Next month, I leave Austin for a three-part thirty-one day adventure.
The West-Coast Roadtrip: A while back, Evan and George, two friends from Tulsa, introduced me to a little BBC television program called Top Gear. Periodically, these three would be sent by “the Producers” on special adventures: buy used cars sight-unseen over the Internet for a pittance, then drive them over a long distance (meandering routes preferred) while being hilariously abusive to each other and competing to see who made the best purchase (by no measure in particular). I do not recall the quantity of grownup drinks required to believe recreating this enterprise would be wise, but, sufficiently imbibed, an idea emerged!
Courtesy of my globetrotting grandmother, I have a First Class ticket to San Diego for the evening of August 27th. I expect that to be my last comfortable or spacious moment for a solid month. (Thank you, Mimi!)
We’ll spend a long weekend on a quest to acquire and fix-up some “previously loved” wheels. Victorious, we’ll day-trip down to Tijuana, then head north along SH 1 and US 101 hitting Los Angeles, Paso Robles (in wine country), Big Sur, San Francisco, Phillipsville (near the Redwoods), Coos Bay, Portland, Olympia, Indianola (on the Puget Sound), and finally Vancouver (by way of at least one ferry, maybe three) before backtracking down to Seattle. We’ll be staying in condos, beach houses, roadside motels, even two nights on a yacht, and couch-surfing with friends in between.
The Great Roadtrip officially ends on Sunday, September 13th. Having wished our battered automobiles well on their new lives in the Northwest, the boys will fly home and I’ll get back to work from Seattle. Tuesday morning starts heinously early at SeaTac.
Germany and DrupalCon Barcelona: I travel a bit for work and have made a tremendous discovery: glue vacations to business travel for partially-reimbursable adventures! Four Kitchens will be attending DrupalCon Barcelona 2015 where Chris Ruppel and I will be co-presenting a full-day frontend performance class. Naturally, he and I need ample time to prepare our session before the conference starts. He lives in Freiburg, Germany.
You pickin’ up what I’m puttin’ down?
I’ll fly from Seattle to Frankfurt by way of Houston Intercontinental (again) to hop on one of the new 787s for the transatlantic red-eye. After a solo day working from Frankfurter Flughafen (Airport), coworkers Matt and Patrick join me that evening for the train to Freiburg. We’ll spend the remainder of week #3 there with Chris, preparing for our sessions. If we finagle a reprieve, he has promised to show us “lots of great German stuff like castles and beer.” I’ll keep you posted.
Treacherously early on Sunday the 20th, week #4 will begin with a bus to Basel, Switzerland (the nearest airport) for a flight on “EasyJet” (sounds ominous…) to Barcelona. We’ve booked a swanky four-bedroom apartment downtown and will be at the Centre de Convencions Internacional de Barcelona all week. A long journey back to Austin ends the junket on Sunday the 27th, in preparation for the oppressive business hours of Central Daylight Time the following morning. Coffee can be donated by the gallon.
I’ll be documenting the whole journey here. Welcome to my first blog. Thank you for joining.