one week
Well, we are down to just one week before our journey begins. Seven days. It’s wild to think that this idea we had in early February was tossed around for months, plans were made, and now it’s finally going to be put in motion. At this point, it feels like it’s not about to happen, though I know it is. It is just so big and strange.
Rachel and I have hosts for each place we are staying except Las Vegas. I never thought a city with such a large population would hold such few hosts. I have confidence that we will be able to find a host by the time we need one. We have made lists of the things we are bringing and the things we still need to purchase. I’m pretty excited that we have decided to bring two lawn chairs so we can stop anywhere at any given time, sit, and really soak in what is going on around us.
I am excited to share. Share everything. What is mine, will be Rachel’s and what is Rachel’s will be mine on this trip. I am excited for the conversations we are going to be forced to have. The conversations that will make our friendship even stronger. The conversations that will be insightful and the conversations that will be controversial. I’m ready for it.
I have been working on the gifts we are giving to each of our hosts. We purchased small, wooden suitcase that actually open and close from Michael’s craft store. On the front and back of the suitcases, I am cutting up real maps and using modge podge to hold them together to create a collage type look. I am painting the sides of the suitcases bright blue, red, and green to match the colors that are typically found on maps. Also on the front and back, I have created stencils. The first one is the couchsurfing logo and the next stencil will go on the back and it will say “Thank You. Abra and Rachel. August 2009”. We wanted to give everyone a little piece of ourselves and there is no better way to do that than to put time and energy into a small gift. When we leave their homes we will give them these gifts with thank you notes inside. I’m pretty excited to see how they will turn out. My guess is beautifully, haha. Pictures when finished!
For everyone that will be following, I wanted to leave you a few things:
My email address to send me a line, a paragraph, an epic novel or anything at all: xPaperCoversRock@yahoo.com
The CSing website: www.couchsurfing.org - To learn more about the community and see what it’s all about. Read the statistics and feel better about the project! :]
And finally, a list of all the places we will be staying:
Chicago, IL
Sioux Falls, SD
Rapid City, SD
Yellowstone National Park, WY
Seattle, WA
Portland, OR
San Francisco, CA
Los Angelos, CA
Las Vegas, NV
Farmington, NM
Amarillo, TX
Tulsa, OK
St. Louis, MO
Lastly, I wanted to send a shout out to all of my Speech classmates that will be following me along the way. Thank you guys!
