It’s my turn to write a blog so bare with me. I can’t believe we were just in Key West, one of the coolest places I’ve ever been to. Probably because we were surrounded by palm trees and ocean blue water everywhere we went. I could’ve done nothing the whole time we were there and still been as happy as a clam. One of my favorite things to do is watch the sunset and Key West has a sunset celebration every night. Too bad for you guys my camera broke. Stephen forgot his though so I’ll be using that from now on. It isn’t as good as mine, but it will get the job done. If you’re reading this Stephen, thanks. We tried to rent a sailboat for an entire day so we could go exploring and watch the sunset on it, but that was a little out of our price range. You could easily spend a lot of money there going deep sea fishing or swimming with dolphins. Plan B was to rent a hobie cat (small sailboat) for an hour and cruise around. Crazy Captain Carson was in charge and took full advantage trying to get Ashley and I as wet as possible. At one point he wanted to try and make the wind tip the whole thing over and that’s when Ashley and I had to take over. This guy loves sailing more than anything in the world. Our alternative to deep sea fishing was to try and catch some fish ourselves off the shores, piers, and bridges. I did not have any luck, but crazy fisherman Carson had quite an unusual fishing experience catching everything from a crab to a barracuda to a sponge to a couple of other colorful fish. Ashley almost caught a huge one, but made a mistake when she handed her pole over to Carson and the fish got away. Another highlight of Key West was the sunset/snorkel sail. Sebago sailed us to the third largest living reef in the world. It was so much better than the first snorkeling tour in Key Largo. We saw turtles, barracudas, sting rays, a shark, and an array of tropical fish. On the way back they served us all you can drink wine and sodas while the sun went down. We went to the southernmost point in the continental United States and took a couple of pictures. There was a bum just waiting for tourists to come by so he could take their picture for them. He probably made 20 bucks the five minutes we were there. Now that’s what I call a smart hobo. A few other unique Key West highlights include: the original Margaritaville, all sorts of key lime pie, Smather’s Beach, six-toed cats at the Hemingway House, the birthplace of Panam, sunset at Mallory Square, and Duval St. Key West is definitely a place I will have to revisit in the future.

Sunday morning, Carson, Lieu, and I headed off to the beautiful Florida Keys. I have been looking forward to the Keys ever since we started planning this adventure, and let me tell ya, it has met my expectations. We arrived in Key Largo around noon on Sunday and went snorkeling at John Pennekamp State Park where they have a mock Spanish ship wreck underwater. Although it was not the most impressive place to snorkel, it was still fun to see. About twenty minutes after we got in the water, a thunder storm came through so we got out of the water. I don’t know if you are aware, but thunderstorms down here mean business, so we quickly headed back to our campsite to make sure our tent was going to weather the storm. By the time we got to our tent, it was dumping water. Literally the rain was coming down in sheets and our tent was in a two inch puddle of water with all our pillows, sheets and sleeping pads inside. Carson ran out of the car as our tent started to blow away and put it back on the ground as I drove the car firmly against one corner of the tent in hopes that it would not blow away again. Needless to say, we survived the storm. Our stuff did get wet and we did not have the most comfortable sleep that night, but we managed.

Sunday evening we decided that we wanted to try our luck at fishing. We did not have much luck.

Monday was a big day for eBUS live. We woke up early to catch a snorkeling boat that took us off shore about 5 miles to a coral reef. We saw some fabulous fish of all shapes, sizes and colors; we even saw some lobsters, and Conch Shells! It was great to just get out on the water and put our snorkel masks to good use. After we got off the boat, we headed to out next destination in the Keys, Long Key. On our way over here, we saw this lonely island that was not too far off shore, so we pumped up our kayaks and headed off into the blue waters towards Indian Key. It took us a while to get there, but it was well worth our efforts. We had the entire island to ourselves! It actually was a cool place to visit because of its history (wikipedia “Indian Key” for more info). We spent some time walking around and relaxed on our very own private dock. The sun was starting to go down, so we headed back for the ‘mainland’; only this time we made it back in about 15 minutes (I think the current must have been with us because it took us much longer to get there than 15 minutes). Because we made it back so quickly, we still had plenty of daylight, so we found a nice fishing bridge and fished and watched the sun set over the water. We had quite different luck this time when Carson pulled puffer fish out of the water. It was quite a battle getting the hook out of its mouth and it puffed up a few times, but after some convincing, the hook came out and we let the fish go… we’re pretty sure it survived. Tomorrow morning we are off to Key West at mile 0! I am sure we will have more exciting stories and pictures up soon.

-Ashley

After the Everglades, we wanted to get in some more southern Florida action before the Keys.  We decided to go to the famous West Palm Beach area.  At first we drove around the area and saw all the fancy hotels and houses where the rich and famous live.  John MacArthur State Park was our first choice in beaches because it had public showers.  Carson and I got in some snorkeling right before the thunderstorm hit.  We saw lots of colorful fish and we caught our first glimpse of a shark just a few feet away from us.  It was exciting but we had to get out of the water because of the lightning in the area.  We showered in the lightning and the rain and then hid under a shack for about half an hour before we made it back to our car.  We went back to our bus to rest up for the Florida Keys.

After spending some time housekeeping, we eventually headed out to the Florida Everglades for a couple of days. We arrived in the Everglades around five o’clock and went to our camping area…out of hundreds of sites, it looked like A5 was going to be the only site occupied that night. That’s because it was 150 degrees at night with one million mosquitoes per square foot. So we set up our tent and canopy as quickly as possible and lit our Off candle to try and protect us from Malaria and West Nile. Night time was rapidly approaching us, so we decided to go on a few hikes; Mahogany Hammock Trail and Pahayokee Overlook. Mahogany was like a dense jungle with unique vegetation in the middle of the “River of Grass”; in Layman’s terms, tree island. Mahogany Hammock was cool, but we wanted a more spectacular view of the river at sunset. We got to Pahayokee Overlook and realized we were in the right place. We climbed on the roof of the overlook and watched the sun descend into the abyss. After getting back to the campsite, we managed to make it through dinner with the raccoons, which we thought were gators and attempted to sleep the rest of the night without getting eaten alive. Day one bug bite count: Lieu-23, Ashley-12, Carson 10.

We wanted to get an overview of the Everglades because it’s ginormous, so we took a boat cruise around to see more of what the Everglades had to offer. It was a nice cruise and we learned a lot from a hippie, but the best part was seeing the crocs near the marina. After our croc sighting, we decided we needed to see a gator because there are 900 American Crocodiles and over a million gators. So we went to Anhinga Trail to meet the infamous gators ourselves. As we were walking over the boardwalk we heard a splash in the background and turned around to see our first gator. He was a cute little guy, about 4’7’’ with a nice set of teeth. Carson decided to pet him on the head with a branch, but to our surprise the gator did not appreciate Carson’s affection and bit the branch with authority. The next gator encounter was even better; no fences or obstructions between him and us. Our adrenalin was pumping because the gator came out of the water, opened his mouth, and hissed at us from a mere five feet away. Eventually he backed down, eBUS live 1, gator 0.

Our next destination was to ride a fan boat through the Everglades “River of Grass”. To our delight we also got a great gator show including holding baby gators. Check the pics. The fan boat driver was the man. We mobbed through the “River of Grass” with all sorts of donuts and 360’s. It was a blast. We headed back to the bus to prepare for our next adventure, the Florida Keys. Day two bug bite count: Lieu-37, Carson-21, Ashley-16.

Stephen drove all through the night but we finally made it to our obvious resting point, Walmart, only this time it was in Miami. Of course, what did we do when we woke up the first day, we headed off to the beach, South Beach to be exact. After just a few minutes walking on the beach to find a spot to post up we quickly noticed things worked a little different down here. I guess I’ll just say the European girls have different customs than the American ones on the beach. The sand was nice and the ocean was clean and warm. We even saw a 4 foot sting ray swimming around, don’t worry they are generally harmless. We headed back to the car early because the Camry was struggling a little bit and we wanted to make sure everything was alright before all the stores/mechanics closed shop. Mechanic Carson took a while, but eventually we got a new battery, alternator, and belt and the Camry was back in action. Later that afternoon we took a cruise around the waters of Miami. We saw all sorts of cool ocean front mansions including Shaq’s house and Tony Montana’s house. If I had a few million I wouldn’t mind having a winter house next to Shaq’s. After the cruise we walked around South Miami a bit, Lincoln street in particular. Just before we were going to get a bite to eat Stephen received a phone call with some terrible news, one of our good friends from Junior High/High School pasted away in a plane accident. Stephen talked about it in his blog, but I just wanted to say a few quick things.

David Schlosser was a great guy and I had many good times with him. He was always smiling and having a great time. His enthusiasm was infectious as everyone he came in contact with just wanted to have a good time too. I won’t go in to any stories or memories, but I just wanted to say that David was a great guy and he will be missed by many.

It was difficult continuing our adventure and trying to keep living our lives to the fullest while in the back of our minds we could only focus on the tragic events that had transpired. We ate a quite dinner and went back to the bus to try and get some sleep.

The next day we went to one of the coolest places I’ve ever been. Others may not like it as much as I did, but I guess I just have a weird interest in primates. We went to this place outside Miami called Monkey Jungle. We saw hundreds of different primates including Orangutans, Gorillas, Spider Monkeys, and Capuchins. Feeding them was one of the best parts because they are so smart. All you have to do is put the monkey food in a cup and they pull it up with their opposable thumbs out of the cage that we were walking through. I think you just have to experience it to know what I’m talking about. The other best part was when they would fight; apparently they have to battle for ranking and the higher the rank the more easily you can dominate others for food and mating. Watching monkeys fly at each other from limbs and land in the water was hilarious. Anyway, it was awesome, but eventually we had to leave and head to the beach, we were getting cooked alive in the jungle. We went to Crandon beach just south of Miami, which features volleyball, public showers, and coconut palm trees all over the beach. It was a pretty cool place, we even got some coconuts and cracked them open just for fun. After the beach we were off to a classic Miami establishment known as Mangos to meet Alicia and Mechelle for dinner. Mangos was interesting with all these Latino salsa dancers all over the place serving us food and dancing on pedestals. It was fun to see some people we knew finally, but it was a short meeting and the girls had to take off. We pushed on and went to a local club. It wasn’t what you think of when you think Miami clubs, but apparently there is no cool place on a Tuesday night. Even though we tried to go out and have a good time on Stephen’s last night it was hard with David in the back of our minds. Ashley and I went back to the bus to go to bed and Stephen and Lieu stayed up for an all-nighter so that he could sleep on the plane ride home. In the morning Stephen left to begin his real life back in Washington. We were all sad to see him go. Despite his joking about the heat all the time and his constant sweating he was defiantly a big part of the trip thus far. He added lots of laughs and good times which I’m sure we will all never forget.

- Carson

34 hours before my eBUS live trip came to an end; I was informed of some abysmal news. David Schlosser, a long term friend, had lost his life in a plane crash. The news was surreal. I attempted to suppress the news and enjoy my remaining hours on eBUS, as I expected Dave would have wanted me to, but reality eventually set in. As my eBUS buzz wore off on the flight back to Seattle it really hit me and I broke down in tears for a majority of the flight… I was never going to hear Dave’s laugh again.

Anyone who was friends with, knew, or ever crossed paths with Dave will always smile at the thought of him. Dave was always energetic and made everything in his life fun. I hated wrestling conditioning, but when you had Dave next to you singing some annoying tune you could not help but get a chuckle out of it. I could fill this entire blog up with various stories from myself and others (see Dean’s blog). The reason behind me writing this on the eBUS blog is partially to help me mourn the loss of a friend, but also because I think everyone can learn something from Dave. Dave truly did ‘live life to the fullest,’ every day, minute, and second. Not to say that he was always doing something crazy, like a cross country road trip, but he was able to find pleasure in the littlest of things.

My eBUS experience was one that I will take with me for the rest of my life. I was able to go and see things that I may never see again. As I start my career, I wonder how many times I will ever be able to take a month and a half vacation to do something of this sort. With the past few days on my mind, I sure hope that I end up on adventures such as this one many more times in my life. The trip gave me a real appreciation for life; we met so many great people and saw some breathtaking landscapes. As my fellow eBUS live companions venture on throughout the United States, I hope the best for them and ask them to continue to enjoy themselves and ‘live life to the fullest.’

If you’d like to read more stories on David Schlosser, Dean Mitchell has set up a blog:

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=38040828&blogID=289109098

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=38040828&blogID=289217429

Many of these stories involve college partying, but there was much more to Dave than that. Although Dave was a blast to party with, he was the ‘life of the party’ in all aspects of life. My thought and prayers go out to Dave’s family. We love ya Dave.

After PCB we were off to Tampa. The drive was ridiculously long but luckily we had planned on stopping in Crystal River, which is 80 miles north of Tampa, to try and swim with the manatees (if you don’t know what manatees are you need to check them out, Google image search manatee). We got to Crystal River at like 5 AM and slept at a rest area. The next day we attempted to swim with the manatees but actually just went snorkeling for a few hours. We headed to town that night.

Our first day in Tampa we decided to go to the beach, but not just any beach, the number one beach in the country according to Dr. Beach of USA Today. It was called Fort De Soto and it was just south of St. Petersburg across the bay from Tampa. I don’t know if it was the best overall beach, but the sand was quite spectacular. Ashley described it best as “powdered sugar”. The water was warm and clear and came as a disappointment to Stephen only because cold water was never on our agenda despite our need for a refreshing dip and according to him he was always sweating and hot pretty much the whole trip. On our way back from the beach we decided to grab a bite to eat in Ybor City. It’s not so much a city as it is an area near downtown. The area was initially created to be a cigar manufacturing city hence its current nickname Cigar City. The neighborhood was nice; there were a lot of bars, a lot of tattoo parlors, and a lot of cigar shops. Of course we had to buy one just to fit in so Ashley and I purchased a cigar rolled by a Cuban master roller. We headed back early; we were getting up at 5 the next day.

For the first and probably last time in this adventure we woke up while it was still dark and hoped in the car and headed back up north to Crystal River. Somehow when we didn’t see any manatees the first time it became my goal to swim with them before I left Florida, and according to all my research the best time to have a chance as seeing them in the summer is 7 AM in Crystal River. After hours a kayaking Ashley and I found a group of 4-5 manatees. It was awesome, I jumped in the water and started swimming with them, but it was a little intense because when they swam they kicked up dirt so you could hardly see anything except for what was 2 feet in front of you. So all of a sudden when I was swimming I would see a gigantic tale or just a section of one of their sides. They can get up to 12 feet long and 3500 lbs so I definitely couldn’t see their whole body at once. Ashley swam with them too. Later Stephen and Lieu showed up from their exploration and the pack was gone but luckily we found a straggler and they were able to see these hilarious creatures as well. After kayaking and swimming for about 6 hours and getting a healthy burn we decided it was time to leave Crystal River. We headed down to Tarpon Springs just north of Tampa for some food and a little tourist action. Tarpon Springs is famous for being founded by Greeks who were big in the natural sponge market. So we bought into it and ate some gyros and bought some sponges. We were all pretty tired and it was over 100 that day so we headed back early for the night.

Since Stephen is leaving in a couple days from Miami we decided to head straight down there a little early so he could see the sites a bit. We’ll probably miss a few things in Tampa and maybe Sarasota, but that’s alright because we’re headed to one of the top destinations in the country.

- Carson

Panama City Beach was our first destination in Florida. We quickly found out that this is what Kenny Chesney sings about in Keg in the Closet and we instantly felt cooler being there. We arrived in the middle of the night and Stephen and I ventured out to the ocean and enjoyed a long walk on the beach together, is that bad? The first thing we saw when we stepped onto the sand was a volleyball court. Instantly the trash talking began, and I was unable to sleep with anticipation of kicking Stephen’s butt in volleyball and spending the whole day at the beach. The following day was sunny and beautiful. The beach was lined with resorts as far as the eye could see. We were excited to spend the whole day there. Early afternoon 2 on 2 beach volleyball began. Ashley, a former college volleyball player, was on my team, so I had the obvious advantage. As game one began, I quickly realized how characteristics such as effort, teamwork, and domination were all traits that Carson and Stephen had a lot of. At certain times it sounded as if the ocean waves were playing the sweet tune of “Playing with the Boys” by Kenny Logins (as heard in the volleyball scene of Top Gun). They moved so quickly and gracefully, it was tough to tell if we were playing men or gazelles. Quickly they turned a single victory into four straight, and I left the day frustrated, but eager for a rematch in Miami. The rest of the day turned out to be a nice relaxing day on the beach. It was a short stop, but definitely well worth it. The day came to an end and we headed off towards Tampa.

After a long few days in Chicago working for CAbi it was nice to get back to the bus. Sure the beds and showers were amazing, but 16 hour days inside a convention center made the showers seem pretty worthless. Mobile, AL seemed like a nice small southern town on the Gulf, but I didn’t really see much of the city to know it that well. Lieu was off working in Dallas for CAbi, but Ashley, Steven and I explored the area a bit. The first day in town we went to Dauphin Island and hung out at the beach. The island was really nice, the sand was clean and white, and the houses were on 15 foot stilts. I don’t know if it was just a bad day or if the three of us are unlucky but we all were stung by jellyfish when we went swimming in the ocean. Mine was particularly uncomfortable as it continued to sting for over a day and left a bruise on my leg. I determined jellyfish in general are evil creatures that we should extinct. (Actually I don’t really know what purposes they serve in the world, but I do know they cause me pain). That night we went to a pretty cool restaurant on the bay with live music and a deck over the water. Lieu recommended it to us because he went there with our RV park mate Bob while we were in Chicago. Apparently they had a pretty nice time together because they went out the next night to Mexican food and fireworks. Anyway, Bob was a great neighbor while it lasted. Today we went to the Mobile Greyhound Park and bet on some dog races. By the way, it’s completely different from horses. There is no way of knowing which dog is going to win, or even do well. Maybe because they are just dogs chasing a white fluffy thing, I don’t know but there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the results, it never correlated with the odds. It was a blast though, I laughed the whole time. Watching the dogs pull over for a pee break on their way to the gates, what a ridiculous spectacle. Tonight we picked Lieu up from the airport after his long few days working and we’re off to Florida. We have many stops in Florida so check back soon for some good stuff.

- Carson

For the past few days Carson, Stephen and I have been in Chicago.  This time, it was all work and no play; quite a new concept for eBUS live.  One of our good friends, Chelsey Taylor, works for a company who needed some extra trustworthy help for one of their conventions, so they asked eBUS live if we would be willing to help them out.  Needless to say, we had a lot of work cut out for us, about 24 hours of work in a 60 hour time frame.  We did not get to see the city much, but we made a few dollars to help pay for our fun adventures to come.  Carson, Stephen and I are waiting to pick up Lieu this evening (he is doing the same job we had in Dallas) and then we are off to Florida.  We are hoping we will be able to deep sea fish, see the Everglades, and visit the Keys.

-Ashley