Off to the farm!

July 22, 2012

KROOMBIT TOPS NATIONAL PARK, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA -- Well, it was an early 515am wake-up and checkout today. After finishing packing we had breakfast and then boarded our ferry, saying goodbye to beautiful Daydream Island!

After only 15 minutes, we were back at Shute Harbour and on the mainland. We loaded up the coach, made our way back to the A1, and headed south from our northernmost point of the trip. Our day today was essentially two days ago - in reverse. Our first toilet stop was at Cane Land in Mackay, where we had lunch two days back. Our lunch stop was at the same BP service station we stopped at for toilets that same day. Lunch was actually pretty good though - a turkey and cheese sandwich with some cranberry spread. Delicious!

After lunch we crossed through Rockhampton and across the Tropic of Capricorn, back into the temperate zone, where we will remain the rest of our trip. Shortly after that, however, we finally branched off the A1 to head southwest into the countryside for our farm stay.

One random, interesting note from our conversations today on the coach. Our 60 passenger capacity coach is worth nearly $1 million, and can cover some 1500km on a single tank of gas for roughly $500. That's $1 per 120 passenger miles, which is quite fantastic compared to the $1 per 8 or 9 passenger miles we get in most of our cars at home, if we are driving alone. Overall, gasoline here converts to roughly $8 per gallon, double what we pay in the US. Think about that the next time you complain about gas prices going up!

We took the A3 southwest for a few hours, and eventually exited east into the foothills towards Kroombit, lost all our cell reception, and about 20 mins later arrived to Kroombit Farm for our farm stay. We arrived to some lukewarm hot chocolate, were assigned to our cabins, and then regrouped for dinner, which was steamed vegetables and gravy followed by some ice cream for dessert.

Following dinner we proceeded to a huge bonfire where we learned about the farm, a cattle farm, roasted marshmallows over the fire, sang a couple of Aussie songs, and then star-gazed at the Southern Cross and the Milky Way as the fire burnt out.  

July 22, 2012 - Singing and dancing by the fire at Kroombit Farm.

Great Barrier Reef

GREAT BARRIER REEF, AUSTRALIA – This morning we woke up to sunrise over the water, and I just knew it was going to be a good day. Why? Today we are going to the Great Barrier Reef! After a quick brekkie at the hotel, we boarded a 45 minute ferry over to Hamilton Island, the most populated (and popular) of the Whitsundays, and also home to the Great Barrier Reef Airport – many of the rich and famous people from around the world will fly into here in order to get to the reef. From the airport, we docked to the pier and switched boats to the much larger 320-passanger capacity ship that would be taking us to the reef itself. Once everyone was on board (our delegation of 50 people was part of 220 on the ship today), we set off from Hamilton on our two hour journey across the Coral Sea!

July 21, 2012 - Good morning from Daydream Island!

On our ride towards the reef, it wasn’t too rough, and only a couple of our students got sea sick. The staff on the ship was prepared for this and got them some ice cubes to chew on (which really helps with sea sickness quite a bit). Eventually we arrived at Hardy Reef, one of thousands of individual reef systems that collectively form the Great Barrier Reef, a UNESCO world heritage site and one of the seven natural wonders of the world.

At the Great Barrier Reef!

The colors of the water were truly spectacular – every type of blue and turquoise you can imagine – and they extended as far as the eye can see in every direction (the reef is some 2,000 miles long – about the width of the United States from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. – and its alive). The ship docked to a stationary pontoon float, and we first met with our private marine biologist Crystal over at the underwater observatory, where she talked about many of the different species of fish out in front of us, as well as the wall of the reef itself, which we could make out in the distance through the water. After our lecture we went back over to our ship and had a light lunch, because following lunch it was time to jump in the water!

Scuba Diving at the Great Barrier Reef!

The students put on their colorful stinger suits (even though it isn’t the right season, you never know if a jellyfish will still be around off-season, so the prudent thing to do is wear the suits for protection anyway), flippers, masks, and mouthpieces, and they were ready to jump in! As they were doing so, the other leaders and I decided to do an introductory scuba dive! I have never been scuba diving before, and it was certainly not cheap, but what the heck, of all the places to do it for the first time, you can’t possibly top this! A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to scuba dive the great barrier reef? That’s what People to People and I are all about!

We got our wet suits, weight belts, and oxygen tanks on, and then got into the cold water (about 65F) to put on our flippers and masks too. We started to practice breathing, and it was very strange, just like snorkeling for the first time. With the water being a bit chilly, I was breathing faster normally, which only worsened the cause. After about 15 minutes of practice I got comfortable with it and swam over to an underwater rope about 2 meters under. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get my ears to pop, which is basically the only thing (along with your oxygen) that really has to work in order to dive. I kept getting different pressure on both sides and having to come back to the surface to start over. About 20 mins of this back-and-forth between the surface and 2 meters later, the staff was about ready to give up on me, and it was seeming pretty hopeless to me as well. Eventually the head diver came out and we tried 6 different ways to pop the ears at 2 meters under – sure enough one of them worked! I basically had to turn my head 75 degrees to the left while holding my nose and blowing out for a good three seconds in order to do it, but once that was settled, we were off for real!

We swam over to the reef and it was stunning. There were thousands of fish in every direction, corals as soft as hair (that we could actually touch), and at our maximum depth of around 15 meters, we saw a sand shark (tasseled wobbegong) sleeping on the reef floor! Too cool! I went a little trigger-happy with my new underwater camera, which worked to perfection, and took a ton of photos and videos from underwater – they turned out great (see a video compilation I put together below)! Overall it was a memory for a lifetime, and I can’t wait to do it again sometime! It’s funny – the 45 mins of preparing for the dive felt like four hours, and the 30 mins of actual diving felt like about four minutes, haha.

Leaving the Reef

On our return journey to Hamilton Island we got some great photos leaving the reef, and after a few minutes a couple students came down to report that they had seen whales from the bow! I led the charge to the top deck to be on lookout, and within about three minutes of getting there the waters got so rough that the ship staff actually forbid us from leaving our seats! I really didn’t mind it being up there, but us leaders felt terrible for our DM Anthony! We had a few students with us, so we were able to keep an eye on them, but 30 mins later when the waters finally calmed down we were allowed to go down and upon surveying the damage, we had 16 students on the ground in the back of the ship seasick. Luckily, with calmer waters and some ice from the ship crew, within a little while everyone was fine, and shortly thereafter we were arriving back into Hamilton for our much calmer journey back to Daydream Island for the night.

Back to the Whitsunday Islands

The Great Barrier Reef: CHECK!

Daydreaming

July 20, 2012

DAYDREAM ISLAND, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA – What a great conclusion to our day, on a private island resort! Ahhhh… but let’s start at the beginning.

This morning we were up early for our departure, and once again the students did a pretty good job with it. We had a quick breakfast and then hit the A1 north. Most of our day was spent traveling on the coach. I checked a bunch of the students journals and it was good to see how great all of them are doing! A few of the girls journals were really something fabulous – they will be able to keep this and enjoy it for the rest of their lives! A few of the boys need some work, but the good news is that there is plenty of time to catch up and improve!

We eventually made it up to Mackay, the sugarcane capital of Australia. About halfway between Yeppoon/Rockhampton and Mackay the fields noticeably shifted from cattle to sugarcane, and right now they are pretty much a fully-grown 14 feet tall. We had lunch at Cane Land, which sounds like a cheesy toddler’s holiday-themed park, but recognizing that is an American-centric way of thinking, Cane Land is named as such for the very logical reason that the city is built on sugar cane exports. Cane Land is actually a brand new mall that would have fit in over in Dubai, it was so new and spotless, although it was a little small for that. In any event, we had vouchers at the food court, and many of the students tried new things. I tried my hand at some Australian fast food, Red Rooster, a chicken-themed place that is probably best compared to Chik-fil-A in the US.

July 20, 2012 - At the OUCH presentation on the Great Barrier Reef.

After lunch we continued north on the A1 into the Whitsunday region of the coast, and finally turned off the A1 towards Airlie Beach, where we visited OUCH, a private NGO that is dedicated to preserving the Great Barrier Reef through education of marine biology. We learned about various types of coral, fish, turtles, whales, sharks, and the other plants and animals that collectively make the Great Barrier Reef the largest organism-built structure on the planet, visible from the moon! A few people made donations – mostly some spare change – and then we continued over to Shute Harbour, where we unloaded the coach, locked it up, and then hopped on a ferry from the mainland!

Sunset from Mermaid Beach, Daydream Island - stunning!

About 15 minutes later, we arrived at Daydream Island! On our arrival we all received a lei of seashells, and noticed we had gained another 30 mins of sunlight by driving northwest all day, which was a nice realization! We took some pictures with a few mermaid statues at the north end of the island, while watching the sun set over the bay – a beautiful ending to a long day of travel. After dinner, we had a movie screening at an outdoor theater on the island, right on the ocean. On our walk back to our rooms after, the stars were so fabulously bright that not only could you clearly make out the Southern Cross, but we could see the entire Milky Way in splendid glory – truly a sight to remember!

Okay, so this isn't from Australia, but the Milky Way was truly spectacular!

Running with Kangaroos

With apologies for the delay, the rest of this trip's posts are coming now...

July 19, 2012

YEPPOON, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA – This morning, as part of my Chicago Marathon training, I got up at dawn and started running across our beautiful resort towards the coast. Only a third of a mile into my run, I turned a corner and ground to a complete stop as quickly as I could. Directly in front of me, just a few feet away, there were no less than 30 HUGE kangaroos. Up on their hind legs, ears flared, they were taller than me! These wild kangaroos were much taller than the ones we saw at Lone Pine. I took a few moments to enjoy the moment, in the faint light of dawn, and then very slowly walked backwards, eventually continuing my seven mile run in the other direction. The similar Chicago-area running comparison would be running into about 30 massive deer – usually you see a couple, and it’s exciting if you see seven or eight, but THIRTY? Crazy!

The run itself went well – I actually did see a few more solo kangaroos throughout the run, and found that my fastest strides were when they were running alongside me. Not intentionally, but subconsciously when wild animals are running with you, you pick up the pace!

After a quick shower and some breakfast, Kerri, Kelly, three students, and I took the same path I had earlier to the beach, and it was gorgeous! Most of the students hung out by the pool, but my logic was that you can go to a pool anywhere – seeing the sun over the Pacific in Australia is a pretty cool Aussie thing to do! In any case, their loss, and the small group of us got some fun pictures with our feet in the water, or collecting seashells.

July 19, 2012 - Beautiful morning at our private resort beach in Yeppoon, Queensland!

Eventually the delegation set off for Capricorn Caves, a national park where the real treasure is underneath, but the forested area above ground is also protected and important. When we arrived, four students got the honor of planting a tree in the “People to People garden." Afterwards the entire delegation helped in pulling weeds from a section of the forest where they were overgrown – all told we collected and tossed five huge rubbish bags worth of weeds - not too shabby!

Lunch at the national park was fine, and after we were done we got to the real highlight of the caves – naturally, the caves themselves. We had a walking tour into the heart of the caves, home to hundreds of thousands of bats at any given time. In Australia, bats are looked at quite positively, as they will eat tens of thousands of insects in a single day! As we were walking around in the mud at the bottom of the caves, we learned that it actually wasn’t mud, but bat droppings! The students appreciated that one, haha. One of the more interesting areas of the caves is “the Cathedral,” a room with near-perfect acoustics. Two of our students had the honor of singing the Star Spangled Banner from the stage, in front of everyone, and they did great! Apparently you can also get married there – who knew you could get married in a cave? Why not, I guess. :P

July 19 - Inside "The Cathedral," Capricorn Caves

From the Capricorn Caves we drove a short bit over to the Dreamtime Aboriginal Cultural Experience, and we were divided into two groups. One half of the delegation heard a lecture on the history and culture of the Aboriginal people, while the other threw boomerangs, and then the two groups switched. The boomerang throwing was quite cool – each of us got two throws. The artwork of the boomerang should always be on the inside, and you hold it like a gun as a starting position. My first throw was terrible – it bounced on the ground and then curved a bit to the left. My second throw, however, was much better and it came about 80% of the way back to me. With some real practice I am sure I could get the hang of it. Like throwing a Frisbee, it’s all about your wrist, not raw power. As such, I bought a couple boomerangs to bring home and figure this out! 

Throwing a boomerang! 

After we were done buying souvenirs we entered the theater and heard the didgeridoo for the first time. A few minutes into it, four dancers came out and performed a number of Aboriginal dances to various tunes. At the end we all took a group photo with them (no comment on their BO…). We wrapped up the day with a dinner they cooked for us, which wasn’t anything that special, EXCEPT for the fact that we got to try crocodile, and it was delicious! I am a very picky eater, but am always up for trying new things while traveling, and the croc was (as many things are) very similar to chicken – I would certainly have it again.

Our entire delegation with the Aboriginal dancers.

   

To the Tropics!

July 18, 2012

ROCKHAMPTON, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA – It was another early 6am wakeup call for the delegation, with a 630 checkout from our hotel. All of our luggage was loaded and keys collected by 704am – pretty impressive for our first checkout thus far!

We had breakfast at the hotel, then departed on the A1 motorway north for the Rockhampton area, some 600km+ away. The A1 motorway is the primary road up the east coast of Australia (and in fact the entire country of Australia), and goes from Sydney to Cairnes and beyond – we will be spending most of our trip driving up and down the A1. For the first time, it is actually raining during daytime, but since we’re on the coach it isn’t such a big deal – if it’s going to rain, we have pretty good timing actually.

Four hours of coach riding and contemporary pop hits later, we arrived at Gin Gin, a small country town right off the motorway. We visited the Gin Gin Primary School, grades 1-7, which has 372 students from as far as a one hour bus ride away – quite the daily round trip commute! For the past 21 years, People to People students have been visiting the school, donating school supplies (as we did), books (their library has more on American history than most US school libraries do), and money in the form of lunches. As we were having lunch at Gin Gin, they get a small profit from each lunch, and the funds are put back into the school. Over a thousand delegations worth of lunches later, and the school has gone from below-average to the second-best test scores in all of Queensland! We ate our lunch (with a delicious mini meat pie) over a short lecture, and then got to meet and play with the students during their recess. They were all smiles, and plenty of waves and high fives went around. It was definitely another unique “People to People moment.”

July 18 - Visiting Gin Gin State School, Queensland

Our entire delegation donated several large bags of school supplies as part of our community service

After our school visit, we continued north along the A1 until we eventually made it to Rockhampton, the cattle capital of Australia, and the Tropic of Capricorn! Upon entering the tropics, we found that most of the students had never been to the tropics before, which was cool for them. We got off the coach and took photos at the sign, just as the rain held off for a bit. 

We made it to the tropics!!!

Beaches and Aquariums, Aussie Style!

July 17, 2012

CALOUNDRA, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA – After we all got a much-needed full night’s sleep, in a bed, we woke up to a traditional English breakfast at the hotel, and a few students tried out the vegemite. Most of them were okay with it or even seemed to enjoy it!

July 17 - Our lovely hotel from brekky!

During our free time after breakfast, I headed out for a run! As readers of this blog know, I am currently training for the Chicago Marathon, and as such, while it is inevitable I will miss a few runs, I am going to try as much as possible to get some runs in. I only needed to do four miles today, so I found the beach path a few blocks from our hotel and took it down and back from central Caloundra, all while the sun was reflecting off the waves towards us – it was beautiful, with more good weather on our side!

After the run (and a quick shower), we boarded the coach and ironically had lunch at Sizzler, of all places. In any event, it was quite good, and most of the students got to try traditional Aussie dessert pavlova, which I have had before and like a lot! It is very sugary but once in awhile, that is great!

Amazing TL's at Mooloolaba Beach (from left: Stephanie, Kelly, Me, Kerri, Paula)

From lunch we headed to Mooloolaba Beach for the afternoon. Everyone put their feet in the water, took some photos of the waves, got some sun, collected seashells, and threw around a Frisbee or an Aussie-rules rugby football. We had a couple of hours in the sun and water, and then we went to nearby Underwater World, which is essentially a world-class aquarium in a small town on the water, much like Monterey, CA or Seward, Alaska.

Students learning about salt water fish at Underwater World

At Underwater World we had a special private twilight after-hours tour, another one of those unique things People to People gets, and it was really great to see all of the exhibits without fighting crowds or anything. We had two tour guides with us in the exhibits, and we got a private seal show (that was really impressive – the seal standing on one arm while balancing a ball on its nose, that sort of thing), where one of our students got to actually feed the seal! We saw sea otters (one’s name was Kaos, with a K, and another Mayhem, haha), and we got to hold a turtle, starfish, and other sea creatures too!  We had dinner at Underwater World, then received program completion certificates, and retired back to our Caloundra hotel for the night. 

Sweet, Cuddly Koalas...

July 16, 2012

BRISBANE, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA – We had an absolutely fabulous day on arrival to Australia! Brisbane had seen rain every day for two weeks straight, and we were quite prepared for some lousy weather, but as we descended and the sun came up, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky! Once we landed, we had a brief quarantine on the plane (something new for me), then did the standard painful hour wait for no reason at immigration. We all got our stamps, nobody lost any luggage, and then did the K-9 sniffer dog lines for customs, and luckily everyone listened and the dogs didn’t find anything.

We turned the corner into the public area of the airport, made a left, and there was our Delegation Manager, Anthony! To give you a little background, Anthony just did this trip with another group before us, and in total we are his fourth People to People delegation over two summers. Beyond that, however, he has some extremely impressive travel experience, having been to six continents (I am giving him a bit of a hard time about Antarctica, haha), but he has also been to some 85ish countries, WAY more than whatever number I am at (I think around 30).

After we met Anthony, some of the students exchanged $USD to $AUD, and we headed off to meet Rob, our coach driver while we are here in Queensland. We loaded the coach and set off on our first coach ride as a full delegation – our first destination? The Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary!!!

The Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary is a private non-profit that started off with just two Koalas, but has since grown to the size of a large zoo, protecting all kinds of Australian animals – some are popular, like the koala and the kangaroo, and others are rare birds and other species that most people don’t even know. Everyone got to hold a koala, which was awesome! When I was at Taronga Zoo in Sydney in August 2011, I paid extra for the “koala experience” that got me very up and close to them, but I wasn’t allowed to touch the koala. Here, not only were we touching them, but holding them in a big koala hug! It was really quite awesome – the koala smelled horrible, but that’s mainly a product of them eating nothing but eucalyptus leaves all day long. Their cuteness and the softness of their fur was more than worth it, even factoring in the smell. In addition to the koalas, students fed kangaroos and their baby joeys, saw a very active platypus, a Tasmanian devil, and other animals. We also saw the “Birds of Prey” show, where one of our students actually got to have a bird land on her arm, which was impressive given the wingspan of the bird was about as wide as she is tall.

July 16, 2012 - Holding an ADORABLE Koala at Lone Pine, Queensland!

After our first real Australian meal at Lone Pine (chips with tomato sauce = fries with ketchup), we had a short city tour of the city of Brisbane. Brisbane is the third-largest city in Australia (after Sydney and Melbourne) and is the capital of Queensland, which as a state essentially covers the northeast corner of the country, along with the Great Barrier Reef (which runs adjacent to the Queensland coast). In addition to Brisbane’s Parliament House, one really interesting place we passed by was General Douglas MacArthur’s US Pacific WWII HQ, a building in the CBD (CBD = Central Business District = “Downtown”). By hosting the US HQ for the Pacific theater of war, Brisbane became the most important city between Honolulu and Tokyo. Everybody knows all about the battles at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Did you know their preparations and logistics were made from Brisbane? We also saw Cathedral Square and Brisbane Square, the two main central parts of the CBD, and the Botanical Gardens, which lay adjacent to the Brisbane River. In late-2010/early-2011 the Brisbane River flooded to historical levels, due to torrential rains combined with poor dam management upriver. The resulting floods made international and even US news, which you may recall – standing some 30+ feet above the current water level, Anthony told us we would have been underwater at the height of those floods. Pretty hard to imagine all of that water flowing through the middle of a major city.

Next stop is Caloundra, a small town an hour north of here on the coast, where we will be staying two nights.

LAX-BNE

Hey Everyone! I'm FINALLY hooked up to some decent wifi, and as such am going to start posting my blog entries going back to last week, in order, as per Antarctica. Here's the first one!

July 14-16, 2012:

SOMEWHERE OVER THE PACIFIC OCEAN – Well, nearly a year of preparation later, we are finally underway! Having only been to Sydney, I am most excited to head to Queensland and see a lot of a new part of Australia.

After one last In-N-Out burger, Paula and I met our delegates at one of their houses, took some departure photos, loaded up the coach, and we set off for LAX! Most of the students were a bit sad to say goodbye to their parents, but after a few minutes on the coach we were excited to be officially on the People to People Exploring Australia trip! At LAX, check-in and security were smooth, our gate was very close, and after about 30 minutes we met Kerri, Kelly, and Stephanie, the three other Teacher Leaders on our trip with Paula and I, and the rest of the students from Pennsylvania – we have 44 in total. Those guys flew from Philadelphia to Dallas and onto LAX – needless to say, they were pretty tired by the time we even met them.

About an hour later we all boarded our QF (Qantas) flight 16, a classic Boeing 747-400 double-decker jumbo jet to Brisbane! A few of our students had never even been on a plane before, so they sure got quite the introduction to flying with a 14-hour version!

July 14, 2012 - Our CA delegation departure photo!

Most of us were seated together. I was next to R’Rian, one of our LA-area students, and we had a bit of an adventure from the start. She had a safe lock on her backpack, which is fine, except what she swore was the code, 1-2-1, was not working. Uhhh… uh oh! I tried fiddling around with it for a bit and nothing was doing. After 15 mins of random guessing, I got a little methodological with it and decided I would try every combination, starting with 0-0-0. About 40 mins later, 2-3-3 did the trick, and needless to say she won’t be using that safe lock anymore!

That bit of fun aside, most of us started watching our movies and we were in the air to Australia! To the right we could see the lights of Ventura, and then that was about it! Nothing but the largest ocean in the world, the Pacific, between us and our destination. I watched 21 Jump Street, which was actually quite good, and had some decent chicken breast for dinner. Most of the students were pleasantly surprised by the food as well. After dinner I dozed off to sleep…

About seven hours later, I woke up to see we were over halfway into our flight, had crossed the international date line, and as such it was July 16 – July 15, 2012 will never exist in our lives. Kind of crazy. Dawn slowly approached the plane from behind as we were served breakfast, and we began our descent into Brisbane! 

Next Stop: Queensland!

SAN PEDRO, CA -- Well, only two more days until I am off and at 'em once again! I know, I know, not all that surprising or impressive at this point, but I am finally wrapping up an incredibly busy week of work and starting to get excited about this trip!

I will be traveling with People to People Student Ambassador Programs, as is usually the case when I am not traveling for work or personal vacation, and I am thrilled for all of the students I will be traveling with for a couple of weeks! For most of them, they have never left the United States - indeed, most of the passports are so new you can hardly open them. Many of them have never left their home states of California (half of the group is from the LA-area) or Pennsylvania (the other half is from PA). Needless to say, jumping on a 14-hour flight from LAX to BNE (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia) is not something anybody does everyday, and for an 11 or 12-year old, it is a truly life-changing experience to do this with your peers and in an academic setting.

I will save most of the preview for the trip for now, since I will be blogging as much as possible from the trip itself and it will be more fun to read "live" and with pictures, but in short, our itinerary takes us to Brisbane, up to Rockhampton, MacKay, the Great Barrier Reef via Daydream Island (yes, that is the actual name of the place), Toowoomba (yes, another real name, and the second-largest inland city in Australia), back to Brisbane, Sydney, and then back to LAX. My next post should be from Queensland!

Since my last post, I have actually stuck around the LA area for a change. Had a nice Independence Day in Santa Monica with some Penguin Highway members and other friends. Mainly, I have been RUNNING the past few weeks, and I am currently halfway through week six of 18 for my Chicago Marathon training. This week's schedule: Monday was a rest day, Tuesday I ran 3 miles in Burbank in 95F heat, yesterday I ran 6 miles in Burbank in 91F heat, today I'm running 3 miles down here in San Pedro in much cooler weather, tomorrow is off, and then Saturday morning I am doing a whopping 14 miles in Santa Monica, Venice Beach, Marina del Rey, and Malibu first thing in the morning before our Australia trip! Saturday's run will actually be my longest pure running run ever (I've done more distance, but with significant walking involved). A couple more stats... June was my second-best running month ever, at 79.2 miles, and as of last night, I have now crossed the 800-mile running mark since I started tracking and seriously running in August 2010!

Beyond that, work has been going really well, but as I mentioned earlier, I have been insanely busy - mostly a good thing though. Roger Federer smoked then-#1 Novak Djokovic in the Wimbledon semifinals and then dispatched hometown favorite and world #4 Andy Murray in the finals for his record 17th career Grand Slam win, tying him with 7 career Wimbledon wins, and restoring him to his rightful place as the #1 tennis player in the world. On Monday he will set a new record for 287 career weeks at #1... do the math and think about how insane that is. Oh, and he's 30. No big deal. Check out this excellent article on Roger that was posted today. Also, check out another excellent article focusing on Novak Djokovic, who was the world #1 for the past year, posted yesterday. I'll tease you with a couple quotes:

Article 1:

For me, the separation of Federer from everyone else comes in what he's done when he hasn't won. True, the 17 Grand Slams are bananas, but it's the 33 consecutive quarterfinal appearances in those Grand Slams that remain beyond comprehension and -- to me it is this fact that trumps almost all others' feats in all other sports -- that seven-year period in which Federer reached at least the semifinals in 23 straight Grand Slams. That is like Woods going seven years straight and never coming in worse than fourth in a major. Just let that marinate for a minute. Finished?

Monumental and epic, even. It really affirms the one element that characterizes greatness more than anything: Consistency. That separates Federer from sports icons and transcends into non-sports categories when trying to universally determine precisely what greatness is.

Article 2:

"My ass would get kicked so fast and so hard," says Ivan Lendl, the No. 1-ranked player through much of the 1980s.

"The level of play is mind-boggling," says John McEnroe, commentating for NBC during a recent match. "I'm still trying to figure out how these guys do it."

Here's how: In his rise to the top of his sport, Djokovic has turned himself into a case study of what it now requires to be No. 1. Every detail is crucial. Every angle is considered. Every moment a chance to gain an incremental edge.

His food is gluten-free. His drinks are a combination of half a dozen vitamins and minerals. His sleep sometimes comes in a hyperbaric chamber. His reading material is about body awareness and mindfulness. His stress is tested using a biofeedback device. His water is lukewarm during matches because cold fluid idles too long in the stomach. His free time is, in fact, "recovery time," arranged by a professional scheduler. His celebratory beer in the locker room after winning a tournament is just that -- a single beer, a reward meant to entice performance.

On that note, I am off for my next run. Have a great couple of days everybody, and I will post next from Australia!!! 

What do you do after all 7 continents and 50 states?

BURBANK, CA -- Well, what can I say? It has been over two months since my last post, and I've covered another 30,000+ miles around the world. I guess making it to all seven continents and all 50 states before my 25th birthday took a little of the spirit out of the blog, but have no fear, I am back with more posts and updates!

May 4, 2012 - Congratulations Brittany!

It would take forever to go through everywhere I have been since my last post, but in sum, I have been back home to Chicago three times - first, for my sister Brittany's graduation from Roosevelt University! I am so proud of her!!! The second trip was for Mother's Day, and the third was totally unexpected and just happened to be over my parents' 26-year anniversary! Beyond that, I also made it over to Arizona in April where I saw the Blackhawks beat the Phoenix Coyotes from the 5th row in OT - amazing game, though sadly the Hawks lost the series. The Los Angeles Kings eventually knocked out Phoenix en route to winning the Stanley Cup - it is nice having the Cup here in close proximity!

I also managed to make it to Las Vegas for Cinco de Mayo with some of the coolest people in the world - 11 of us Antarctica travelers spent a couple of nights on the Strip partying it up Penguin Highway style! I've been to San Diego three times and San Francisco once for work in the past couple of months, and also ventured over to New York as well. I only had a day, but managed to do the one NYC thing I hadn't made it to yet: the new September 11, 2001 National Memorial.

June 7, 2012 - 9/11 National Memorial. 

Overall I found the memorial to be very well done. There is still a ton of construction going on in the immediate area, and it will be much quieter as intended once all of that is done, but that said on the whole, I was impressed. It was also nice to actually be on the grounds. Since the first time I visited New York in 2005, I have never been able to get into the grounds, as they have been closed - being on the inside gave a completely different perspective.

One of the reflecting pools at the 9/11 National Memorial.

Most recently, a week ago I visited two United States National Parks: Sequoia and Kings Canyon. They are next to each other and operate as one unit by the National Park Service, and I would highly encourage everybody to visit. We camped at Sequoia National Park at around 6,000 feet in elevation, a nice change from the LA area. The most famous attraction at Sequoia NP is the park's namesake, the Sequoia Trees, which are the largest trees by volume in the world. Put another way, there is more wood in these trees than any other trees on earth. The largest of them, the General Sherman Tree, is 275 feet tall, 25 feet in diameter, and approximately 2,300-2,700 years old. To put that in perspective, Socrates was founding all of western philosophy at the same time this tree was born.

June 18, 2012 - General Sherman Tree, Largest Tree on Earth. Sequoia National Park.

Over at Kings Canyon National Park we took a beautiful 4-5 mile hike to Zumwalt Meadow, surrounded by thousand-foot tall granite cliffs.

June 17, 2012 - Zumwalt Meadow, Kings Canyon National Park.

One other piece of awesomeness from the past few months: I finally put together a video of my entire Antarctica trip, and it is rather spectacular. See the video below!



Make sure you watch the above in 1080p HD quality, and let me know what you think! G Adventures, the group I went on the trip with, picked up the video and put it on their facebook and twitter pages, which generated a lot of the traffic. I really do love the video though, and hope you enjoy it!

I am also running a ton! Immediately after my last post on all 50 states, I came back and that weekend set a PR running the 2012 Inaugural Hollywood Half Marathon, at 1:59:57 - under 2 hours! I really toned it down for the rest of April and all of May, and then three weeks ago flipped the switch and kicked it into gear. Why? Well, I signed up for the Chicago Marathon back in February, and the race is October 7th. To do an 18-week training program, my first day was back on June 4th! I ran 19 miles the first week, 20 miles the second week, and 17 miles last week. This week we take a pretty big jump up to 23 miles - first run is tomorrow! On the plus side I'm losing about a pound per week, which is nice too.

On the travel front, I don't have anything on the calendar this week, for the 4th of July next week, or the following. However, on July 14th I am flying over to Brisbane, Australia with People to People! I will be "Down Under" for about two weeks with some of the best and brightest students from Southern California and elsewhere - keep tuned to this space, and I will be sure to post some stories and photos from the trip while we are over there! Highlights: Brisbane (never been), Great Barrier Reef (never been), and Sydney (only been once). As we get closer, my excitement continues to build!

Until next time, have a fabulous week everybody, and I will be sure to post more frequently now that travel season is here!