Photo of the Day

Home at last...

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 19:05:16 -0500

It’s bitter sweet for me at least, but we are home. After being stuck in Missouri we drove straight home. It was a lot of driving but it is good to be home. However we still have tons of stories and video to put together, so our trip may be over but there is still plenty for you to see. Trust me, its good. So keep checking back. I will keep posting pictures and video as I go through it all. In the end we have about 1500 pictures, and about 4-5 hours of boring video footage I have to go through and edit. Anyways this picture was after the long journey when we finally reached home. You can tell we just went through something profound.

Thanks to everyone for their support and reading this and watching the videos. We had a hell of a trip and hope you guys have enjoyed it all. But like I said, keep checking. More to come.

Brad

Yes we are still here.

Sat, 6 Oct 2007 17:55:17 -0500

Yeah thats about it. Thought I would throw up a picture. Our van won’t be ready till monday, so we will be here today, tomorrow, and monday. Journey of a lifetime.

But I don’t mind it too much. We could be in a worse place. But there is absolutely nothing to do here except eat box food and take naps on the bench near the pond. Oh and I swung on a swing set for the first time in many years and it ruled. Like being a little kid all over again. I recommend that if you can find one, you go out and take a few swings.

Brad

Why the last Van?

Fri, 5 Oct 2007 17:50:13 -0500

Well you can all have a good laugh, I sure am. I have plenty of time to fill you all in now because I am sitting at Jonesburg Gardens Campground in Missouri about 1-2 hours outside of St. Louis. We are not here by choice let me tell you. But first I have to go back and fill you in on what has happened this whole week.

Let’s start with tuesday. I believe it was tuesday as most of the days have blended together. As most of you know our van broke down, blew a gasket outside of Vermillion South Dakota. Look that up on a map because it’s not near anything. We were faced with a couple of choices. We could pay the 900 dollars, wait about a week or more and repair that van. We could rent a van for about the same or more and go home. The final choice was surrounded by irony. A couple guys about two months previous blew a gasket on their van and sold it to this guy. He repaired it and it’s been sitting there. So for the same price we could get a new van that was exactly like ours. Had a rebuilt engine, newer transmission. Based on the fact that I didn’t want to throw away not only the money into the van and all the hard work I put into it I did not want to go home empty handed so we bought the van. Decided to go home leisurely and get Mike home by sunday. So We left there thursday and here we are friday about 8 hours away, broken down again. The problem this time, though we aren’t sure, is the pcm or something. Basically the brain of the engine, the computer. We turn the key to start it and smoke just comes out of the wire area. Of course we broke down at like 3, by the time a tow truck arrived and we got to a place it was 4:15, too late for anyone to take a look at it. However we are lucky that a campsite was across the highway and the tow truck driver gave us a ride with all of our stuff. So of course everyones spirits are a little down. Alas this is the price we pay to have a journey of a lifetime. In fact I would make the argument that it’s things like these that are the journey. We are now in the back woods of a campground that is in the back woods of some back woods. It’s apparently Octoberfest here and I was warned crazy things happen (like naked people running through the woods). It’s a little hot but we have showers, some older gals have started drinking so who knows later right?? Woo! Anyways I hope to get a fire going soon and hopefully our spirits will pick up when we play some UNO and listen to some music. Mosh one out at the campsite for all the RV dwellers to see. Thanks for all of your support and again keep us in your thoughts as who knows what kinds of Texas Chainsaw Massacre creeps are around here.....

By the way, Mom and Dad, thank you very much for AAA. And the extended towing. We would of been stuck in a creek with out a canoe much less a paddle if it wasn’t for that so thanks.

The frustrated but still going strong Road Warrior,
Brad

And now, for a perspective of this trip from some people who are a little less positive and hopeful, Rich and Mike will tell us what happened in the last few days, from their point of view...

Greeting blog readers...
Let me tell you a little about our current situation. Right now we are sitting at a campsite, at a broken picnic table, being held together by a bundle of firewood, getting eaten alive by mosquitos, in the dark bayous of Missouri. That doesn’t sound THAT bad, now does it? Well let me put another spin on it. The black cloud of bad luck, conjured up by Heath or whoever has been praying for our deaths during this whole trip learned of our new van and it only took it a day to take it down. The van broke down today at a rest stop, out of nowhere, and we waited an hour, in temperatures that would rival any jungle on earth, for a tow truck. Which showed up, being driven by a hunchbacked, red bearded hillbilly, whose face looked like he had been laid out in the sun for weeks. He drove us to a ramshackle garage in the middle of a small town, that seemed to be populated only by dirty, middle aged men, with sleeveless shirts, few teeth, and scowls. Oh...that and a huge black junkyard dog that growled at Josh. So we find out they can’t look at the van until tomorrow, so we load our camping stuff onto our hillbilly tow truck drivers flatbed, and he speeds to this campground, 21 miles away from town, going 50 miles an hour around sharp turns, with our stuff flying all over the place, alarming all the townfolk of our arrival.
There you have it. We are stuck. This is the sort of place where people vanish from. After tonight you will never hear from us again. We already know their plan, but we will be unable to stop it. Half of us will be seduced by the extremely attractive, scantily clad daughters of the owners, who will be curiously interested in us. Just before things are about to go down, they will whip out a straight razor and slash at us wildly, dumping guts and slitting throats like mad, getting sprayed with blood and cackling with laughter the whole time.
This laughter will awaken Junior, the seven foot tall mongoloid son who stays locked away in the dungeon-like basement that runs under the entire campground. He will appear suddenly from the darkness, screeching and bellowing wordless screams, swinging a sledge hammer or pickaxe, and he will proceed to hack the rest of us to pieces, pausing for a moment or two to sample a mouthful of flesh from each of us.
One or two of the bodies will be placed in the 100 year old abandoned van and camper that reside in the next campsite. The rest will be chained to cinder blocks and dumped in the strange, barb wire encircled pond at the south side of the campground, which has a twelve inch thick covering of algae, fed by the hundred other decomposing corpses at its bottom.
Police will search for a week or two, but since all the people in town are in on it, our killers will never be found and eventually you will all forget us. But hopefully one or two of you will decide to come avenge us. It’s been real folks. Remember us.

-Rich and Dirty Mike

Since everyone else decided to have section I guess its only fitting that I do as well. I’ve got tell you, most of what rich and mike say, I’m learning to be based on fact. all the evidence is starting to stack up. But seriously, this is quite possibly the most horrid place on earth, not because of dangerously huge and deformed mongoloid half men or curiously hot nefarious women, no, its the most wretched of all places because this seems to be the birthing grounds of every mosquito that currently inhabits this planet. thick black swarms of quarter inch demons continue to swirl over this this place. Specifically, our campsite, I cant get away from them. Blood sucking monstrosities that there is no escaping. I’m freaking out. I now know what sheer terror feels like and i would do absolutely anything to be free of them. For god sakes make them stop.
This road trip is like an axe to my mighty redwood resolve. i don’t know how long before I’m laying flat on the ground, dead.
-Josh

P.s. Yeah the bugs really suck, they ain’t kiddin’ about that. The little meat I have left on my bones will be gone by the morning.

Brad

A lot has happened....

Thu, 4 Oct 2007 19:21:35 -0500

And its too late in the night to talk about it all. However new podcast and new entry will be up soon if my cracked computer can actually figure out how to render a movie properly. Just wanted to throw up a picture for you guys. We also have a new gallery up of some landscapes we’ve seen. Check those out here. And as soon as my computer stops being dumb I’ll have the podcast up. We are outside of Kansas City right now staying in a motel. We arrived too late for the campsites in this area so we decided to split one room. Not too bad, but even as I type this 2 of the 4 have started to snore... should be a fun sleep filled night right?

A humbled road warrior
brad

Day7. Chicago

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 10:29:28 -0500

After awakening from sleeping in 45 degree weather, we all recovered with some showers, packing up everything to some sweet hip hop radio station, and a trip to an A&W, which only Rich had ever been to. It was met with mixed results, but the fried cheese curds were a huge hit.

We then drove the 55 miles or so into Chicago (being ridiculous tourists the entire way) where met up with old college pal, the beast from the northeast, Geoff Colbath. Old school fans might remember him as the original colorist for the Fatsquad, who then moved to Chicago to pursue a career in the rap game. He somehow knows everything ever about Chicago, and gave us a full tour, by having us take a “short walk” nearly from one end of the city to the other. We saw lots of great stuff: some cool statues and art displays, like 30 weddings, a street performer who Heath danced with, a weird metal guy who would turn on and dance if you paid him enough money, the apple store, where Mike tried to work for awhile, a store where everything was 3 dollars and Rich and Mike bought really stupid shirts, a Jamba Juice, which was delicious, LINKIN PARK (except for some reason they spelled it Lincoln Park), and an amazing guy freaking out and telling us about visions he saw. He made Brad recite something about silver trees with leaves shaped like nerf footballs. We also apparently do not have the technology to capture him on film.

More importantly, we went to 3 comic shops, all of which were awesome, and all of which got a copy of the book so they can order them by the thousands after they read them. And even more importantly, we got some true Chicago style pizza- pepperoni, bacon and garlic, piled up on pie-like crust, with like an inch of cheese, and sauce on the top. It was hard to walk after that, but we made it back to the Beast’s apartment, where we watched some TV, set up our beds all over his living room, and had a nice night’s sleep.

Day 6. Recovery

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 09:24:15 -0500

So after we all slept in the van, we decided we needed to recover. So we drove 5 hours with a quick trip to a Walmart to get Mike a new tent, and an Arby’s to eat some awesome food, then to a campsite called Indiana Dunes Nation Park. It was a pretty nice place, and we took our time setting up and gathering some firewood. It was just an easy-going night. Everything was set up, we were all warming up by the fire, about to play a sweet game of UNO, when we heard someone coming over to us. It was some 70 year old ranger guy who wanted desperately to ruin or night. Apparently the rules are 8 people to a site and only two tents. We had five people, but 5 tents..... Does that make sense to anyone? You can have 8 people hanging out but only two tents to a site. You can have an entire CAMPER, but more than 2 tents?!?! WHAT?! NO! 2 TENTS! Not like there wasn’t any room. Ridiculous. So Rich and I had to move our tents to another campsite, and pay for it too. It was quite frustrating, especially on 2 hours of sleep. But after we wined and complained for too long, we sucked it up, took some amazing pictures with lights, smoke, and 30 second exposures, and went to bed.

Oh and what glorious sleep it was. Though it’s starting to get a little cold and I believe it hit around 40 degrees that night. It was really nice. We all got a solid 8-9 hours of sleep. Which is exactly what needed for day 7.

Day 5... Brad=.......

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 02:28:08 -0500

.... halfwit, dunce, dolt, ignoramus, cretin, moron, imbecile, simpleton, dope, ninny, nincompoop, chump, dimwit, dumbo, dummy, dum-dum, loon, dork, sap, jackass, blockhead, jughead, bonehead, knucklehead, fathead, numbskull, numbnuts, dumb-ass, doofus, clod, dunderhead, ditz, lummox, dipstick, thickhead, meathead, meatball, woodenhead, airhead, pinhead, lamebrain, peabrain, birdbrain, jerk, nerd, donkey, nitwit, twit, twerp, schmuck, bozo, turkey, chowderhead, dingbat.

There is a simple reason why I am all these things. But let’s leave that as a cliff hanger so you will read more. (oh and check out some new photos here)
We spent the night at Dingman’s Campground in Dingman’s Ferry, Pennsylvania. It wasn’t the best campground I’ve stayed at, a little too worn down with dust and the river was very very low. However still awesome and way better then a Walmart Parking lot.
We woke up and got on the road around 1:00pm. Yes, we are horrible at getting up and getting going. We went to a Wendy’s for lunch and had a very nice sit down and talk meal. Enjoyed the nice facilities, which you have to take advantage of when you can.
Off we went for two hours when we discovered a Cabela’s. A very cool place that has a fake mountain with tons of fake animals all around it, kind of like a dick’s sporting goods but nicer and bigger. And this is when Brad realized he forgot his wallet at Wendy’s. And that cost us four hours of driving, ruining any chance of getting anywhere or doing anything. So that put us all in a little bit of a sour mood and with the lack of sleep we have been getting, things have been a little rocky lately. All we needed was a good night of sleep, and of course, we didn’t get it. After calling a walmart in Akron, Ohio, to ask if we could camp there and having them say yes, we arrived at 4 in the morning hoping to just get a few hours of sleep. Got our tents out and up and who should pull up... the cops. So an hour later, after taking out licenses and social security numbers we were told we had to leave. Josh maned up and drove us another hundred miles to Clyde, Ohio, were we sit now, deciding what to do after sleeping a couple hours a piece, crammed together in a overly crowded van. Road trips rule.

UPDATE: HERE IS THE LINK TO THE NEW VIDEO!!!
I’m sure you will at least chuckle.... here
its big so be patient or right click and download the file to your computer. I will try to encode a smaller one later one.

Day 4... The Big City.

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 02:23:30 -0500

Dirty Mike checkin' in from a rest stop. Well, we didn’t get murdered by some backwoods walmart thugs, but some of us wished we were. Some slept well, some woke up every 10 minutes from some creepy squealing sound from inside walmart, and when that wasn't waking us up, it was the giant high speed amtrack directly next to us. Yes, we slept next to a train. Like 20 feet away. Awesome.
We packed up everything, got the supplies we needed, and headed into the big city. The drive in was really weird, as every single exit was blocked off and police were everywhere. Apparently the UN knew the fatsquad would be coming through town and needed to meet to discuss how they would deal with the millions of fans tearing the city apart and the traffic caused by the throngs of hot chicks chasing the squad van. We picked up Rich's cousin, Johnny, to guide us through the mess of downtown manhattan, and drove at a whopping speed of 8 miles an hour at best, through, yes, nearly 90 degree heat. AWESOME.
It was a really successful trip though, as all three comic stores were huge and amazing, 1 already bought some books, and the other 2 may very well be right behind them. Hilton and I got our first Wendy's of the trip from the 5th Avenue store, almost got hit by a car, and Heath stuck squad stickers on moving cars out the window. We paid a crazy bum who thought Heath was a rapper a dollar to promote the squad, and we could see the tire cover doing its job the whole ride.
We then headed out to find Dingman's Ferry National Park in Pennsylvania, which was a drastic change from downtown Manhattan. The road was obstructed by a "toll," which was actually a 190 year old man standing in the middle of the road, but we made it. Everyone else set up tents while I realized that the Alexander brothers may be bunking it up tonight. We went for a swim/wash in a giant river which we had to walk nearly all the way across before we hit water that was deeper than our knees, then tested the portable grill for the first time for some delicious burgers. We got a good fire going, played some guitar and harmonica, and had a generally good time any of the times we didn't think we saw a bear, axe murderer, shadowperson or some other terror Josh and his paranoia could get us scared of. We called it a night, settled down, and went to sleep for what would be the last good night for awhile.

Check out some photos from this day and the next one here.

Day 3... really??

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 23:48:43 -0500

Warwick RI sucks. I hate it. Don’t ever move or live or go through there. And if anyone is from or lives there currently, sorry, but it bites the big one. Today started out with promise. We planned today out more then any other day. We had 4 stops to make before NY. First stop we planned is a comic store that no longer exists. Bummer. But, we find a tire place, great right? We need to get two new front tires because the other one was about to go much like the one last night. Two hours later we find out that they can’t do it.... I’ll get back to this later but basically they thought the bolts were stripped and that they couldn’t take them off without breaking them. They were dumb ricks (see what I did there.... replaced the h in hicks with an r for rhode.... yeeeeeaaaaah).

So to Sears Auto Center we went. Dropped it off and went into the weirdest mall you have ever been in. There were a total of five, maybe six stores open and the rest, probably around twenty were just empty. A very weird place. But now back to the tires, got the van and I wont bore you with details, but the one thing you should know is that the other place couldn’t take off the lug nuts because there were plastic caps on them. And they didn’t see or figure that out. So now it’s 6 and the whole day is gone. We drove around and wasted almost an entire day in Warwick RI. As a friend said, pretty awesome road trip, three days and we are still in New England. Sickens me..... But how were we to revive this day? What is possibly close to this place that would make it better? One word.

Foxwoods.

So after losing a little bit of money we at least had some fun. We were all up at one point but its go big or go home with this group. Don’t worry Mom, I kept it reasonable and no, I do not have a gambling problem. Stacks Belanger (Josh) did the best (of course). He went down a bit but battled back to only loose six bucks.

Right now we are headed to a Walmart Parking lot, hoping that tents in a parking lot won’t attract a mass murder. But just in case, our family should sue Foxwoods because they turned us down and forced off their land. So if harm should befall us, it’s their fault. And besides they have millions of dollars there. One lady dropped a grand in like ten minutes. Must be nice huh.... must be nice...

Anyways we are getting close to our destination and though this wont be posted tonight, hope you all give us a little thought as we huddle our tents together for safety and sleep with our knives under our pillows.

Ya Feeling Lucky Punk???

Day 2.... the tire.

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 01:32:40 -0500

The second day of our trip is coming to end and boy, it’s only been two days and so much has happened including our FIRST VIDEO!!!!. And in case that page fails to load I have mirrored the video here.
In typical fatsquad fashion, the day began 2 hours after it was supposed to, with the first trip to a comic store even later. We took a trip to Joe’s Pizza in Portsmouth, played some Halo in the van, and hit up a bunch of comic stores throughout New Hampshire, the last one located in a perfect representation of the wonder of New Hampshire- a strip mall with a porn store, knife/cigar shop, pawn shop, tattoo shop, and a massive fireworks store. Ahhh, America.
The most successful trip of the day came at a price though. After a treacherous trip from Cambridge to Boston, and a last second, store-already-closed-but-somehow-they-let-us-in sale, we were met with the lovely sound of a tire exploding mere miles away. Luckily, we were near what we decided was a parking spot, and through the traffic direction of Mike, I had the pleasure of changing a tire, all by myself of course. This proved to be a massive promotion for the squad, as every car driving by saw the tire cover and received lots of information and hilarity from Heath. And of course, as the picture of the day shows, we met three pretty ladies who were more than happy to promote the squad.
And now, stupidly, we are turning in at 3 AM, after watching Austin Powers: Goldmember, and hearing our first true laughter explosion from Heath. Thanks to Bet for the great dinner and comfortable house, and a big apology to her roomate, who went to bed at 8 and was probably woken up a thousand times.

Day 1... back home.

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 21:15:11 -0500

Mike and I slept a total of maybe three hours. So needless to say we are all tired and worn out from the first day. Which is actually a good thing since we are all falling asleep even as I write this.

The convention was pretty small today. Nothing huge, but We got our books at a couple stores in Portland. Casablanca Comics and Longfellow books so if you need and book and live by there pick one up!! Or just order it online at fatsquad.com. I promise not to push the book too much now.

Other then the convention the other cool thing that happened was the burgers we cooked. We had some cheese burgers, check this picture to see what i mean.

Today’s picture rules. Shot in an alley in Portland, Me, we see Dirty Mike in is true habitat. A blue due rag, arms crossed, looking tough surrounded by tags and crap. It’s amazing. Anyways I just wanted to keep this one short so I can get to work on some video. But to hold you over, here are some pictures of our day!

Introduction...

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 15:29:12 -0500

This is the group, minus one, that will be embarking on the trip. From right to left, Brad Hilton, Josh Belanger, Rich Brunelle, Heath Alexander, and missing is Mike Alexander. Hopefully we will have a full group shot soon. We are all busy tying up loose ends. I put the last finishing touches on the van, which you will get to see in our first Fat Squad Video Podcast. Should be a hoot, and hopefully that will be up by sunday night if not then definitely monday morning. Figuring out which direction we are heading in and where we are going to be sleeping is pretty much all we have left to do. More often then not, we will end up sleeping in Walmart parking lots... which will be interesting in and of itself.

Anyways the whole point of this blog is to take a picture, at least once a day I hope, and show you guys the journey we are taking. I’m really excited to just get on the road. After so much waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting. It hasn’t really hit me yet that we are leaving. I’m sure it will take a couple days and a couple sunsets, but I will get hit with that feeling. Looking around at all of my friends, riding in a beat up old van (that has more soul then any other vehicle i’ve driven), watching the scenery drive by and listening to Caspian. Some of the most beautiful and epic music. Well hopefully but with this crew we could be listening to Scissor Fight then to Lynyrd Skynyrd and maybe end with Sigur Ros.

And So it begins......