I'm trying to organize my thoughts to write a short story about my experiences in 2005... so why not scribble them online instead of in my notebook for now?

2005 was a year on the road...

• Started on Bourbon St. in New Orleans
• Travel to Mojave for X PRIZE Foundation internship: Urbana, IL to St. Louis, MO to College Station, TX to Big Bend National Park, TX (hail and the top of Emery Peak and more hail) to Guadalupe Mountains National Park, TX (top of Guadalupe Peak in the moonlight) to Tucson, AZ to Saguaro National Park, AZ (which is really in Tucson) to Las Vegas, NV (to spend $370+ on new brakes) to Mojave, CA
• Weekend trip to Yosemite National Park with Brian Woodard and Mike Conti, who is on his first campout ever but doesn't complain about the combination of leaky tent and sub-40 weather
• The greatest or second-greatest weekend trip ever, a weekend trip to Death Valley National Park with Brian Woodard; climb Corkscrew Peak, explore the end of Mosaic Canyon, watch the sun rise from the dunes at Stovepipe Wells, camp in the freezing cold at Wildrose campground, watch the sun set from Death Valley Buttes
• Weekend trip to an LA Dodgers game
• Weekend trip to Joshua Tree National Park, solo; hike down to Lost Palms Oasis and Victory Palms
• Weekend trip to Brookey-B's parents' house at the end of the world: Trona, CA; ride a four-wheeler; hike out to pristine Panamint Dunes with Dana and Brian
• Weekend trip to Joshua Tree National Park with Brian Woodard, Sarah someone, and Surjeet; guide the group back to Victory Palms, hike amongst the Joshua trees, then back to Huntington Beach
• Weekend trip to Death Valley National Park, solo, backpacking 5-miles up Surprise Canyon; to get to Surprise Canyon I have to borrow Fernando's truck and learn how to drive a manual transmission; get stumped by the snow above the Panamint City ghost town and abort a trip to the top of Sentinel Peak; break Fernando's truck somehow...
• Weekend trip to Mojave National Preserve, get a little lost trying to find Fountain Peak without a map
• Weekend trip to Death Valley National Park with Dana, Brian, and Grant; explore the Racetrack and top of Ubehebe Peak waaaaay off the main road; get kicks at the top of Eureka Dunes
• Trip to Washington, DC for the Goddard Memorial Symposium
• Trip to Washington, DC for the International Space Development Conference
• Return from Mojave: Mojave, CA to Reno, NV to Lava Beds National Monument, CA to Portland, OR to Seattle, WA to Ochoco National Forest, OR to McCall, ID to Missoula, MT to Bismarck, ND to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, ND to Park Rapids, MN to Ingersoll Scout Reservation, IL
• Trip to Fukuoka, Japan for the Space Generation Congress and International Astronautical Congress
• Weekend trip to visit Taro at Texas A&M
• Weekend trip to Boston to visit Surjeet and conquer Mt. Washington in New Hampshire
• Near-spontaneous trip to Toronto, Ontario to help with the International Lunar Conference and the re-establishment of SEDS-Canada
• Trip to Las Vegas, NV to help with the Return to the Moon conference; make $60 on craps; meet the lovely Megha in person for the first time; return to Mojave for a reunion before heading out to Manhattan Beach
• Trip to Houston to present at the American Astronautical Society's national conference
• 2005 will conclude in India