Black coffee I'm in trouble, Black coffee I see double

Camp Jitterbug was fantastic! First of all, my trip isn't over and second is that the trip to and from Seattle was an adventure in itself. Map provided by Google Maps and Anna...

Road Trip
A: Picking Ann Sychterz up from the Chicago bus station
B: Crashing at Anna's in South Bend
C: My parents place
D: Mount Rushmore
E: Camping in the Black Hills National Forest
F: Camping in Shoshone National Forest
G: Yellowstone National Park
H: Camping near Spokane River
I: Visiting Heather Russell and camp Jitterbug in Seattle
J: Great Salt Lake
K: Crashing at a deserted looking gas station
L: Back to my parents place for Anna's brothers wedding

Getting to Seattle

Firstly, my parents dropped me off at the Charles Street Terminal in Kitchener on Saturday morning. I had Greyhound buses from Kitchener to London, London to Windsor, Windsor to Detroit, and then Megabus from Detroit to Chicago. The thing that surprised me the most was the thoroughness of the border security when crossing from Canada to the US via bus. They ask you more questions and search everyone's luggage. Meeting Anna in Chicago, we went directly back to South Bend because the traffic was horrendous from Obama landing in Chicago for the NATO summit. Apparently Anna made a few turns while trying to pick me up that landed her in the middle of a squad of armoured cars and enforcement with machine guns.

Driving to Ankeny, Iowa was no problem, though we ran into traffic in Des Moines than in Chicago, which is unheard of. Getting some camping gear, food bags and such from Anna's parents, we were off the next morning. That evening we went to go see Mount Rushmore and at night we camped in the Black Hills National Forest. Dinner consisted of canned pears and s'mores. The next day we hopped off the I-90 and cut across the Big Horn mountains to the southern part of Yellowstone where we camped (but far-ish away because there were bear warnings). The next morning we drove through Yellowstone National Park and it was gorgeous! It snowed which made it really pretty (for me), we saw Old Faithful, the Obsidian Cliffs, packs of buffalo (some even being a traffic jam on the road), a moose, and the Painted Pots.

 That night we headed to a camp site around Spokane, Washington after having passed through the rest of the Rockies. The greenery really started to change and looked more mossy with the occasional waterfall off of the rocks, really pretty! We fell asleep to the sounds of a group of guys camping next to us jamming on a guitar by their fire. The next day was a short hop over the Cascades into Seattle where we  met Heather between her many classes and meetings. We had a chance to go shower (which was awesome!) and explore the U district, which was a short hop away from Heather's place. I ended up doing most of the city driving since Anna was not a fan, but I didn't like parallel parking her mom's station wagon, ha. Anna showed me the cool troll under the Freemont bridge, and yes I took a picture of the bridge and not the troll.

That night we had dinner with Heather and her friend Bryce, went back to her place where Anna and Heather geeked out about physics and I worked on my damper research data in the corner. Oh, and Anna gave Heather a refresher lesson for swing in the living room.

Friday came and Anna and I went off to explore Deception Pass (just 1.5 hours north of Seattle), a park that was highly recommended by Heather, and I can see why. Mossy cliffs on one side, a pebbly beach and open blue water of the sound on the other. There was also a really neat bridge.

By the time we got back to Heather's it was time to head to the Benaroya Hall in Pike Place to register and go for the Jump Session show. On the way I got to see the first Starbucks.

In the Jump Show were the instructors like Alice, Max, Mike, Laura, Chester, and some other people around for the weekend like Falty, Lunou, and the main star of the show Meshiya Lake. After the show, there was a dance with music by Meschiya Lake and her Little Bighorns and Jonathan Stout and his Campus Five on the stage of the Benaroya Hall and outside in the lobby. There I was able to meet a whole bunch of people I knew from Vancouver, Victoria, New Orleans, and Montreal. Very much a "getting to know people" type of dance since we were going to be spending the weekend together. Headed out at a fairly reasonable time so we could be awake for the auditions the next morning.

Saturday morning we had the auditions to get into the advanced track, but seeing that people were just jumping in to any audition level, we tried out for the advanced-plus track (the levels being masters, advanced+, advanced, intermediate+, intermediate, and beginner), and we both made it. Saturdays' lessons at the Knights of Columbus were:

Mattias and Hannah from Sweden with some great rhythm work
Chance and Amy from New Orleans with grounding and a type of bal move
Mike and Laura from Austin with an 6-count and 8-count pattern variation
Chester with a solo jazz routine

Anna met her old swing dancing teacher from Grinell so we hung out with him and a few other Seattle people at the park jamming on the guitar and turning pop tunes into swing songs. After dinner we headed to the Temple de Hirsch for the evening dance with Casey McGill. At this point I was starting to get to know people, so I was starting to seek people out for dances. I found some really interesting dancers from Los Angeles, Washington DC, and Germany. There were the finals for the Jack and Jill.

The late night was with Meschiya Lake at the Century Ballroom. Oh man was this a great venue! My favourite of the event, definitely rocked the vintage feeling and we stayed until 4 am ish. Oh yes, and this is when the solo Charleston finals happened, they were off the wall good!

The next morning was a little rough for some people, but classes started again at 11 am at the Knights of Columbus. The lessons on the Sunday were:

Max and Alice from Montpellier teaching a short solo jazz lesson and then movement through a basic pattern
Andy and Nina from NOLA/Baltimore showing how to groove to simple stuff such as touch step and emphasizing different beats.
Justin and Jenn from LA bringing some lindy hop styling from the west coast (read, not west coast swing)
Stefan and Bethany from Portland dished out their masters on us with some wonky timings and triple steps (this couple was the surprise of the weekend because they were so ridiculously fun and I hadn't heard of them before).

The Sunday night dance had Jonathan Stout and his Campus Five playing the quick beats which was great for the "showdown" style couples dancing which was a joy to watch.

The late night was again at the Century Ballroom and this time with the local band the Careless Lovers, which I knew of from Vancouver this fall and have the popular single called 'Black Coffee'. At this point my feet were starting to break my Keds (and vice versa), so I danced a few and enjoyed the music. Everyone stayed until the end, because after the last song and after the encore they played 'Black Coffee'.

The Monday was the last day of classes where we could take electives, so I chose Chester's tap lesson, Hannah's Black Bottom lesson, and Stefan and Bethany and their Charleston tricks (I just watched because there was no room and honestly, I was a little concerned with getting tender feet getting stepped on). The wrap up dance happened at the Knights of Columbus with the Careless Lovers but didn't hang around too long because people were taking off.

I finally got a chance to meet up with Nik afterwards which was really great since we had tried to organize something the entire weekend. We said goodbye to Anna's old instructor and we hung out with Heather for the rest of the evening, which was great fun.

Tuesday morning we took off with some ideas of where we'd be stopping but nothing for sure. On the way home, we took the I-84 and I-80 that went through Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, clipped Colorado, Nebraska, and Iowa. On the way there we did Iowa, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Washington. So...I had an energy drink and some coffee, so 16 hours later, we stopped because I was feeling sluggish. We slept in the car at a quiet gas station off the interstate and I couldn't really sleep. So I got up early again and got Anna to drive for an hour until I fully woke up. We were able to get into Ankeny by the evening after a really wicked storm in western Nebraska.

Tomorrow morning I leave for the Des Moines airport to fly to Rochester for Stompology!