It was an interesting journey, as it always is, driving from LA back to Boston. In case you didn’t know, I had to come back to Boston for 3 months (October, November, and December) for family events. To make it interesting, I decided to drive alllllll the way back – which isn’t that bad, but it was definitely eventful.
Now when I re-capped about my life in my last post, I talked about how I was waiting for my car to be serviced. And lets just say, that day was unbelievably eventful – not to mention it was just the first day on my journey back to Boston.
Before I begin, I decided to start VLOGing as an interesting side project. VLOG stands for Video Log/Blog, and it’s basically when you talk about life events on camera. Since a lot of my interesting experiences are better said vocally than through text, I filmed two beginning episodes of my So Many Stories VLOG series. If you’d rather hear me explain everything in this post than read it, here are the videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP11PHCApQ0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7ui8vsiqdU
If you happen to watch those videos, let me know what you think. People like these blog post re-caps of my life, so I’m curious to see if they like them in video format as well.
Anyway, jumping back to the story, my journey began on Monday the 19th – the day before my birthday.
I did one last workout at JAM, the parkour gym I always train at. I then went back to my house, packed up my stuff, said bye to everyone and then began on my journey.
It started raining – and it never rains in LA – so I turned on my windshield whippers. Right when I turn them on my driver’s side one literally just flies off. Completely. So then I’m like great, as I’m now trying to look out my windshield in the rain. Then, as I get on the highway, I hear a weird rattling near by front right tire.
And all I’m thinking is, I haven’t even driven a couple miles yet haha.
So I eventually get to Chipotle as I’m visiting my friend Nicole for one last burrito. I’m wearing my EDC hat while standing in line, and the guy asks me about EDC. We have a quick conversation about it, and when I go to pay, he just says that I’m all set. Turns out he comped me, so I got a free burrito – which made the car problems not seem as bad.
After the burrito (which was bomb), I decided to call firestone to just get my wipers checked out. After an insane drive, I get to the firestone, and turns out they don’t have any record of me talking to them and say that their “booked up” for the rest of the day. This pissed me off, cause they told me I’d be all set if I came in, so then I had to drive to another firestone.
Luckily, even though this one was booked up, the guy said he would take 5 minutes to replace my windshield wipers in the parking lot. After that was all fixed, I realized I needed an oil change – thus began the next part of my journey.
So I called a Toyota that was luckily down the street, and the guy said if I could get there within 30 minutes he could book me in. I got there in a couple minutes, he booked me for an oil change and car check-up, and I was like finally. I can sit, do some work, and then leave once the car is ready.
I load up my Soundcloud and YouTube Channel – but it isn’t working. Turns out, Toyota blocks those sites because they’re considered “entertainment.” Great. I then Googled a Starbucks, and had to leave and walk 10 minutes to finally do work. After working for a couple hours, they called me and said my car is all set.
And I thought this was over.
I drove to a gas station, got some gas, and cleaned out the floor of my passenger side. Turns out, after throwing away all the trash, I had black mold on my carpet. After driving for 30 minutes, I realized I should probably do something about the mold because it’s so bad for you. I pulled over to a WalMart and bought spray that said “Fresh Scent” (spoiler alert: It wasn’t Fresh. At all) and it also stated it killed mold. Perfect.
After spraying it all over my floor, my car started to smell horribly like bleach. Like dangerously bad.
My solution? Get In N Out. Turns out there was an In N Out right next to the WalMart, so I decided to get In N Out one last time before I head back to the East Coast. After getting my Double-Double Animal Style and Animal Fries, I realize I now have to do something about the bleach smell.
I then walk back into the WalMart while eating the Double-Double (at this point I didn’t care), and got some fresh scent powder by Arm & Hammer. Luckily it completely killed the smell, and I was on my way to Vegas.
After a long drive to Vegas, and finding a good spot, I passed out around 3am. I didn’t get the best night sleep, and even though I woke up at 8:30am, I didn’t feel completely rested. Didn’t matter though: I was on my way to Colorado.
It took me roughly 12 hours to get to Colorado, and it felt so long because I was tired and I just wanted to get there. Not to mention, it was also my birthday, and my friends in Colorado were planning on going out that night. Because of the time difference, however, I didn’t get there until 9pm.
We decided to have a few drinks and stay in, especially because we had so much planned for that week. The next day, I went to Boulder to train at APEX Movement. In case that doesn’t ring a bell, it’s where I stayed while I was producing the song about Boulder.
While there, I also released my newest track, Get It. It’s a combination of Dubstep and Future Bass, so definitely check it out:
I’ve also been filming and uploading tons of Travel Hacks – here is my current Playlist, which will start with my most recently uploaded Travel Hack.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC6_h3BCPalXReMrgLMVGEA0nuBZlR3gm
The next day, my friend Brittany came up to Boulder and we spent the day there. We got Snooze, which is – hands down – the best breakfast I’ve ever had. After exploring around Boulder, we drove to Denver to meet up with our friend Sarah.
We got some Illegal Petes (AMAZING Mexican food) and then went back to her place to get ready for the night. We started pregaming, and then ended up going out all around Denver to various bars and clubs. We also tried sneaking into the Krewella show that was at Beta Nightclub – we got close, but no cigar.
Here was a picture of us before going out:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BKr-OnfgcQF/
It was a good night, but the next morning wasn’t good. At all.
In case you didn’t know, higher altitudes get you drunker faster and dehydrate you more (this is why I even made a Travel Hack about it). I had the normal amount that I would usually drink, nothing too crazy, and I woke up the next morning with a brutal hangover.
Then I heard some pretty intense words: “Marc wake up! We’re going on a huge hike today! Lets go!”
Luckily we stopped by Target and I got some Pedialyte, Tylenol and Emergen-C to give myself a boost. It was a two hour drive, so I had enough time to recover and get ready for a huge hike.
We hiked a roughly 6 mile round-trip journey in the Rocky Mountains, and it was absolutely amazing. Here is a picture of us at Estes Park before arriving at the mountains:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BKv9jllggLg/
It was me and my friends Sarah, Brittany and McKenzie. We then began the hike, which was absolutely beautiful. Since I got a second wind and started to feel better, I decided to do some Parkour on the mountains:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BKuL_i7gZH1/
The overall journey was amazing, here are a couple mini videos I took of some parts:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BK_DA-phwkF/
Later that night, after an amazing hike, we went to Oktoberfest in Denver. I only had a couple beers because of the altitude and because I had to drive the next day. It was a bit smaller than I expected, but still a really good time.
The next day me and Brittany drove to Kansas City, as it was almost halfway between Denver and Illinois. We eventually got to a Quality Inn, which was in a super sketchy neighborhood. Right when we pull up we hear “Untz-Untz,” which sparked our curiosity.
We walked around the building to find this random DJ set up and a bunch of cars revving their engines. Turns out it was a car show – but there were only 20-30 people there. Kind of a weird situation, so we figured to just leave and pass out in the hotel.
After a good night’s sleep, we drove back to Illinois (where she lives). I did a Planche workout and then we ate and went to bed early, as I had to drive the next day alllll the way to New York.
No joke – that drive was brutal. It was a 14 1/2 hour drive, definitely the longest on the trip, and it was pretty intense. I got to New York city to visit my friends Jess and Mel, and didn’t arrive until 11:30 pm. As you can imagine, I passed out immediately.
The next day I walked around with them and explored Williamsburg, the area of New York they live in. That night we stayed in, drank wine, and played old-school Nintendo 64 games like Pokemon Snap, Super Mario 64, Yoshi’s Story and more.
Not only that, but I watched Elon Musk reveal his plans for Space X and bringing humans to Mars. If you haven’t checked it out yet, I would definitely watch the video because Elon is single-handily going to change the world. He’s also one of the Entrepreneurs I featured on my newest EP, listen to his track here:
After an insane journey, I’m now finally back in my hometown of East Longmeadow. I’ll be in Massachusetts for the next 3 months, where I’ll then begin the next phase of my journey.
Hopefully it’s just as exciting.
