Day One Journal

Today we embarked both on and in our quest for epicness . We decided that as this is the BEAST & FEAST road-trip that we should revisit the site of the original beast and feast. Thus we proceeded to a corner of hell known as jonathan dickinson state park and went to the mountain bike trails with the intent of beasting and then later feasting at Big Apple Pizza. As matt put it it would be "like thanksgiving", he couldn't have been more wrong. we got to the trails and a guy asked if he could join us as his friend just left. We said sure, he looked kinda beastly and we figured it couldn't hurt. as we proceeded i found it incredibly difficult to ride and was excessively tired and couldn't keep up, now I'm at the very least ex-athletic and it didn't make sense until miles into the trail when going over a log obstacle steven pointed out i had a flat front tire. So i had to pick up my bike and carry out of the trail and down the road some until the others brought back a replacement tube.As it turns out the man who had joined our expedition earlier was none other than "Rudy" of Real Deal Bikes. it turns out that when you have a flat tire there's no-one better to be with than a bike shop owner and beastly mountain biker, both of which Rudy is. So the tire was fixed and we rode out and onwards to Big Apple Pizza.

Big Apple Pizza was amazing as usual and we ate to our hearts content and then a little more. As part of the goal was to stretch our stomachs for the impending challenge once i had eaten my fill i decided i would force myself to drink 3 large cups of water in quick succession to do just that.BAD IDEA. Thirty minutes and several dry heaves later we embarked towards Georgia and are currently awaiting the next days trials somewhere around macon.

Day One:

In 25 minutes we will officially begin. Are we ready? Kinda sorta.

So im sitting here at my computer at 12:52a.m unpacked,unshaven and generally unkempt but it has just dawned on me that this trip is actually happening, just hours from now we will embark on what we hope will be an epic moment in our lives and the highlight of our summer. Its a bit strange looking back and seeing how the idea of our "epic" roadtrip has evolved from an empty promise to a plausible experience.

The plan is essentially to hit all the stops marked on the map and beast and feast our way up the southern united states eventually ending at my house in tenesee and then coming back down.

This blog has been set up so that upon our return we will not have to relate weeks of information to countless people but instead direct them here after or as the events are taking place.Feel free to comment on anything with either remarks or questions and we will most likely upload the escapades of the day late at night or the day after,and look for a video to be released some time after we return which chronicles our experience and our battle with "The Carnivore Challenge".

Beast and Feast - A poem

A little different from all the rest
Three young men soon to embark on a quest

First stop in Hobe Sound
Where Big Apple Pizza leaves our stomachs round

Full of pizza and Garlic knots
The food of gods is the special sauce

Big Pie in the sky lies in the midst
An 11 pound pizza challenge to be crossed off the list

We’ll bike up mountains and fish for some bass
I’ll bet I’m the first one to fall on my ass

Biking on mountains and trails and through trees
Does that really sound like fun for me?

But its worth the sacrifice and the pain because I’m a beast
Because in the end it’s all about the feast

Beast & Feast Following

In addition to this blog updates of our Quest will be broadcast on http://twitter.com/helloground which will switch to Beast & Feast coverage on Sunday. Videos when available will be posted on http://www.youtube.com/user/bonjourfloor as well as embedded here in the blog. Pictures at sometime or another will probably make it to Facebook.

I'm assuming I have figured out that somewhere in the past I have already paid my dues to AT&T and can use their Starbucks wifi locations without cost, which would be swell

My PreTrip Thoughts and Will

Today is Thursday, in only a few days Mike, Stephen and I will depart once again on a journey, a journey unrivaled by journeys before it and possibly greater than many that will follow. Some of called us fools, others heros, but the majority just really don't care which is fine because you people have no friends. As I was saying, this Sunday we set forth on a Quest to discover, nay define the word "Epic". That's all well and good and will be awesome, but as I did for our trip to Jonathan Dickinson State Park I am forced to look on the less delightful end of the spectrum. Originally I was not going to do this but when Mike informed me yesterday we might have to by a lovely thing called "bear mace" I felt I was obligated to. So here are some things you should now about this trip, because you out there, you facebook readers of notes and other lurkers, I entrust with writing my obituary. While in Tennessee we will be staying in Mike's house. Every time I'm am informed about the house's condition it seems to lose something. At last check I believe there's a large chunk of the living room wall gone, exposing it to the elements. This, as Mike has told me is not a critical issue as long as I keep away from the mating deer that have made this area of the house their "love cave". Also on the property there are numerous gullies and pits that Mike has told me we can explore, he just doesn't know if we can climb out of them. I have also been informed the people in the surrounding area are "nice". I believe this wholeheartedly because people who have loaded gun racks on the back of their trucks are always the friendliest of people. As one of our stops Mike and Stephen will be competing in "The Carnivore Challenge" which will be described in more detail on our blog which I will shamelessly plug later. I will not be competing because while they are eating I will be assembling a list of area hospitals and lining the interior of the Quest with plastic wrap in case the pizza, as the contest holders put it, "leaves the contestant" on the ride after. Apparently we will also be doing some farmwork (yay?) which would be rewarded with a "Good home cooked Southern meal". Mike says that last part in an oddly soothing way, its weird and I won't discuss it any further. So seeing as I cannot think of anymore things to worry about (which worries me in itself) I will move on to what to do in case the trip does not go so well. How will you know if its taking such a terrible path you ask? This is where the shameless blog plugs come in. So you may have read the word "Will" in the title and thought "Hey I like stuff" and wanted to see what I am going to leave and what you might get. In order to avoid and confusion/jealousy/sadness I have devised a system to divvy out my crap belongings. Over these past couple days I have labeled everything I own with a number. Each of these numbers corresponds to person I know and relates to the order in which I met them so the number 1, relates to the first person in my "posse" I met and moves from there. Because I don't have that much stuff/didn't put that much thought into my system, there's only an item 5, 11, and 21 so you can sort that out amongst yourselves by whatever means you'd like. I'd suggest some sort of primitive stick fighting. And before we leave, we'd all really much appreciate a batch of brownies. Thanks - m@

Origins

The concept of "Beast & Feast" originated while camping over Spring Break at a corner of Hell known as Jonathan Dickinson State Park. While exploring the rather quiet area of Hobe Sound we came across a wonderful little pizza franchise called "Big Apple Pizza". Little did we know this would become the place of legends. As we sat down for a stromboli an advertisement on the wall for "All You Can Eat Pizza and Pasta Wednesdays and Sundays "caught our eye. This is something I myself have only heard of on television, a deal of amazing value seemingly too good to be true yet we were sitting in such a mystic establishment. Unfortunately, it was only Tuesday so we slated ourselves to come back the next day for lunch. That morning we woke up, walked 5 miles and then went mountain biking on the sketchy at best trails. While grinding our way through the sand and heat, the motivation to keep going was the infinite meal that lay before us. Somewhere on those sandy, mildy crappy trails the moniker "Beast & Feast" came about. After we were done "beasting" these trails we would "feast". We arrived at Big Apple Pizza sweaty, not having showered in a couple days but left feeling too full to walk to the car, much less walk another 5 miles back to camp. Since that day "Beast & Feast" has become a mantra to live by. With this trip we continue its legend, but not only revisiting Big Apple Pizza but adding new and more extraordinary beasts and feasts to our resumes.