10yr history of Okla D-Day that a tornado was reported in the vicinity during the event. One family came back and opened their tent to find ankle deep water filling the downhill half of their floor.

So friday was basically about cleanup, gearing up for the next day's game, and the parade. I bought my case of paintballs, $65 for 2000 rounds, carried as 4 tickets that you swapped for 500 round bags. I also picked up a belt that held 5 pods, and bought 5 pods, all for $14! I also had to buy a barrel condom for safety (incase my gun accidentally went off). There were amazing guns for sale, ranging from $25 to $1300+, and a ridiculous range of accessories, the paintball market is huge in the USA. After lunch there was some entertainment, rumour got around the camp like wildfire that there was a dance-off going on. Sure enough a huge crowd was gathered around 2 pairs of girls and 2 pairs of guys, dancing for some prize. Two teenage girls in hot pants were trying to out-do two 21yr old girls decked out in camo and khaki, while two guys were drawing laughs from the crowd with silly antics and the other two guys basically sucked. The crowd was 99% male so you can imagine the calls and comments being made. The organiser had a good sense of humour, it was hot and the dance-off had been going a while, so he called for some water to hydrate the dancers, reminding everyone again of the importance of hydration which had been drilled into us all in the intro video. A big drum of water was carried out, but they poured it all over the girls instead of letting them drink it. One of the younger girls cried out 'I have white pants on!' The announcer had to cut in above the cheers of the audience, 'hydration is important, everyone please be reminded, this is a family event...' and they kept up pouring water. Patrick's camera batteries ran out in the middle of filming and he actually ran back to the car and got spares! The camo girls won as obvious audience favourites, coz they never stopped dancing.

The parade was very impressive, if you can imagine thousands of people arrayed in full battle gear, some in real military uniforms, carrying flags and banners, standing on trucks and tanks, chanting catch-crys and marching. I assembled with the rest of Charlie Company under Captain Sulley, 1st Infantry Division Charlie Company Commander. Also with us was Master Sergeant Spike, 1st Infantry Division Beach Commander, who led most of our shouts that went along the lines of 'Who are we!?' 'First I.D.!' We also marched near General Sulley Sr, Allies Omaha Beach General. The speeches were good, the owner & founder, Dewayne Convirs, talked about the history and heritage of the event, telling of why they hold it, to acknowledge the sacrifice of those in the name of freedom, and of course the patriotism, paying tribute to the American flag and the cross atop the flag flying high in the middle of the grounds.

So after turning in early, we woke up not long after dawn the next morning for 'the big game.'

It was quiet and serious when I got up, people were progressively getting up and going about getting ready. I had brekky, strapped my feet with duck tape to avoid blisters, and geared up. My kit involved: camo pants, my D-Day shirt (haha lucky I proof read my posts, I just noticed a missing 'r'), camo jacket, socks & boots, 2 water bottles in leg cargo pockets, car keys & paintball tickets in breast pocket, camera and hanky in left leg pocket, my ammo belt with 5 pods of over 500 paintballs, my hat on backwards and mask on forwards and my marker. I have no idea how much that all weighed but it was a fair bit. But as for others; I saw a kid with 4 paint grenades and 2 smoke grenades hanging off the front of his utility jacket, he was as wide with gear as he was tall. Sgt Spike was lugging around a yellow smoke canister the size of a fire extinguisher, weighing several kg, strapped over his shoulder. It contained enough smoke to blot out a huge area for 15-20 mins, probably as effective as a half dozen smoke grenades. In the Allied assembly area we witnessed combat divisions loading onto troop carriers and buses bound for Utah beach, while General Sulley gave us our pep talk.. "By lunchtime at noon, I want to be eating my sandwich on the top of Omaha beach!"

Omaha beach was to be my theatre of battle, along with the 1st I.D., and we 9 engineers of the 238th Mechanical, of Charlie Company, walked out to our staging area about 1km away. I had to laugh at one kid, I photographed him walking down surrounded by adults twice his size, he was armed to the teeth, carrying a beach ball! No doubt a sly-humoured Dad was nearby. Initially my crew and I were slotted to enter the fight on the second wave from the land-based drop 'boats', but at the last minute Capt Sulley called on the radio and needed our unit over at the water-based boat. While we were relocating, the battle started, and the forest filled with shouting and crackling gunfire. We were about the 3rd or 4th wave of reinforcements to go over the water boat, which was a wooden ferry designed just like the amphibious troop carriers seen in Saving Private Ryan, with a front ramp that dropped onto the shore. We were informed that we were invulnerable until we cleared the first trench line, then we'd enter play, and getting shot would result in up to half an hour at the dead zone. We boarded and our boat was half full, everyone huddled on knees against the sides of the boat, as we slowly ferried across the 30m pond to Omaha beach. I was filming the entire time, we approached through smoke, as we were about to land a spray of paint was coming off the front of the boat, then the ramp dropped and we ran like crazy under heavy fire to the first bunker. I jumped to the ground against a small wall barely 2 feet high protecting my camera, I got shot at least 3 times, and I got shot on my pods, my marker and my legs while I laid in that spot. I then found out that my gun wasn't shooting! Turned out it had leaked during the night and was out of gas. I had to leave the battle, extremely disappointed, and hurry off to diagnose the problem, finding the gun needed some repairs. Fortunately I ran into Patrick who gave me his car keys and I went and got Travis' Tippmann which I used on Thurs night. Upon my return, the Allies had advanced at record pace, and we were already half way up the 100ft high hill.

I'd never witnessed anything like it in my life. It was full trench warfare, you plucked up the courage to get up and run from one trench to another, every move drew enemy fire, I could see the paintballs coming at me. Once I jumped into a trench that was shin-deep with water without realising, I was so focused on getting to cover, and another time I crawled prone for 8m through mud to get a clear shooting position at the corner of a trench. You don't care. You're in the game. The biggest paintball game in the world, adrenaline pumping, sweating from every pore you've got, mud and minor injuries from jumping and crawling didn't matter, all you wanted to do was shoot the enemy. Advance, re-group, and charge. Charging was the best rush, although it resulted in me getting hit a couple times. Towards the top of the hill, the front lines widened out and became two fronts, one to left (Coleville) and the other to the right (St. Laurent). Allied forces were spread out for probably 200m, but I was in the push for Coleville.

It was hard to imagine the scale of the battle, everything I was seeing was only a fraction of what was going on, while other Allied forces fought for Utah beach to the north and Sword beach to the south, over a km away. Some members of the Allied command structure would walk around behind our front lines assessing the battle, and radio in reports to Allied command back at the campgrounds, where I found out later that there were military strategists plotting the fight on maps and directing resources. The field commanders would then gather ex-dead men who had served their timeout, give them new objectives, and re-insert them to reinforce gaps in the front line. Everywhere they went barking orders, motivating the troops, spurring them to advance or defend, and they were remarkably effective. I went through my first 500 paintballs and died and went to cash in a ticket and gas up my Marker bottle with CO2. I passed General Sulley on the way back, and heard updates about the battle and how we were setting records, then he headed off, fully geared and carrying a radio pack; he'd had enough of strategy and wanted to see some action. It was inspiring!

I ran into a few more from my outfit, and we exchanged stories. In fact, all conversations I overheard were related to the battle, about heroics, about strategy, about equipment. I discovered I'd lost a pod and couldn't carry my full payload of 500, but I brought the bag of up the hill anyway. After getting to the main Omaha hill bunker, finding the Germans were pushing us backwards (coz I wasn't there, tsk tsk), I ran into Capt Sulley. He was known to a lot of soldiers and everyone supported him and followed his orders wherever he went, he was a very effective leader. Patrick later joked to me how Sulley had just finished high school, and he was gonna find him after the game and congratulate him on graduating. I offered my spare paintballs in the bag to him and he gladly accepted. After reloading, we all came under fire from a group of advancing Germans that entered parallel trenches to the right. Eventually, we pushed them back, the Allies won the hill, and then we pushed across the open to the town of Coleville. A German tank came upon us spraying what looked like orange coloured water at our troops but amidst everyone's screams of 'Tank, Tank! Take cover!' an anti-tank crew came to our rescue & shot it with the special anti-tank paint before it did much damage. This part of the battle held another of my highlights of the day. I ran forwards on the edge of our line to where there was only 2 Allied guys putting up a hell of a fight, I guessed we were outnumbered 4 to 1. I crawled to their right and into a concrete tube, which then had another concrete tube on the end of it at a slight angle. This gave me 2 gaps in the sides to shoot out of from almost complete protection, and the end of the tube to shoot in any direction. Germans were running across a clearing on the edge of my range, but fortunately none looked into the tube (they were busy getting to cover). I was able to alternate between the cracks and the tube end, scampering back and forward in the tube on my knees, I drew fire numerous times without dying, and managed to take out 3 guys who'd shot at me, and 4 others who didn't know I was there until it was too late.

Another highlight of the day was mid-afternoon, when Allies had control of Coleville and were pushing north through forest next to St. Laurent towards the Airfield. After a big standoff across a gully in this forest, we finally got the upper hand and shot the Germans out of their foothold on the opposite edge of the forest. From there they went into chaos and retreated into the Airfield, and I was at the front of the charge. Allied forces threw at least a half-dozen smoke grenades into the clearing, and I advanced from the forest across the clearing under the cover of smoke, walking and firing toward scrambling German forces. When I drew fire, I quickly moved back behind the smoke screen, sidestepped and crouched, somehow I was lucky enough not to get shot. I'd kick the grenades further forward (they were too hot to touch) and I was at the front of the biggest advance of the day, we took 100m of ground from the forest out through the Airfield in a matter of 5-10mins, and I got some good footage.

The rest of the day was fun but otherwise not spectacular. I followed the advance all the way up to Utah beach, which we finally took in the last minutes of the game in a small skirmish. I shot my gun until it ran out of gas and wouldn't fire any more. Later I was to find out that the Allies had won a major victory, with 2400 points over the German's 1400 points, points being awarded for achieving objectives within set time limits. I'd had plenty of water, but was seriously hot in the afternoon sun and 80-something degree heat (I'm guessing 29C). I was soaked in sweat but couldn't take my mask off even after the game, while still out on the field of play. I slowly walked back up the hill toward the Airfield dead zone, several hundred metres away, and by the end I wasn't walking straight. I spent about 5 minutes fumbling the buttons of my shirt jacket while walking before I got it off. I walked through the meshed entrance, pulled my mask off for the first time in a couple hours, found a flagpole and sagged against it. I was so stuffed I couldn't bend over to sit down, I slid down the pole till I fell on my backside. I reckon I was close to collapse. I pulled my camera out and got someone to photograph me, more for my own amusement later, as I'd never felt so exhausted and hot in my life. I'd seen the event take its toll in heat stressed players throughout the day. Occasionally shouts would go out calling for ceasefire, and eventually within half a minute everyone would stop shooting while someone was evacuated either for dehydration, heat stress or injury (rolled ankles etc). I was re-inserting once when an ATV drove towards me, the masked driver with one hand on the handlebar, the other behind holding a chubby fellow upright from falling off, as his head lolled about in a state of near unconsciousness. I sat for 15mins recovering, drinking the last of my water, trying to cool off. Just about everyone had headed back by that time, so I got up & walked off again. A guy drove up with a troop carrier and called out if I wanted a lift, I declined, 'no thanks mate, I walked all the way down here, I'm gonna walk all the way back'. Probably the heat stress made me stupid but for some reason I was determined to walk back under my own steam. It was a nice walk though, got to see all behind the German lines, and where all the tanks drove about etc. Managed not to get lost, and when I got back to camp, I sat down for 20 mins with a cracking headache, took two paracetamol, moved my Jeep out of the afternoon sun into the shade, stripped to shorts and passed out in the back for an hour. I felt better when I got up, Travis & I jumped in Patrick's car and we drove off 20mins to grab dinner, then headed to a motel they knew of with a pool, and I swam in a pool for the first time since leaving home. Of course, at the motel we ran into people from the event (all motels were booked out for miles around), and exchanged stories with a few dudes from the French Resistance (a division of the Allies). We then hit Wal Mart, and Patrick and Travis were dumbfounded that I had never heard of Smores, America's most famous campfire snack, and so they grabbed marshmallows, hersheys chocolate, and crackers and some YooHoo chocolate drinks (a weird drink, like a chocolate milkshake, but there is no milk!). When we got back to camp, we joined our local 1st ID campers around the fire, I got out the laptop and loaded the day's footage and everyone crowded around...

The next morning I got up, packed, got everyone's contact details, said goodbye and headed off, having made good friends with Patrick and Travis, who have decided they are coming to Australia and out to Skirmish at Mudgeeraba and the three of us will take on whoever's there and show those bogans how to play real paintball.

I headed off, but not straight home; I had to detour briefly for a small town which was only minutes away. It was a strange hint of fate that D-Day was so close to this place, which I'd learned about shortly after coming to Oklahoma, but had no idea whether i'd be bothered making the considerable trek out to this corner of the state. My friends & family reading this would know that I come from a small cosy beachside suburb on the Gold Coast named Miami, nestled between Nobbys and North Burleigh. Well, Oklahoma also has a small country town that goes by the name Miami! But these Okies, they don't pronounce it Miami, it's Mi-am-uhh, as I was corrected. So I cruised through town & took a bunch of photos for folks back home, and wondered whether a bona-fide resident, not just a resident but a kid raised in Miami QLD Australia had ever been to Miami Oklahoma. I stood outside the Coleman theatre, Miami's claim to fame, wherein is housed the original Wurlitzer Pipe Organ, which by original I assume they mean the first. It was cool, the street intersections had a single 4-direction hanging traffic light, and I passed a community noticeboard for Miami High School. The best thing in the whole town was a budget self-advertsing sign painted on the wall of a business facing a gas station, which simply read 'Stuff N Things'. I saw that, and approvingly thought 'these Okie Miami locals are alright', before jumping back in the Jeep, onto the Interstate and back to Norman.

And that was my adventure to Oklahoma's North East and the world's largest paintball event, I guess I'm a veteran of sorts, and am I ever stoked that I discovered it by chance. Full credit to Dewayne Convirs and his hard working crew and supporting sponsors who put the show on every year in an awesome display of planning and organisation. And more importantly, an enormous thank you to Patrick, Travis, Nate and the other fellas who lended me equipment and time, without you all I wouldn't have been able to do it.

My photos and videos of Oklahoma D-Day 2007 have been posted here :

D-Day, Wyandotte, Oklahoma (7-10 June 2007)

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=dineroseguro

Volunteering to help Greensburg, KS

Greensburg, Kansas (13 May 2007)

The period of May 4 - 6 2007 saw a tornado outbreak in the US Midwest, one of the most significant outbreaks in recent history. Leading up to the evening of May 4, according to information compiled in Wikipedia on the event, tornado watches were in effect across much of the midwest states. At 8:35pm the first of several Kansas counties were put on tornado alert ahead of a strong supercell thunderstorm. At 9:30pm, storm chasers reported the formation of a tornado to the southwest of Greensburg, a country town with a population of over 1500 which had been on tornado alert for about 20 minutes. At this stage the main tornado also had several satellite tornadoes, and over the next several minutes, grew to an estimated half mile wide, prompting the National Weather Service in Dodge City to issue a rare tornado emergency, the highest alert possible intended for extremely life threatening situations with a large tornado approaching a population center.

At 9:38pm, the tornado, now over a mile and a half wide with estimated winds of 205 mph (330 kmph), hit Greensburg dead-center and proceeded to destroy the town for several minutes. It continued to strengthen as it left the town perimeter, and by the time it dissipated, it left a legacy of a destruction path 22 miles (35 km) long and 1.7 miles in diameter at its widest, 10 dead, 60 injured, and 95% of the town in ruins. Damage assessment the following day prompted the president to declare Kiowa County a disaster zone and the tornado was given an EF5 rating, the first level 5 event since the new EF scale was introduced this year, and the only 5 to have occurred since the infamous May 3 1999 tornado in Moore.

In the aftermath of the tornado the town was completely evacuated within hours as there was no safety from the continuing storms. An hour later and just 20 miles away a second, even bigger but slightly less powerful EF3 tornado 2 miles wide killed a policeman, and the following day another fatality from a 2 mile wide EF3 tornado occurred near Stafford. Some looting occurred in Greensburg and a dusk-till-dawn curfew was imposed, and storms and rain continued to lash the region for several days. The rain soaked the wreckage, and much of what survived the tornado was then flooded or water logged.

Greensburg is 285 miles from where I live in Norman, and during the week I was seriously contemplating heading up there to help out in what was sure to be a huge relief mission. After discussing it with a few people, who mostly thought I was crazy and not serious about driving all that way, one of my friends Mandy (who wants to be a firefighter) was the only person crazy enough to join me. Saturday night I gassed up the Jeep & packed some gear, while Mandy was out clubbing, and went to sleep wondering about what I was going to see the next day. At 5:20am I got up, trod on my sunglasses in the dark, had breakfast and headed up to pick Mandy up from her house in south Oklahoma City at 6am. I almost got in trouble when I got confused by the stupid street names changing and overshot my turnoff to her house by 50m; since it was early in the morning I backtracked the wrong way up the service road, almost got away with it until a car came around the corner and beeped at me, getting the attention of the state trooper at the adjacent gas station whom I hadn't seen before, who was filling up his patrol car and saw the whole thing. I circled through the gas station, sort of waved at him after I noticed him staring at me, he gave a half nod and turned back to his car, probably debating with himself whether or not it was too early to chase down and book a moron in a Jeep.

Driving through northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas on I-35 was great in the fine sunny morning, with fogs over fields glistening with dew and the rivers flowing rapidly as they receded from flood levels. I got hassled at a Kansas toll booth on the interstate by two lady employees who loved my accent, which Mandy thought was hilarious. Stopped for morning tea in a Kansas town where the fuel was relatively expensive but still cheaper than Australia, at $3.16 / gallon. By about 11pm we approached the main intersection of the town to the east of Greensburg, named Haviland. Police had set up a checkpoint and was redirecting traffic north to roads that bypass Greensburg. Mandy and I had a backup plan where if we were asked what our business was, if going to 'help' wasn't enough, she would bung on her best country accent and say we were going to her uncles house to clean up. We got through that checkpoint, and from then on I was on the lookout for anything unusual.

The tall concrete grain elevator which I recognised from aerial shots on the news was visible for miles around, and it marked the approach of the town. We passed a group of motorhomes, and three trucks with mobile houses on their trailers, belonging to owners maybe hoping to become the first to re-settle. A sign informed us of an AM radio station that was broadcasting disaster information, which I turned on. On the perimeter of the town, another police checkpoint was in place, and once again we had to justify our presence. But this time the officer asked what street Mandy's uncle lived in, and after a stupid pause where I looked at Mandy hoping she would say something, I said we were going to call her uncle and find out where he is, and look around. This was apparently good enough for the officer, and he tied a red band around my rear view mirror, and wished me luck. Immediately behind the checkpoint, it was all hustle & bustle. Initially there were probably a hundred cars parked in a field and a huge group of people crowded around a large marquee and walking about, probably the relief mission HQ, or some arrangement for mother's day. I thought for a moment about the mothers who would be celebrating nothing more this mother's day other than being thankful they & their loved ones are alive. I decided that could be our fallback if we couldn't find a way of helping on our own. Driving on to the next intersection, we were confronted by an incredible scene.

I have never been in a disaster zone, and the presentation of destruction around me left me awe struck. There was a bunch of trucks and heavy machinery driving around the highway, in and out of connecting streets, so I had to watch the road and could only take brief looks around me. I turned my camera on and took a bit of footage as I made my way slowly past the hub of heavy machinery work and over to a quieter part of town, and took a right northwards down a random street. I was making mental notes so as to not get lost, because I had correctly guessed long before I got to the town, that there would be no street signs left. It was a week after the event, and though the streets were cleared of debris, there otherwise appeared to be very little sign of progress. But of course, with truckloads of debris being taken away on an hourly basis every day for a week, I realise now that there probably had been loads of progress.

I drove past crumpled cars, with wheels blown out, windows shattered, roofs buckled or torn off, every panel smashed, some on their sides, some stacked on others. Around the cars were piles of rubble, and by rubble I mean the remains of houses utterly destroyed, snapped and broken timber, bright sheets of twisted tin roofing, concrete foundations exposed in places. Streets that would normally be lined with large trees in full spring bloom, now held dark trunks with all but the primary branches snapped off, stripped of bark, standing like ominous sentinels foreboding entry to the hazardous remains of their owner's properties. The naked, snapped trees are a characteristic unique to severe tornado damage, leaves get pulverised in seconds, and in the daylight for a few seconds, a tornado may appear to turn green.

Ahead, an American flag caught my attention, hanging from what looked like a snapped off power pole. I pulled over to the side of the road, turned the radio with the looping disaster information broadcast off, and went to explore a little on foot. The southerly wind, gusting to about 20 knots, kicked up dirt and light rubbish down the street to a height well over your head, so you had to shield your eyes. The sound of the relief effort was ever-present, diesel engines accelerating through the gears, and beeping from reversing trucks. You find the strangest things wandering through debris; amidst smashed chairs and tables, a butter plate undamaged, the tip of a christmas tree, blue tinsel tangled in the wreckage, some plush toys, bathroom products, chopped wood, a street sign. I walked from what was arguably one house pile to another, as no fences remained, the best way to judge properties where the houses were gone was to look for driveways.

I decided to try and hunt down some signs of impact damage, like out of the Twister movie, fence posts flying through doors and stuff. I went over to the most sturdy looking house in the immediate vicinity, which at least had straight walls and part of it's 2nd storey intact. Sure enough, I found exactly what I was looking for, a beam of wood, possibly belonging to a fence or house, rammed clean through the wall near the window, so it was wedged sticking into the room, having blasted away the surrounding wall like a 1ft wide exit wound. I hopped back down into the rubble and found my first souvenir, a small metal watch with a metal band, the links twisted and broken, the face glass gone, but the hour, minute and second hands were still intact. The face said 'HERALA 17 Jewels, Waterproof, Antimagnetic. I slipped it in my pocket just as a man called out from around the side of the house. "May I help you?"
I said "oh, we are just having a look around."
The man said "You shouldn't go in there, there's a sign out the front."
We had walked into the house from the back and hadn't seen the front of the house. From the back , you couldn't tell which way the house faced.
I explained "We're here to help out and were having a look around first."
He pointed to the side and said "Red Cross is organising the relief mission over on the highway."
We started walking out the front and Mandy was following, I explained how we'd seen that area and planned to head back there.
He paused and said "It's just, this is my house."
That came as a shock, and all I could say was "oh" as he stood there looking at his ruined home. He was perhaps in his 50's, with grey hair tied back in a pony tail, a US accent but not very country, he was tall and lean wearing glasses and a cap, in a shirt and jeans torn at the knees. Then I recovered and said "well, we would be all too happy to help you out, if this is your house, if there is anything we can do for you."
Then it was his turn to be shocked. He said "oh...well..." and thought for a few seconds "...actually yeah, I have a bunch of stuff downstairs that I need to get out and load on this trailer, boxes and crates of family stuff, you know."
I offered my hand and said "My name is Jason, this is my friend Mandy, we've come here from Norman." He introduced himself as Gary, and he started talking about the volunteers, how there had been hundreds if not thousands. He said "I'm sorry, I can't help but get a bit choked up, but the response has been incredible." He pulled Mandy and I into a hug and said "god bless you both."

From then on Gary started explaining what his immediate plans were, as he grabbed a torch out of the car and we followed him down the side of his house, through a doorway and down stairs littered with broken glass and strips of wood.The bottom of the stairs was quite dark, and the room to the right was almost pitch dark after the outside light. It was carpeted, but you couldn't really help but walk through the puddle at the bottom of the stairs to get into the room, and since Gary went walking straight through it without caring, I did too. It was a family room in the basement, and he lead us over to a joining section of rooms, and shining the torch on a cramped, little room full of boxes he said "this is where my daughter and I rode it out." He quickly explained what he needed from the room, which was piled on both sides with boxes to the roof, and said he was going to head off to try and find a structural engineer to assess the house to see if it could be saved. A sign out the front he had made had said "do not enter, do not bulldoze".

So Gary shot off and Mandy and I unloaded the boxes. She had the torch and pulled them off the shelves and stacked them out in the family room, while I took them from the family room, through the puddle, up the stairs and out to the trailer. It was only at this time that the shock of being surrounded by debris and destruction wore off and I walked about feeling 'normal', because I had a job to do. We unloaded boxes for maybe an hour and a half, Gary had a lot of stuff, and I just hoped it wasn't junk to him, coz it sure looked like it to me! Didn't take long to prove that I had the better task, it was funny hearing Mandy curse and squeal in the little soaked room when she pulled crates down where water had puddled on top of plastic lids, and this dank stinky water kept pouring over her as she lifted things. We were a bit alarmed at one point, Mandy had pulled something, and suddenly the sound of pouring water started and didn't stop. Turned out to be a false alarm, the roof wasn't about to collapse, just a crate had no lid and was full to the brim with water. It was very heavy, Mandy wasn't sure what to do with it, I said to slosh some of the water out, it's not as if any more damage could be done.

Gary came back as the trailer was almost loaded, only then did I notice that he actually didn't have a car, and was getting lifts from friends and people helping out. He loaded two massive speakers in the trailer, and helped us move some last sodden boxes, and then he asked if we could go for a ride in my car across town to the church, where he could get some bungee cords to tie down the load. So we headed off, and he started telling us about the neighbourhood, asking if we had seen the schools, he would point out where churches stood, the town used to have plenty of churches. He had owned and run an antique store, which was now rubble, but as we drove over to the church, he was waving to everyone he saw, and one fellow walked up to the car so I stopped. They knew each other, as everyone does in a little town like this, and this guy had some antique-ish things that he had nowhere to keep, and was offering them to Gary. Gary is probably on the threshold of a monopoly in a booming industry, for trinkets and antiques that have been through an EF5 tornado, I'm sure there will be a market for them! Gary gave Mandy and I a gift, which he was excited about, he gave us each a 100 year old brick from the church. I thanked him earnestly, but had serious doubts about how I would be able to continue my travels with a brick in tow. But I loaded the two bricks in the boot and changed my mind, thinking it would be a brilliant gift for my flat mate Todd ;)

Gary turned out to be a fascinating bloke, with a good story. He explained with a chuckle how a few years ago, they lived in Vegas, and his wife wanted to move out to Greensburg, for 'a better night life'. Gary's sense of humour and warm, optimistic nature made him instantly likeable. In fact, his optimism was inspiring, he talked fondly of the past, and despite everything that had happened he had grand plans for the future. His wife and son were out of town during the tornado, his wife was involved with Greensburg town marketing, and had the only known copy of the Greensburg town history with her, so it was not lost. Gary had taken his daughter and sheltered in their basement when the warning siren went off, and a short while later, the approach of the tornado was like the roar of a freight train punctuated by crashing thunder. He estimates the tornado was actually over his house for at least a minute and a half. When he emerged onto the scene of chaos, he went across the road calling out the name of the 95 year old lady who lived across the street in a house half collapsed. He called twice, with no answer. The third time he screamed out, and heard a faint reply. He cut almost all of his fingers on plate glass in a door frame trying to get to her, and managed to find her buried under broken furniture and debris. She had bad lacerations to her arm and had lost a lot of blood, and so he tied a tourniquet for her and got her out of there, and looked for a way to get help. They didn't get far on the road, as all roads were blocked with debris, but eventually they made their way out, and near the edge of town they intercepted an ambulance. She made it OK and was fortunately only one of the 60 injured and not 10 dead, quite possibly due to Gary's actions. Gary's fingers were all bandaided and he had stitches, but it didn't hinder him in lifting or anything to do with his hands, which had been working overtime during that week.

When we got back, we tied down his gear with the bungee cords, had lunch, and then he asked if I would like to do a little sightseeing. We started with his house. He said if I wanted a good shot, to follow him. He showed me the living room, where furniture removed from the wall after the storm showed the clean wall contrasting sharply with the wall spattered with dirt and mud. In fact, the entire room, roof included, and all sides were spattered to some degree, eluding to what it is like to have a 200mph breeze comng in your window. He explained how in the wedge of the tornado, all of the leaves, sticks and fine debris flying about at such speed has the effect of sand blasting. He had a 400 year old table & drawers or something which was covered in filth but otherwise undamaged. The kitchen had weird square glass blocks making up the outward wall, and miraculously they were mostly intact, which he explained was much to the disgust of his wife, as they were what she hated most in the house. We headed upstairs, and I was watching my footing closely, checking the structural integrity of the wooden staircase as Gary walked ahead, and when I got to the top, I was shocked to look up suddenly and see blue sky! Infront of me, a large hole existed where a window was, above me, no roof, to my left, a room with no roof and no walls. We turned for the master bedroom, where Gary had a 4 poster bed. I betrayed no hint of surprise when he told me that he had mirrors on the roof of the 4 poster bed, and that one of the 3 panes had lifted up, travelled across the top, down the side of the bed and underneath before shattering. This was evidenced by the fact that the pane, while shattered, was still in a rectangular shape under the bed. We walked over and stepped out his window onto the roof, and made our way along the side of the house. It was sturdy enough, and Gary had apparently already been out here on the roof before. Jumping from one sloped section of the roof to another, we climbed right up to the 2nd story at the front of the house, where a slanted 2m section of wood was all that remained of the 2nd story roof. From this point, I was higher than anything in my immediate vicinity, and level with the tallest remaining structures across town. I took a series of 26 photos for a panoramic shot, keeping a firm footing to withstand the strong southerly wind that was blowing.

Afterwards I headed back down and over to the neighbour's pile to get a photo of Gary's house and where I took the panoramic. There I found the most striking rubble-treasure yet, amidst total carnage, dark and twisted and filthy, was a bright yellow rubber ducky. I took photos of it lying on its side amongst the debris, then picked it up and put it in the back of my car for safekeeping. I'm going to give it to my future kids, and when they're old enough, I'll tell them that their ducky survived one of the strongest storms on earth. Just after I put ducky in the boot a $100 bill blew past me down the road. It was only Monopoly money though!

After lunch, which was my first ever peanut butter & jelly sandwich (not too bad), we made plans to head off. Gary had been visited by a few people who had come over when they saw him there, including the previous owner of the house. The greetings were more than simple hellos, they were more like 'it's so good to see you, glad you're OK'. It wasn't hard to see how rural communities like this bond so closely and pull together in the face of hardship like this. One dude rocked up in a massive canary yellow Hummer with an American flag sticking out the side, and while he talked to Gary, the cutest little girl hopped out of the car & came over to Mandy & I. She was holding an even cuter kitten, which was just chillin in her palm, completely relaxed and peering about with wide eyes, while the little girl patted it and told us all about the kitten being 2 months old, what they were doing with its brothers & sisters, what her Dad was doing here (volunteering).

Mandy & I decided to head off before it got too late, because of our next destination I had to check out on the way home. We said goodbye to Gary, exchanged contact information, and I wished him the best of luck. We did a bit more sightseeing before we left, first heading over to the south end of town, the direction the tornado came from. We passed the theatre, the destroyed schools and smashed school buses, the firies sitting infront of their engines having smoko while their de-roofed base lie behind. I saw a mobile house which appeared to have been lifted up and dropped back down onto a metre high pile of rubble, and while there wasn't a straight wall left in it, it was still sort of intact. 50m off to the left, I saw a wrecked car sitting out in the middle of a field, and another truck in a mini-creek shortly after. Mandy explained to me how it looked similar to the May 3 tornado of 1999, which took out her grandmother's house in Moore. She spent months helping the family clean up. While there was a greater quantity of damage in that tornado, because of the dense population area involved, at least that scene held some houses that remained standing, sometimes right next to others that were blown away to the slab. The word for Greensburg's destruction however was 'complete'. Houses were half-standing at best, and the tornado path encompassed the entire town, leaving no respite to the eye, looking for something, just something that made it untouched.

I went to the encircling road around town hoping to see the swathe of the tornado track in the grass, but the grass had either blown back straight from the winds or the track can't be seen from the ground. Heading back north, to the other side of town, we came to what must have been the edge of the path, where I found the only street sign in town, twisted but standing, and took a photo looking back up Main street.
-------
Going to Greensburg was a profound experience, you can't help but be filled with empathy towards the people who live there. Seeing Gary choke with emotion as he talked about the volunteer response and people like Mandy and I making special trips to help made it all worthwhile.
To shake Gary's hand in admiration of the optimism he shows when he talks about the future, I left without any worries at all. Greensburg may be all but wiped out, but the spirit of the people is as strong as ever, and I have no doubt the town will quickly become even greater and more wonderful than before. Still, it is a massive undertaking, and I'm glad to have helped in some small way.

Of course, how could I drive all the way up to Kansas and across to Greensburg, without taking a side track through the countryside to a tiny little town made famous by a hollywood blockbuster movie themed on the exact thing I had just witnessed? Yeah, I had to go and check out Wakita, which featured as the disaster zone in the movie Twister, which I'm sure you all have seen. It's like my parent's favourite movie that they watch at least 4 times a year, and it is the one place in Oklahoma that I wanted to see most. The water tower, visible for miles, looks exactly the same as in the movie, and we pulled up near to it and jumped out so I could get my photos. A group of 4 bikers were watching us, and by the time I was done, curiosity got the better of one of them and he came over with his beer and hick accent to find out what on earth we were doing. He was a pleasant young guy named J, who liked his simple name because, in his own words, he liked a simple life. He invited us both over for a beer, and I was like 'um, errr yeah why not!'.

He explained how he and his mates saw us but didn't recognise the car so knew we were from 'out of town', was fascinated to learn I was from further out of town than he could possibly have thought, he was sunburnt to a crisp from mowing grass all weekend, the tear in his jeans exposed half his leg, and he had a friendly innocent disposition. I had trouble understanding his older buddies, especially the grandpa sitting in the chair smoking, didn't understand a single word that came out of his mouth. We had a 'Natural Light' beer, or beer-flavoured water, on the house, and had a fantastic happy hour in the afternoon shade with Wakita locals. Unfortunately, the Twister movie museum was closed for mother's day. It is actually closed most of the time, and only opens when you call the phone number on the door and a lady comes out and opens it up for you. The fellas explained how big the movie was for the town, how the main street (where we were standing) was bustling with people and the town population increased ten fold. The house that collapses, was apparently carefully constructed with hinging parts that swung down in precision timing to create a controlled structural collapse that could be repeated over and over! Everyone ridicules the movie, especially the part where they hang from a water main in an F5 tornado and get a bit of dirt on their face, but they love it all the same.

And that's it! After that we cruised back home doing 80 most the way. A very interesting and rewarding trip. Time to plan the next one, and rest my fingers from typing!

I have put up a few pages on my (incomplete) website, they hold a bunch of photos and video footage that I took on the day. Those pictures are better than my thousand words.

Greensburg, Kansas (13 May 2007)

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=dineroseguro

-Jason

New wheels

Third of four backdated emails :)

---

Hi everyone, got some more news... I managed to get a car! So this means I'm gonna be heaps busier and this will be the last major update for a little while.
I was looking around like crazy for a mid size SUV, something that wasn't a gas guzzler but was big enough to support me in the things I want to do while I'm over here in the States, like weekend trips, heading to the lakes and the snow for water and winter sports, maybe even towing my flat mate's boat so we don't need to bother his old man for the truck. I started looking all around Norman, a couple of websites, getting a lift to the somewhat famous 'mile of cars' in Norman, and after looking over hundreds of cars, I decided on the Jeep Liberty as my favourite make & model. My first experience driving on the wrong side of the road was in a Jeep Liberty Renegade with the car salesman sitting next to me and Rajesh sitting in the back (one of the fellas from the Xyant office who was helping me look for a car, champion).
So Rajesh and this guy were chatting away, and I didn't hear a single thing they said, I was concentrating that much; keep right, indicators are on the wrong side, gear stick is on the wrong side...I managed to do fine though even in moderate traffic. Also tried driving a Saturn Vue but that was too, family-suited, too 'nice' I suppose. The Jeep was more rugged, more powerful, better looking, better fun. But this Jeep had some issues, most of all it was only rear wheel drive. In fact, I was absolutely stunned at the fact that over here, 98% of cars younger than 2000 model are automatic, and then of those that are manual transmission, they were all either rear or front wheel drive. Two car dealers joked 'what do you want a 4WD in Oklahoma for anyway'? They just thought I was crazy, when I asked for a manual transmission four wheel drive, I'd get furrowed brows and head scratches and 'um, well we don't have any of those, in fact I haven't seen anything like that in ages'. Americans love convenience (hence drive thru ATMs, Wal Marts that sell everything you can imagine, and fridges double the size of ours back home full of microwave meals), and unfortunately, manual transmission is seen as an inconvenience.

It made me think carefully about my resale potential, but I just can't do auto, I wanted that manual transmission, and 4 wheel drive incase I get stuck in weather up on the ski fields or whatever may happen. So I started looking wider, and sure enough, in Colorado where it snows, they were relatively abundant. And then I found one car that had everything I wanted. After grilling the sales guy with questions, and getting him to take extra photos of particular areas at my request and email them, I ran the VIN number check (vehicle's history, which has become important since the used car market has become littered with flood restoration jobs from New Orleans) and all checked out. So, a million bank dramas later (bank security is so tight it's a wonder they even give you your own money seriously), the deposit was down and I was trying to get my stranded a-- over to Colorado Springs. I spent a couple days seriously contemplating a plan to hire a car from Oklahoma Airport to Colorado Springs; a drive there and back again that would take all weekend, involving sleeping in the back of the rent car on friday night. My flat mate then looked at flights for me and found one out of Dallas for $200, via Denver to Colorado Springs. I hadn't considered Dallas for the obvious reason I can't get there, but Todd said he had found a motorbike he wanted to look at (he's also in the market for one of those) and was going to cruise down with another mate Chris, and we'd go early and drop me off at the airport. So that was the new plan, and at 3:10am Saturday Morning I was up and getting ready for the 2.5 - 3ish hour drive south to Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, Texas. The airport is enormous, with multiple terminals for various airlines, and after getting lost both in the car and then running the full length of a terminal on foot, I made it to the United flight with a short wait till boarding. That was a fair bit of stress think I got another grey hair from that one, because of the consequences of missing the flight, and I've had my fair share of consequences already!

Descent to Colorado showed that most of the snow had melted from the ground from my last visit two weeks previous, and the countryside was like a white tiger's fur print stripes, with only the gullies sheltered from the westerly wind facing north-south having any snow left in them, shining white strips amidst the brownish grasslands. I could finally see the front range, which was in clouds two weeks prior, and it was breathtaking. Snow capped mountains. Colorado Springs is nestled in close to the front range that lies to the west, which extends north and south as far as the eye can see, and eastward is the start of the plains, with no geographical features of any sort.
I got picked up at the airport by Lucas, the internet car salesman, and headed over to Heuberger Motors. Well it was kinda funny, like a love at first sight type of thing, I spotted the Jeep from across the car lot and knew that was it, and a thorough look and drive later, it was sold. I handed over the 'cashiers check' (same as a bank cheque) for $13 000 USD which stung me about 18k Australian. Damn. Still it was a good buy esp when considering prices of similar cars in Australia. So, the feature list is basically as follows.

• 2003 Jeep Liberty Freedom Edition (also known as sport; but an overly patriotic title don't you think?)
• Black
• 3.7L V6 5sp Manual Transmission
• 4WD, RWD when not running 4WD
• 38 000 miles
• Sunroof
• Cruise Control
• Power windows, locking, steering
• mmm, cup holders (two of them! oh wait, they usually come in pairs don't they? I never had any and was always extremely jealous of those with this superior luxury feature)
• Those neat dashboard displays that are white in the day and black at night
• 6 stacker in-dash CD player / radio, 4 door speakers
• Tinted windows (but not for front doors, illegal apparently on SUV's here?)
• Two-tone leather steering wheel and matching black cloth seats with tan leather edges (best of both worlds, durability of leather on the edges, without the cold/heat of leather where you mainly sit)
• Roof rails (I won't bother with racks though, not yet) and once I get a tow hitch, towing capacity of 5000lbs which ought to haul Todd's boat to any lake we desire :)
• $10 000 USD cheaper than the Kelly Blue Book recommended price for that type of used car, which is good

The cruise control quickly became my new toy, and for the third occasion driving on the wrong side of the road, I headed back up to Denver to meet up with Stacey, my first friend I made in the US, on the connecting flight two weeks before from LA to Denver. We spent St Patricks out to dinner and I tried Venison meat loaf. So, confirming my first impressions, she's cool, and it's great to have a friend in Denver. Staying overnight I was up early the next day excited about the interstate drive back to Norman Oklahoma. I had two choices, one quicker route was to head east to Kansas and south to Oklahoma, but that is a flat, straight, boring drive. So I went south as planned, back through Colorado Springs, following the spectacular front range all along. I passed an enormous international speedway, which was a genuinely massive grand stand in the middle of the countryside, and a high-walled circuit track. I also passed a major accident affecting north-bound traffic, where a bus had blown up I'm guessing about 20-30 minutes earlier, with a stack of emergency vehicles driving up the grass on the highway center and traffic backed up for over a mile. Never heard about it on the news tho.
Stopped just short of the border to fill up and grab subway, it was amazing how quickly the countryside changed at the border to New Mexico. The rocky hills, short pines and small bushes gave way to yellow grassy plains and hills with black rubbly slopes crowned with small cliffs. New Mexico was otherwise uneventful, and a bit tiring, and the border to Texas saw another distinct change, to flatness and numerous corn pastures varying from brown and yellow to lush green, all arranged in squares containing circles of crops, and the watering gear wheels around a central point. Another stop in Amarillo, and a second lunch, and on to Oklahoma, where I saw distinct Oklahoman farms straight out of the movie Twister, with a big house, an even bigger shed, and a wind mill, and vast green plains of crops. I was still listening to radio, about the 9th radio station I had passed through, and just after dusk I got to Oklahoma City and headed south the final leg to Norman. By this stage the front of the car was thoroughly plastered in bugs (I had cleaned the windscreen 3 times from bugs already). I got home and what was the first thing I did (after unloading my stuff)? Got straight back in the car and drove with Todd around town and gave him a drive. He's hooked on SUVs now and so his volvo sedan's days are numbered ha.

All told, I covered about 720 miles in that trip, about 1150kms, over about 11 hours. I've already worked out a dozen ways to sit in the drivers seat to make full use of the cruise control, even got a foot rest on the dash for when i'm bare foot. Was equal to the best drive I've ever done, next to the drive west from the Gold Coast to Stanthorpe on a winter friday afternoon / evening a few years back.

There are some good personalities at work, I have been put through a few group introductions, the biggest was at an office-wide meeting in the (large) kitchen to discuss major company developments, Bill the boss said 'we have a couple of new faces here, there is Jason who has come here from Aus-stralia' and someone said with perfect timing 'that's quite a commute'
And they find it funny that the Australian has bought a Jeep Liberty Freedom, pretty much the most patriotic car title around, and when I was asked if I was gonna fly the American flag on it, I said I had an Australian flag on order and 0ZB0Y plates.

Yes so it's late now, i'm behind on sleep, work is full on learning heaps and contributing heaps i've had to hit the ground running there. Meeting more people at work, some guys with similar tastes of adventure sports as me, one guy goes four wheel driving in a Jeep Wrangler (nuts 4 wheel driving though, like oh look at that river over there, lets go and drive through it). And I mean through it as in along it, not across it. That's Kevin, and Adam I met today he also has a boat and goes wakeboarding, one of the bosses windsurfs, and so half of Metavante sounds like it'll be at Lake Heffner or Thunderbird in the spring/summer months. Looking forward to my second summer :D so I can retaliate for all the stories of great surf and hot weather back home with a few pix of wakeboarding and camping by the lake. Every day at the moment is being marked by a big achievement; an important possession bought, some weird US thing or terminology learned, .NET technology ideas for work, simple discovery things like driving down a new neighbourhood the likes of which I've never seen, and I'm sure this will continue for a long time still. Exciting? Absolutely. Challenging? Wouldn't have it any other way. Homesick? No, but I think about everyone back home and other friends abroad heaps. Fulfilling? I'm living my dream, setting my goals and making them happen, and I have plenty more to go!

Hope you all are well and looking after yourselves. I'll be in touch.
Jason