Hilton Executive Park Charlotte

... t Ch*rlotte Dougl*s Intern*tion*l *nd s*y HELLOOOO to Sergio R*mos in M*drid.......well, m*ybe I won't get to meet Sergio, but I c*n dre*m right? Unless you're Eric* Dunh*m, Lizzy M*nieri, or Julie M*nsur you re*lly c*n't im*gine *ll the thoughts, feelings, *nd emotions I'm going through right now. Every d*y my countdown of d*ys to dep*rture gets sm*ller *nd sm*ller. The *nticip*tion m*kes me more excited ...

The journey home began at 6AM Venice time and even with only a one hour layover in Munich we arrived in Charlotte at 6PM est time (midnight Venice time!) a very long day. We had a trendous trip and Aunt Sue and Guido were the perfect hosts and tour guides. I almost feel like going right back but that will have to wait for now probably June 2011. The weather was cold and at times rainy so some of the things you would routinely do were just not possible.

Excited and ready to leave. The forecast does not seem very promising but it will be great to see Sue & Guido again. We leave Charlotte at 5:30 PM and should be in Venice at Noon (Italian time) Wednesday. I will try to send photo's as we take them as well as update this blog. I loved this when Chris and Liana used it .

After a long and hectic tech week in the not so glamorous land of Roxbury Community College, we finally hit the road on Saturday. Our first day was quite long. Anyone who's ever driven the I-95 route up and down the east coast knows that the triumverate of driving nuisances are Boston, NYC, and DC... and yes we were passing through all 3 in our first day of driving. Needless to say, 12 hours later we were VERY thankful to reach the hotel.

Sunday, we ...

I thought that I would post this picture of me and La Poderosa just before I left for the west coast a couple month's ago. She had to be sold in LA:( What an amazing bike for 700 bucks. She got me through one of the most amazing adventures that I've had to date. As soon as I can get my computer that has all the pics on it online I will have a boat load of stuff to post from this trip.

So I just set up this blog thingy. Computers and stuff like this are not my forte. I will try to update with some images of my travels as I get a chance. I am leaving for Istanbul, Turkey in a couple days. So i am practice packing to get things down to as little as possible. I am hoping to hitchhike ...

Sarah and Ken were waiting for us, as we deplaned in Charlotte North Carolina.They had caught a flight from Detroit to Charlotte, the meeting place for our international flight.

It seems so exciting... and odd, too. Seeing familiar faces outside the ...

... in my own bed. As happy as I am at home, I can't stop thinking about Costa Rica and all my experiences. I can't wait to tell people all about my trip! Every single person on the team has great stories to tell about their trip. Some will be funny, some will be full of drama, some of them will be sweet. But they will all have one thing in common. They will be real (just like many members of our team). I hope with my whole heart that all the team ...

My flight out of Phoenix was delayed because of the ground crew by over an hour. Since I only had 50 minutes to originally run across Charlotte International and get to my next flight, I was up a river without a paddle - it didn't help that my plane out of Charlotte left early, either! It all worked out in the end, though, because I got to spend more time with my dear family in Charlotte! My Uncle Peter came to pick me up at the airport and we stopped for Chick-fil-A ...

... s Scariest Trailer Park from Hell VI (that means 6)." We rolled down to Charlotte via Dan's friends in Greensboro. Here we picked up the rest of our group and a couple of big-ass campers. Most of the guys were middle-aged and were probably looking to get away from the missus for a while (except Gordon - he's not middle-aged). After finding a suitable spot in the camping field, we set up camp amongst some enormous RVs - many of which had the obligatory Stars'n'Bars flying high above ...