I had not slept… at all. I had stayed up all night working on my Frog training video. There is so much content I wanted to fit in there, and the 2 images are turning out quite nice. Staying up all night though was brutal, and so was knowing that I had a 15 hour drive ahead of me. I was actually expecting a shorter drive. I was very excited that I was going to CouchSurf with DK Photography(The man has inflatable couches in his portfolio… how could someone NOT like it), and possibly meet SouthBound for an interview as well. I had only secured the couch w/ DK the night before, and despite the lack of sleep, was excited about the drive.

I left at noon or so, and had to return the bluetooth headset I had purchased from Fry’s…. It was my very 1st one ever. Quite convenient, and a novelty… I can see how it would be beneficial.. however, everyone I spoke to (all 2 calls) said it kept cutting in / out. So, it was now much later than I wanted to leave. Not only was I going to be there much later than anticipated, but DK called me up to tell me that he thinks it’s a bad idea for me to come over. Not only would we not have any time together, but there were now tornadoes going around, and over 13 dead. Had it been earlier in the day, I may’ve tried anyways… I mean… come on.. how often do you get to take Twister-photos, right? But- getting there at 1am would suck. I accepted DK’s declination, and assured him that I’d be fine, and not to be concerned about me (but rather worry about the tornadoes).

I called Mike Beauchamp of NavigatorsRun.com, and got Skizz’s phone # from him. Then I secured a couch- potentially – with Skizz. The Skizz-man said he’d recruit me a couch by the time I arrived. I spent a lot of time during that trip on the phone. I had spoken to Couch 23, David, which was hillarious due to the fact that I caught him in the middle of his Photography class. He’s not supposed to take calls, and usually would get bitched at by the teacher… but he said “I have to take this one, it’s a world-famous award winning photographer calling” He had told everyone that I had stayed at his place, and had tried to get the class (Since they were doing critiques that night) to critique my frog image! He did not succeed in that, but the teacher did let him write my URL on the chalkboard so everyone can check the site out at their leisure. He had also bragged about me during his English class, after debating an assignment they had (that I helped him with the night before). It was on Big-Fish, the book. I had claimed the fish symbolizes the story that grows so much, that it takes on a life of its own, and lives on after the story-teller does… therefore extending the story-tellers life. David had told the class that I am sort of doing the same thing with my adventure…. telling the stories, and living on in infamy It felt great knowing that someone thought highly enough of me to brag to two of their classes about me.

So…. here I am… driving… swerving a bit, as I’m falling asleep at the wheel a little bit, from lack of sleep. I pulled over at a gas station and tried to nap. It didn’t work out too well. I did the next best thing… I took a caffeine pill, with a Full-Throttle energy drink, and really really spicy peanuts. The combination seemed to have worked well enough to get me to Atlanta. The annoying thing was that the spiciness of the peanuts was provided by a very thick powder. Every time I stuck my hand in to get some nuts out (shut up!), I had my fingers end up all sticky and brown (shut up some more)… I would lick the spicy powder off my fingers (so that these spices wouldn’t get all over my car). As I drove, I figured maybe I can just pour the peanuts into my mouth. I tried that, and the spicy pepper powder got into my eyes! Ouch!! It basically burned.

The lack of sleep didn’t bother me again for a long time. By 2am however, I really wanted some sleep. The roads were winding through Alabama. There were lots of truckers on the road. It was dark out… The last 143 miles or so, I was actually hallucinating! No drugs were responsible for this, just lack of sleep, and lack of food (I guess that 3 energy drinks, spicy nuts, and 2 cinnamon rolls (thanks Dave) were not enough food for an entire day). I have a strong visual mind, so since I can mostly visualize anything I want, I’m not afraid of halucinations… but I can’t recall having them occur naturally like this…. and it’s pretty scary when it happens as you’re driving! Mostly, the shadows were playing games with my eyes. I slammed the brakes once or twice, afraid I was going to smash into a boulder– which was just a shadow…. another time, the shadows looked like a bunch of druid priests (you know… in the brown hoodies) crossing the freeway. It was windy, there were lots of trucks, and I was a little swervy. I like adrenaline, but this was just scary.

It was most joyous when I finally entered Atlanta, found where Skizz was going to be, and arrived alive. We had some amazing food (at 3am) at this place called R. Thomas. I had this yummy seafood pasta with shrimp and salmon… The food revived me a LOT! I now had energy to spare!

We went back to Skizz’s and tried to watch this one movie, but both fell asleep.