Island Hopping with the Fam

Team, let's look alive here! The last post is from the Jman and I LAST YEAR!!! Certainly, people are doing cool stuff, going cool places, flashing the XC besides me and guests in Senegal?!!! Where is everyone!

My WHOLE fam just visisted me in Senegal for two weeks. They were real troopers: they went shopping in Tamba, spent 10 days in my village, had about 5-6 dance circles plus other moments of spontaneous singing and such, we broke a couple toes, fell a few times, and then last two days we stayed on two islands off the coast of Dakar. Islands and coasts are great opportunities for the XC to be flashed. I haven't flashed the XC in some time, but it came right back... (it helps that it's tatooed on my leg...)

On the island of Ngor whenwe visited for the day on 19 dec.

Night on a dock on the island of Goree (Swat XC Senegal alum Jman knows). The camera couldn't capture the full awesomeness of the shot. After traveling down to my village, and spending 10 days there, we made the way back up top Dakar and spend on night on the island of Goree, then...

...crossed the city and spent the next night on the island of Ngor. These three below from 03 jan.

"Pullups in precarious positions"...it wasn't entirely precarious, but I still couldn't resist a pullup there. Also got some sweet pushup shots, but those are a dime a dozen. 

...from Senegal with love
dh

Africa by Storm Deuxieme

Sorry, these are not turned properly. We visited two waterfalls down int he Kgou region. The top two pics are from a hike up this mini mountain. I'll spare all the awesome details, but the next morning we climbed back up to watch the sun come up. The bottom picks are from the Dindefelo waterfall. Awesome, but that water was freezing!!!!

Africa by Storm

Whoops. I cut everyone out of the shot except me. We were doing the xc though. 

J man and one of my host brothers (the one who studies the Koran in the town near our village). To the left (why did I frame them this way?) the water was almost perfectly calm and there was an errie forest of dead trees still somehow standing in the middle of the water. An entrancing scene. 

From the J man's visit, we biked 15k down to the river, to the dam. I had never been there, and thought the word being used to describe the place 'barrage' meant like campament, like a place to hang out, etc. No no, 'barrage' just means dam. Pretty awesome place, one of the many we found, to just play around. (Pictures of us swimming around available on request...) Before the J man's visit, I had only seen monkeys once, and only briefly as they crossed the road. Here, a nice herd (not correct) of monkeys scampered away when we rolled in, and the J man and I pursued them briefly up the hill. We had to haul back, but rolled back home just as it was getting dark. An early adventure from the many we had while the J man was here. 

XC in Seoul

Recently, Korean Air was cool enough to turn a 3 hour layover in Seoul into a 3 day layover, and I went around town with a family friend and represented the XC.

in front of the palace.

This is a big public bathhouse called a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jjimjilbang . It's the kind of thing you never do until you're traveling and someone says "spend the night in a sauna? sleep on a floor?" and you're like "why not."

Thailand

Here I am walking into the ocean

And then, I took an XC shot on the rocks;

Khao Lak, Thailand, is paradise! If you're reading it in Google Reader you can zoom in on the super high-res shot in case you miss my naked torso.

Regionals 2011

Shoutouts to Melissa Frick '12, who finished in 16th, one spot out of qualifying for nationals as an individual, and Jacob Phillips '13, whose 7th place finish means he will be the first representative of the men's team at nationals since Marc Jeuland in 2000. The women finished 13th, the men 7th, and a large portion of the noncompetitors showed up to cheer.

SPRING BREAK WOOOOOOOO

XC (well, technically track I suppose) triumphantly returned to Florida in 2011 for spring break shenanigans. Eric, Shifty, and I are pictured here on Clearwater Beach in Tampa, with the Gulf of Mexico behind us. How many states do we have now?