World's Away

Arrived in Belem, Brazil at 3am today all in one piece, save for two packages of whopper malt balls which had spilled open and coated everything in one of my boxes! Stew picked me up at the airport in Belem and we drove the 20 minute drive back in his 2009 vintage VW Kombi bus through some super rough neighborhoods to the school's little fortress, only slowing down at red lights as its unsafe to stop here at night. The gaurd in their alley lowered by hand his little chain to let us pass, and Stew laughed and shook his head. "Like that thin chain is gonna stop anyone".

The gaurd at the high main gate was more intense, but opened it right away when he saw it was Stew.

We bumped along a curving red dirt lane under a canopy of palm, acai, and towering glossy- leaved ficus trees toward, passing quiant white- washed bungalows along the way to his house.

As I took all this verdant jungle flora in through the Kombi's bulbous bay window i was struck by the realization that i'd traveled an amazing distance in a relatively very short time. I was in fact, worlds away. Just yesterday, Monday July 19th, starting at 6am morning a shuttle bus with my Dad and I on board wove his way through downtown Manhattan traffic horns blazing and deposited us at 7am at JFK airport. From there I flew Delta to to Miami, then to Aruba aboard an ancient 737 on Surinam Airways, and then to Paramaribo, Suriname. There, after much nauseating hassle to get my luggage actually on my soon to depart connecting flight, I fly on another ancient Boeing 2 hours south to finally touch down in Brazil. And on my 29th birthday too!

So I am taking it easy today(the sky just opened up too for my first Amazon-style rain shower), have a bit of jet lag and just plain exhaustion after a week driving across the USA with my pal Lindsay Fuller, visiting her amazing family in Birmingham, AL and the flying to Newark, meeting up with the Dad for 2 days of visiting relatives in Warminster, Philadelphia and 3 days exploring the sweltering sight's of the one and only Big Apple- New York City (Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, top of the Empire State Building, staring up slack-jawwed at the anemic Flatiron building, ferry to Staten Island, walk through Central Park passing by the Guggenheim Museum, delectable street food, perfect pizza, nightly beers at The B'Way Dive Bar, the fun never seemed to end)

The plan now is to hang out here for a week and visit with my dear friends the Stewart's and see the sights in Belem, and then to head down the coast of Brazil and eventually get to Cuzco, Peru by September 6th to hike to Machu Picchu via the Salkantay trail.

I am uploading a rather portly batch of photo's to my Flickr account right now so please take a gander and let me know what you like. It's good to be on the road finally, and in a foreign country. The horizon has never seemed so full of possibilities for adventure.

View my photo's on Flickr

Boulder has great New Orleans food, and dry air gives us mondo boogers!

Breakfast at Lucile's in Boulder with (L-R) Julie, Aubrea, LF, me, and Uncle Mark Miller who lives in nearby Arvada and who we called up last minute and he was thankfully home and met us this morning for a great meal. had not seen him for a few years and it was great to catch up with him! He is a musician too, as well as all those girls there so we had fun talking music. had a cajun omelet,yum!

Drove a heck of a long ways today, Down 25 nearly all the way to sante fe, then caught a shortcut hwy 84 to hwy 40 east.

Drove through a insane down pour (pictured). emerged unscathed. drove through New Mexico, entered texas, crusised through Amarillo, and shot right out the other side of the Panhandle into Oklahoma (yes, the wind does go sweeping down the plain). We saw a HUGE lone wind turbine in a little town in texas called Tucumcari, swore it was the biggest we ever saw. And we've seen an impressive number of wind power generators popping up all over the country sides so far on our road trip-an encouraging sight even if they are all subsidized by uncle sam. they are nevertheless clean renewable energy which is a heck of a lot better than more oil rigs, right?

About 2am we couldnt drive anymore and found a cheap Super 8 motel. the room is actually really clean and nice and the bathroom i about yelped when i turned the light on. It is so nice! Really! like recently and tastefully remodeled.

We got so engrossed in conversation earlier tonight that we nearly ran out of gas. the little light blinked on and we made it about 5 miles later to a little isolated station which was closed but the pumps were on. there was this old crumbling VW camper bus sleeping right by the pumps. ahh, memories. sight of vw's in the lone star state makes me think of Don Miller's memoir Through Painted Deserts, about leaving home in houston and driving across the west with his buddy in a similiar old bus. It was originally titled Prayer and the Art of VW Maintainance. Lindsay's new favorite word is "Dingleberry".

Which applies to anything and everything apperently. Here's one, actually!

Road Trip beginnings, like a giant slowly waking

After sitting like this for 5 whole minutes in Seattle, no one picked me up. So I called my friend Lindsay Fuller and she offered to take me as far as Birmingham,Alabama. We left an hour later. We are in Boulder, CO tonight. Had a fun night out in Denver at the Ogden Theatre, saw a band called The Hold Steady with Lindsay's friends Aubrea and Julie, old classmates of her's from Baylor U. yesterday we went to the Mormon temple in Salt Lake City where I almost got converted by a really cute LDS, but LF saved me at the very last moment and we left the heart of the beast and walked down the street to a bar called The Beehive Inn and downed a pint of cold refreshing Polygemy Porters, whose motto is "why have just one"?Indee. One was enough though.

First night out we stopped in La Grande,OR so I could see the hospital I was born at on a camping trip. not much has changed. the town was so small the ER room doors were locked and it seemed the whole place was closed for the night.

The landscapes we have driven through last three days have been sup

er varied-s. washington state (as pictured in rolling hills and blue sky), the desert of Utah and the mountains of Colorado. All throughout though we had the peace of knowing we were not more than 100 miles from a Starbucks, Subway or Costco.

Tomorrow should be a great day, breakfast with A and J and my Uncle Mark Miller is gonna meet up with us too i hope, even though we just called him today on our way into town.

Day one pics with new Canon G11

Thought I'd share these test pics. Since i have nothing else to do. (ha! get off yer duf nick! get to work!)
These are all unedited, straight fromo my camera to Flickr.

Aunt Marianne is getting married in less than two hours!

I am staying at a resort near Redmond, OR near Bend with my my parents, Katie, Mary, and other relatives including cousin Nadine from NYC who I just met for the first time. She is my Dad's cousin but we dont know the proper word-is she my great cousin, or cousin half removed, once removed? Twice added? So we will just say cousin. Also met Marianne's fiance Steve Munsen and his son Colby. Colby just graduated from U of O with a geology degree so a big congrats to him.
I had a fun night hanging out late last night with him and his friend in their deluxe coach r.v.-the lap of luxury! Watched the 1987 film Predator on the flat panel tv that folds down from the ceiling above the drivers seat. A pretty intense alien movie starring the governator Arnoldandjesse ventura. The whole freaky jungle monster seems sort of played out for me after 5 years watching LOST. But the heat seaking alien-eyes view was quite captivating, and very interesting soundtrack too. With the generator rumbling (surprisingly quietll) it felt like we were traveling down the road the whole time, which gave rise to sudden panick's about who was actually driving. This was probably a result of the rather prodigious amounts of excellent wine which were imbibed, and the sedative quality of the catered chicken dinner, and the odd, sensory heightening experience of catching up with so many Thomas' I hadn't seen in a long time. Seems we only see each at weddings and funerals, my dad said. Sad but true. Speaking of Dad, a very Happy Father's to my Pa! I owe you a round at Deschutte's!

elliot bay fish pier at sunset

elliot bay fish pier at sunset, originally uploaded by Nicholas D Thomas.

One of my favorite shots. taken 2 winters ago. The lighting was just so perfect, and it was one of those situations where it just kept getting better and better like god was fooling around with the knobs of Adobe Lightroom.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

A million names, a thousand mopeds

Seven hundred is the official count.

But no one knows exactly how many moped brands were manufactured over the course of time. It seems if you think of adjective, just pick one out of the air, there was probably a moped made bearing that name proudly on its sides like a cosmic tattoo.

Periodically, I try to examine my continuing fascination- dare i say obsession- with these notoriously underpowered, temperamental motorcycle/bicycle hybrids. Why is it that I constantly scour Craigslist for old mopeds when I vowed not to buy another one? That this is not the time to buy anything, much less a vehicle. Yet here i sit. Brooding. mulling over mopeds. I am a junkie itching for a fix.

Is it simply a sort of desperation to hold onto a dream of my youth? To keep it alive, if only in my mind? No!

This is more, this is something important, vital. I know it is more than an adolescent fantasy. Perhaps it is that i know,intrinsically, the moped. From front to back, top to bottom, inside out, as much as one can know a thing. I know it and am familiar, and that is indeed a good word, familiar. It is like family, one big crazy extended family is the moped community to a seasoned ped-head like this one.

Over the three years I owned my mustard yellow 1978 Puch Maxi moped, I spent literally hundreds of hours working on it, rebuilding its engine, tuning its carburetor, puttering down and pedaling up the cruel slopes of Seattle. Through these endless acts of devotion a bond was formed, pure and true. Like a stubborn sister to her senile cat who has racked up thousands in vet bills. An expense that while hard to justify rationally, is easy to understand on a relational, primal heart level.

Yes, the moped is that. It is my wretched cat. Hacking up mysterious pieces of her innards, bits which ought never see the light of day. Shaking and sputtering and leaving indicting trails of debri like bloody footprints. I suppose I will ever get over this love affair. Like our first love, nothing else will ever quite stack up. No matter how obvious its shortcomings and basis in selfish neediness are to everyone else's gawking stares.

She's mine, dammit, and I am hers. And nothing will tear us apart!

Oh Crappola...this is just duckyThe gas tank just started leaking fuel on my leg! I hate this moped. This is the last straw. I'm done with these infernal machines. what is the point in slaving over a barely rolling chunk of metal when I can hop a bus, ride a bike, or hell, open the front door and-gasp!- just walk to the corner store for that six pack (of fruit), one foot in front of the other, just like grampa used to do.