Cities we're visiting

1. Greenville, North Carolina

One of our first stops was Greenville, South Carolina. We got to spend some time visiting our friends Scotty and Savannah. We all met in college and Scotty and I were fraternity brothers at SigEp, and Scotty and Savannah got married this past year and moved into Savannah’s grandmothers house. They are in the process of remodeling and you can follow along on their instagram. We were able to stay for a few days and had a great time in both Traveler’s Rest and Greenville.

2. Jacksonville, Florida

On our way back to Sarasota prior to heading out west, we made a quick stop in Jacksonville to visit Sam’s friends from high school, Tommy and Natalie. Tommy, Natalie and Sam rowed together for Sarasota Scullers for several years, and coincidentally also raced against Sarah and her team Atlanta Junior Rowing Association before they met in college. They live in a pretty cool spot near the St. John’s river - we had only been to Jacksonville once before so we didn’t have a great understanding of the layout of the city.

3. Austin, Texas

On our way through Texas, we stopped in Austin for a couple days to visit a few friends and get a taste of the city. When we arrived, we went straight to Austin Terrier to meet up with a couple friends from college, Eduardo and Santi. It was a nice dog-friendly spot, where Ravioli got to meet his new dog buddies Griffin and Jimothy the Corgi. After lunch, we headed to Zilker Park to have a few beers while loungin in that tExAs SuN (cue Khruangbin stuck in my head & hopefully yours).

4. Sante Fe, New Mexico

Santa Fe, NM was a stop we were pretty excited about. Our good friend Tony had moved there after graduating from Georgia Tech, and we had been wanting to visit him for a while. We got to stay with him and his girlfriend, Becca, and their two cats, Oswaldo and Penelope. Oswaldo really took a liking to Sam. The first morning we were there, Sam and I went to the OG Pantry for breakfast (there are two now), per Tony’s recommendation.

5. Bequinox - LA Regional Burning Man Event in California City

Towards the end of April, we attended Bequinox, which is the LA regional Burning Man event. At around 1,500 people, this event is tiny in comparison to the main Burning Man, which is about 80,000 people. We had never attended any of these events, so we thought this smaller scale one would be a good test as to whether or not we would like the main shindig. We joined Sam’s aunt Gale and her group of friends in California City (seemingly the middle of nowhere) on a small piece of land recently purchased by the organizers of this event.

5. Bequinox - LA Regional Burning Man Event in California City

Towards the end of April, we attended Bequinox, which is the LA regional Burning Man event. At around 1,500 people, this event is tiny in comparison to the main Burning Man, which is about 80,000 people. We had never attended any of these events, so we thought this smaller scale one would be a good test as to whether or not we would like the main shindig.

We joined Sam’s aunt Gale and her group of friends in California City (seemingly the middle of nowhere) on a small piece of land recently purchased by the organizers of this event. We set up camp with the Nacho Daddies, a wonderful theme camp that serves nachos a few times throughout the weekend.

As first timers, it was especially fun to walk around and see all of the creative theme camps people had thought up. From Scrabble Camp (play giant Scrabble), to the Hug Deli (order a type of hug in exchange for a compliment), to one of our favorites for reasons I’ll reveal later in this post, Lamp Camp (literally a bunch of lamps “plugged” into the ground). There was SO much to see and interact with.

kaleidoscope

Something we thought was really interesting and fun about Bequinox was getting into the mindset of gifting. There is no money or bartering here, you are simply gifting and being gifted things and services. Sounds easy, but it can be quite difficult to not immediately react to a gift with, “Oh, let me get you something in return!” or “are you sure?????” On the other hand, it’s also an adjustment to jump into the idea of giving. For example, we made sure to bring enough food & drink to feed ourselves, and also brought a few things to share, but it was surprising how often we didn’t automatically think to share those things. Of course we wanted to share, but it just took a couple days to switch into that mindset.

Another thing we had a lot of fun with was volunteering. There are many options for volunteers, but Sam and I signed up for a 4 hour shift of watching the perimeter. So we were up in lookout towers and driving around in golf carts to make sure no one was sneaking in or wandering out. We didn’t catch any action, but it was still fun to be put to work for a bit.

sarah

The last evening, the previously mentioned Lamp Camp was holding a raffle and ceremony where they were lighting all of the lamps for the first time (!!!). As we were walking around, we ran into one of the members of Lamp Camp, Frank, as she was writing her speech for the event. She mentioned she felt “lucky energy” from our group for the raffle, so we made sure to show up. Sure enough, Sam won the raffle, which meant he got to take home the lamp they were retiring this year.

lampwin

It wouldn’t quite fit in our van, so Gale has it in her house now, and it looks great!

lampwin

In the end, we loved it. We loved seeing all the creativity from others, being able to create things ourselves (s/o to the jewelry making camp), and meeting so many good people. We’re hoping we can attend Burning Man to see all of that multiplied.

samsarah