Chevron Adventure Week: February 2010

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Chevron is Back

After being replaced by Evan Williams and Excedrin as the official sponsor it looked like our relationship with Chevron was over. Then tonight the gas people came through.

We had a packed day in Louisville--Churchill Downs, Louisville Slugger Factory, Muhammad Ali Center, downtown Louisville--and decided we needed to pregame the evening.

Ryan and I set out to find a liquor store and spent 20 minutes driving around the apparently dry city. Two different GPS could not find us a place that sells anything with alcohol.

Finally while driving we saw a Chevron. I declared it was a sign. Ryan said it was a waste of time. I was driving so I didn't care how Ryan felt.

Lo and behold, Chevron's convenient store stocks the finest malt liquors that you can buy at a gas station. That was all it took to get back in our good graces.

Welcome back Chevron. It feels like you never left us.

C

"I Tweet so Hard"

So right now we are en route to Louisville, KY but that is not where the journey begins. Yesterday afternoon, a Wolfpack of 3, embarked on a journey of a lifetime. Was it the Oasis in Cancun, definitely not, but one thing’s for sure is that our music was better. The first stop on Evan Williams Adventure Week was Indianapolis, Indiana and Butler University. We met with Cooper’s friend Ben from Barcelona and hit up some nice Indianapolis area bars. I found the new love of my life – Twitter. I think I updated that thing 15 times in 4 hours. I am like OchoCinco on this thing. I can see why he wants to tweet during his games. If I had this thing I probably would have tweeted during my ejection during my last hockey game. Something like “jersey over the face, peace out Yost” just so all my followers (5) could know what’s going on in my life.

We didn’t have much time there but I think that we spent our time rather efficiently in Indy. Started out by tackling the Gargantuan from Jimmy John’s, you know I had to sample the local cuisine right? Then we headed out for the bars. The car that we were in got stuck in the driveway and miraculously I moved it by my lonesome. World’s strongest man? Probably Not. Indiana’s Strongest Man? Probably. We then went to the bars and the night life was pretty good out there. Bars closed at 3… Bonus Time. Imagine how sloppy everyone would be if Ricks stayed open an extra hour.

I completely forgot what part of the country I was in last night. I met a guy named Bo from IUPUI. Really big guy ordering a “Tape Your Ankles” bagel from this late night drunk food place. We bullshit for a while and I tell him were going to New Orleans. He tells me that we missed Mardi Gras and I tell him I’m not worried because the Saints won the Superbowl and they start partying. Well, Bo is a huge Colts fan but I think I can still joke about it so I refer to the Messiah, Peyton Manning, as Eli’s brother. Peyton Manning is GOD here regardless of that questionable pick6 he threw. Bo was not happy with me so I decided to just take my bagel and bounce.

Well that’s leg 1. Back home at 5 up at 10. Next Stop: Louisville KY.

Updates

- No one has been punched or throw a punch yet.

- No one has cried yet.

- Cooper threw up

The Beginning

Spring break has started. Cooper and Kasey picked me up straight from work, well there were 30 minutes late but it was close enough. So with a quarter tank of gas, a full SUV, and 2773 miles to go we headed out into rush hour, onto the snowy open road. So after missing an exit 45 minutes into the trip and having to drive six miles out of the way, we finally ended up on a one lane road in the middle of Ohio. The most exciting thing to happen so far, aside from seeing a 7 up store (who knew that even existed), was when the one lane road opened up into a two lane road. This resulted in all of us cheering hail to th victors and pounding the roof in celebration.

The best news of the trip has been the announcement by Cooper of each of the closing times in our future cities.

Indianapolis: 3:00 am
Louisville: 4:00 am
Memphis: NEVER!!!!
New Orleans: NEVER!!!!

This just spells bad fortune.

Well I am really bad at writing these so hopefully the next few will get better, but I wouldn’t count on it. O yah I also found out I have to drive tomorrow, which is awesome because it is one of the shortest drives of the trip. Hahaha well so far all the cards have played well for me, just hope this keeps up. Until next time.

-The connection
aka
Ryan

More Ways to Follow the Action

Twitter.com/2273miles
Twitter.com/kaseyk35
Twitter.com/ryanjbern

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

The Planning of Adventure Week

Early in the school year we decided that Spring Break had to happen but we could not decide what to do.

Ryan wanted "SPRING BREAK" spring break, I wanted something we would never have the chance to do again, and Kasey just wanted to eventually be told what we were doing.

Spring Break discussions occurred passively throughout the first semester, but we never finalized anything. As friends booked cruises and updated Facebook statuses with countdowns to Acapulco, Cancun, and Puerto Wherever, we went sledding on baking pans. Fun was inevitable, so planning was meaningless.

In early February, with a rare stroke of genius Ryan decided we should try to go to all 11 Big Ten schools in 11 consecutive days. A cursory Google search seemed to say no one had ever attempted it. Intrigued, we started calling friends at various schools and planning out the 11 days. Then it snowed. Apparently planning a road trip to all the schools in your conference is an undertaking better left for the SEC and Big 12.

A week from the start of Spring Break, last night we decided to sit down and start planning. We were headed towards a redux of housing before Junior Year where Ryan's aspirations were crushed by our laziness and procrastination: two years later, he’s still looking for the other half of his room.

At about 8pm we sat down with computers and started looking; we did not plan to sleep until a trip was booked.

Ryan immediately started with Cancun and the MTV style spring break that has led to so many disowned children. Kasey declared he STILL wanted nothing to do with the process but was willing to cut a check, as long as we figured it out. Deal.

With Men's Aerials and Bob Costas’ banter blasting in the background we pecked away at our computers trying to find a deal or adventure. We explored all the options: domestic and international, all inclusive and totally exclusive, places with multi-star ratings and places without roofs.

Running out of ideas, we compiled a list of everywhere we would be willing to visit but that led nowhere. Nothing new, interesting, or exciting and unfortunately we couldn't find any info about time traveling phone booths or hot tubs.

After hours of yelling and debating, I started making concessions. Cancun was the play. I told Ryan in no uncertain terms that I was angry with the situation but we could do it.

If CNN had covered the event, they would have panned me for being a spineless leader who made too many concessions. My country would have hated me. No one would have understood that I was out of options; it was Cancun or nuclear war. Ryan would have been lauded as a demigod. He fought hard and won.

So we had an agreement in principle and only needed to work out logistics. Two hours later we had checked every combination of flights, hotels, and options and had a trip. Prices were slowly climbing as our incessant checking of flight and hotel prices made it seem like there was a sudden boom in interest. The algorithms were unhappy.

Finally though, we had it all planned, we were on the credit card page of the website, had found a price we were comfortable with and were ready to go. We called Kasey for confirmation.

Kasey's apathy towards the planning process was now replaced with a response of "I have to check if I can go." Thanks for the heads up Kase.

Six hours of work were put on hold until the morning so Kasey could check with his handlers if he could A) have his Passport sent quickly and B) leave the country. He told us he would know by 9 am. We were doubtful.

Either way we figured no one else in the world was booking last second Spring Break trips to Cancun, so the prices and availability couldn't move that much.

This morning, Ryan and I had a meeting at 10:30 for CWIC Technologies. When we first met up, a giddy Ryan proclaimed he had found a newer, better version of the trip to Cancun which now ran from Tuesday to Tuesday--actual schedules be damned.

We went for breakfast after the meeting and still had no word from Kasey, so we decided he was useless and dead to us. When the check came we started discussing an alternate road trip and I sketched the United States on the back of the bill. Ryan started putting inappropriately located dots on it which we hoped would correspond with cities.

Planning everything on a Blackberry and an iPod Touch seemed too daunting so we got Ryan's computer and headed to a North Campus Panera (our own little Camp David meets Bretton Woods).

Up came Google Maps and we started picking cities based solely on their ability to fall into a giant loop and what came up when we googled the attractions in a given place. Some places were left off, some sleepers made the list, but after another 2 hours, we both walked out happy with our 7 city, 9 night journey.

All we've told Kasey is to pack for every kind of weather and be ready this Friday afternoon.

Slowly, we're giving him "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?" style clues (He knows the first stop is Indianapolis, the last is Cincinnati, we may meet NBA Cheerleaders in one city, and that the whole trip is 2,273 miles) as he sits here yelling out different city names and playing on Google Maps to create a trip he deems acceptable while insulting half the state's in the country.

We're still considering blindfolding and gagging him until we get to the various Welcome Centers.