There's a New Itinerary!

If any of you wrote down the original itinerary that I posted on this site or e-mailed to you, you can just throw it away, because Up with People just posted the more official tour schedule today, and by the looks of things they haven't secured a city for a couple weeks of the tour.

Here is the new schedule, hot off the UwP presses:

United States: July 11 - August 17
Orientation: Denver, CO - July 11 - August 11
Breckenridge, CO - August 11 - August 17

Mexico: August 18 - September 21
La Paz - August 18 - August 25
Cabo - August 25 - September 1
Tepic - September 1 - September 8
Culiacan - September 8 - September 15
Hermosillo - September 15 - September 21

United States: September 22 - November 16
Arizona: September 22 - September 29
Albuquerque, NM - September 29 - October 6
Colorado Springs, CO - October 6 - October 13
Salt Lake City, UT - October 13 - October 20
Wyoming - October 20 - October 27
Wyoming/South Dakota - October 27 - November 3
Sioux Falls, SD - November 3 - November 10
North Platte, NE - November 10 - November 16

The Philippines: November 17 - December 16
Manila - November 17 - December 4
Cebu/Subic - December 5 - December 16 (End of Tour)

Probably when we get closer to October, the Wyoming and South Dakota cities will make themselves known. I'll let you know when that happens!

Up with People: the Kevin Bacon of Non-Profit Organizations

Slowly, but surely, everything major that I've had to deal with for my "trip of a lifetime" has been coming along quite nicely. Yesterday, I went to the Alliance of Maine Credit Union, (which so happens to be one of the best in the state), to sign the loan papers, and ended up talking to the loan officer for about an hour. It turns out that the UwP theme song doesn't lie when it says "you meet 'em wherever you go," because every single loan officer I talked to there is friends with an Uppie. We may just be the Kevin Bacon of the Non-Profit Organizations. I wonder who I should talk to to get that slogan changed. "Bringing the World Together" just isn't doing it for me anymore...

In other news, Mark, the wheelchair guy, met up with me today and dropped off a snazzy wheelchair for me to try out. The first run went okay. I am a lot better going backwards and downhill, but the other two directions will come eventually. The armrests kind of got in the way, so once we figure out how to take those off, and we figure out how to have me not leaning back as much, hopefully it will be smooth sailing from there. If not, there's always the scooter option. "Hakuna matata," is what I always say.

Ummm... so, yeah. I guess that's it. Not a very exciting post, but I promise you that they will get better once I'm out there doing stuff.

Until next time!

Welcome to ¡Viva la s2e! !

First of all, welcome to ¡Viva la s2e!, your front seat to my experiences as I travel all over the place with Up with People. Have a look around, settle in, and enjoy! To the right, you'll see a selection of my fellow castmembers' blogs, sorted by when they were last updated, for your convenience. Below that, you'll find the tour itinerary, so you'll know where I am at any given time!

I have just come to the realization that our tour isn't starting July 11; it has already begun! For the past couple of days, I have been getting to know all sorts of awesome people who have a lot of the same interests as me, and believe it or not the same sense of humor as me as well!! I didn't think it was possible either. Already as people mill around the Facebook group and each other's profiles, I can already see the the different dynamics of the group forming. Either that, or I'm comatose from being at the computer for too long. It could be both...

In other news, I just got approved for a loan that will pay off the rest of my program fee and help me finance a wheelchair/scooter for the trip, and I couldn't be happier... Now if the wheelchair guy would get back in touch with me on things, that would be nice! Baby steps, I guess!

Well, that's it for now... I need to take a walk so I can get the feeling in my legs back!

¡Hasta luego!