Leg #1: Phoenix >> Chicago >> Pittsburgh >> Steubenville>
Leg #2: Steubenville >> Pittsburgh >> Charlotte >> Phoenix >> San Diego
Leg #3: San Diego >> almost Huntsville then Knoxville >> Atlanta >> Tiger
Leg #4: Tiger >> Atlanta >> Fort Meyers >> Ave Maria
Leg #5: Ave Maria >> Fort Meyers >> Atlanta, Atlanta, Atlanta >> Phoenix

I am here in Ave Maria, a new civilization near Naples, Florida. I’m fascinated with this corner of the earth. I guy makes a gazillion off of selling pizza his whole life, then sells his Dominos empire and decides to build a college town, complete with a campus, residential, and commercial. But wait, there’s more! He built a cathedral too.

I’m sitting in a grad student townhome on the edge of a wildlife preserve. I know there are gators and swampthings in that water, so I’m content admiring it from the comforts of my shelter. Speaking of gators, my friend who picked me up at the airport explained that she ran over a 10-foot gator on her drive out of campus earlier this year. She said it felt and sounded like she hit a speed bump at 55 mph.

Last night my mom and sisters held a baby shower for Candyce in Atlanta. It was a lot of fun spending time with friends and family like that. I finished the night by throwing my nieces and nephews into a pile of pillows and couch cushions for over an hour. It’s wild to think that I’m going to have a baby girl soon.

I was in the mud pit at Covecrest yesterday afternoon, and it’s had a grave impact on my aesthetic appeal. I can’t remember the last time I had dirty toenails like this. And my face? I have broken out like a high school freshman drowning in stress and hormones. I didn’t know that a 29.5 year old could get zits like this.

Here are some photos of our trip down the Chattooga river. I marked myself with a orange arrow. Now watch me roll out of the boat…

Note: July 22, 2008. I received an email from Jay, the kid who I knocked out of the boat in the above photos. His group left camp early to get down to Florida in time for the Blue Angels airshow. He had a frightening experience:

I was in a 31 foot fishing boat with little cover. We are sitting out in the middle of a big bay when a HUGE black cloud comes out of nowhere, 15 minutes from when the airshow is about to start. That started probably the scariest 3 hours of my life. 10 people were taken to the hospital. 4 from lightning. 6 from other injuries. No direct strikes but people were shocked by touching something metal. The lightning was less then 2 miles away from our boat and there were 5 other people on it. I would guess I said about 100 our fathers and 100 Hail Mary’s. I prayed just about the whole time, while all the college kids around us were in the water, funneling beer. It rained pins and needles on our back for 2 and a half hours straight with no let up. It was terrible. But we made it out ok.