A pleasant day of diving

Patrick goes in close for a shot of jacks

Today was a nice sunny warm day. We did two dives at Balicasag Island - Diver’s Heaven and Black Forest. At Diver’s Heaven I got to see the pygmy seahorse but it was in an awkward position to take a good picture of it. It’s really up to them if they want their picture taken. I also got to see a moray eel and a small crab. The highlight of Black Forest was a large school of jacks and a napoleon wrasse that passed by. Unfortunately though visibility in the water wasn’t that good.

Noel finds something for the group.

Moray eel

After dives I met Ramona and Jana from Germany. They are both nurses but Ramona is a PADI dive instructor. I was planning on moving back into my original room but found out Ramona and Jana moved into it. Sander helped me out and had them swap with me. After moving, I walked to Rona’s Corner market and got some batteries for my flashlight for a night dive. I bumped into Jolie and Charlene on the way back putting up flyers for Oops Bar!.

A decorator crab

Nite dive at 6 am at House reef. Saw mandarin dragonets whiich only come out at night. They were cool but really hard to take pictures of because they are so small and quick. Along the wall, I also saw some decorator type crab that was well camouflaged, a large hermit, and a small red crab. Doing a night dive here isn’t as bad as one in Los Angeles because it isn’t as cold as LA.

A red crab comes out at night

After the night dive Patrick, Ramona, Jana, and I decided to eat at Coco Vida. Of us four, Patrick was the only other one that spoke English well. Ramona could understand some but couldn’t really speak it while Jana doesn’t know English. This made our dinner conversation for me very boring. Pretty much the whole time Ramona was talking to Patrick in German. It was a boring dinner but the food was good.

- jason

Ants! I miss my other room

Fish, diver, boat

Woke up, opened my laptop and there were about 50 ants swarming on the keyboard. There were also some mosquitos flying around my room. I can’t wait to get my old room back which I should get back in two days when Stephanie moves out. For the day, we planned to go out to Balicasag Island and do some dives at Diver’s Heaven and Black Forest.

The rare to find stonefish. You see the eyes and mouth?

The dives were very nice. There was a really large school of jacks that hovered around near some sand. I also got to see a few things I’ve never seen before - a stonefish and a large nudibranch the size of my index finger.

School of jacks swim by

Nudibranch

Later in the night, I didn’t really have any plans so I just hung out with two girls from Hong Kong I met on the dive boat -- Phoebe and Camilla. They were looking for a place to eat dinner but I already ate. I decided to just have dessert while they ate at Oops Bar!. I ordered the Oops Supreme Halo Halo which was awesome. It reminded me of some Vietnamese or Chinese type dessert drink.

- jason

Change

Balut - partially developed 15 day old chicken with feathers, beak, and all.

Today was a very overcast day. The dive at Arco was really good in that there was a lot of good life we saw -- 2 frogfish, a leaf fish, 3 moray eels, and a pygmy seahorse. Unfortunately, I needed a change of batteries from the beginning of the dive. It sucks because I did charge the batteries beforehand, but the Energizer batteries I use occasionally have bad cells. I couldn’t take pictures for any of the dives of the day.

Since Amy left, and Markus and Thomas were leaving the next day (can’t fly within 24 hours of diving), my only dive buddy I knew was Patrick; a young German guy that’s been traveling for 6 months. New to the group is Stephanie -- a German girl living in Manila, and two girls from Hong Kong -- Phoebe and Carmilla. Junior, who I’ve never dove with, led our dives as divemaster.

Second dive was a Buoyancy Gardens which was good too. Visibility wasn’t as good as Arco, but we saw a pair of pegasus sea moths, two pipefish, anemone shrimp, scorpionfish, and a moray eel. I was very happy about my dive because my buoyancy has never been so good. The reason why is because I changed the weight I wear by removing 1 kilo; this made me be able to use less air in my vest which changes ones buoyancy based on depth.

After we got back, I cleaned up quickly because I had to change rooms and Stephanie was moving into my room. I moved into the loft of Hamid’s room which was decent at first. While organizing some things in the room I heard something move around in the walls. I looked around and noticed a large black tail sticking out of the wall. Though I didn’t see the body, I’m assuming it’s a rat because Dawn said she saw one in her room before.

Tired from diving I decided to take an afternoon nap. I wanted to make sure though that I could wake up before 6 p.m. in order to organize dinner plans with others before they left. I ate at Oops Bar! with Thomas, Markus, Hamid, and Stephanie. I ordered a German dish that was pork in a creamy sauce and hash browns. It was quite good. I’m wondering if I’m actually going to learn more about German culture than Filipino. I am surrounded by so many German tourists and residents here.

After dinner we simply walked up to the bar. It was Markus and Thomas’ last night so we had to celebrate properly. Markus ordered me a round of Jagermeister; I shot it he sipped it. At another table I hung out with Cheri (waitress at Hayahay), Arlene (cook at Genesis), and a couple others. I discovered a few of them liked to eat a Filipino delicacy called “balut” -- a 15 day old chicken egg that has a partially developed chick inside -- beak, feathers, claws, bones and all. I ordered a round for them and one for Hamid who has been promising the last couple days he would try it.

Hamid takes the plunge and lives up to his word by trying balut.

To eat balut, you peel away the top part of the egg, slurp up the juices inside, and then eat the chick. I have to say, it looked grosser than I thought it would be. Before I was thinking I would probably eat one if I was drunk but now I think it will take more than that. I left the bar around 2 a.m.

Arlene loves the balut and proves she licked it clean.

- jason

Dive Banca Wreck and House Reef

I dived with Hamid today and Luer was our divemaster. I just wanted to do local close dives so chose not to go with the big group out to Balicasag. Our first dive in the morning was the Banca Wreck which was a few minute boat ride away.

A beautiful snake investigates my camera.

The Banca Wreck dive was a good dive but the wreck itself wasn’t that impressive. It’s understandable though because the wreck was only purposely sunk 6 months ago. Later in the dive we swam along a wall and got to see a sea snake which was a rare find; that find was worth the dive.

Another frogfish.

At House Reef, the visibility wasn’t that good but it was still a decent dive. We saw a small school of jacks, two frogfish, scorpionfish, and I found a small lionfish.

A scorpionfish lies camouflage on a coral.

After the dives, I cleaned up and journaled a little. Charlene, one of the bartenders at Oops! bar, wanted to hang out at Trendi internet cafe after I dived. So I texted her and went to Trendi but she wasn’t there because she couldn’t make it out. All night we tried hanging out but couldn’t because we were busy. Markus, Amy, and I went to Coco Vida to check email and eventually meet others for dinner. I didn’t get to use my computer because we ran out of time.

We ate dinner next door at Hayahay because we all had 10% off vouchers for every 6 dives we did. I ate the grilled squid which was okay. It was a little tough. During dinner, two guys serenaded our table. Their singing wasn’t that good but when they played Filipino songs they were quite good. For a couple of their songs they both played guitar on one guitar. It was hilarious.

We hung out at Oops! bar afterwards and did our usual silly stuff -- Liar Liar, Genga, etc. Nigel came by and we chatted a little. It was pretty much the last time I would see him because the next day he was leaving. He was a very nice person with a lot of helpful advice. He said he’s just passing along what someone did for him when he first arrived in Philippines and likewise I will do the same for someone else.

- jason

Riding a motorcycle in the rain is scary

Where I dropped the bike, beforehand.

I took the day off from diving to do some much needed shopping in Tagbilaran city with Nigel. He had a motorcycle from his friend, so I rented one for myself for 400 pesos for 6 hours. I’ve never drove a motorcycle before and so needed a quick lesson on the side of the road. At the motorbike rental guy (some guy on the side of the road), it started raining a lot; Nigel and I waited around until it subsided a little. I was a little nervous riding the bike in the rain for 20 kilometers in a foreign country with no protective gear. Filipino drivers are crazy drivers because they don’t pay attention to rules of the road, but they’re very skillful.

The rain subsided and of course I had a hard time starting the bike; not the bikes fault. Once I started moving, and a little wiggle on the road, it was fairly easy going. The hardest part of course was getting used to the controls and the brake. We had to find gas for the bike so Nigel and I stopped at several different side stores. At one of them, I made the error of trying to startup the motorcycle in first gear. After doing a little revving (to get the engine going), the bike flew forward with me still on it and into a wall. It only went a few feet, but it was hard to stop the bike even when it was on the ground; by instinct, I held onto the handle bar grip revving it even more. I cut my hand, knee, and elbow, but not too badly.

I got 2 liters of gas at a nearby convenient store. A girl came out with a one liter Coke bottle with gas in it and poured it into my gas tank. Starting the bike up again, I almost made the same mistake as before; leaving the bike in first gear. A man from across the street came over an pointed out what I was doing wrong. Ah. Though I got more used to riding the bike the journey to Tagbilaran was a scary one. Thoughts in my head kept haunting me. What if I fall at 50 km/hr? What if a car runs into me? Why is Nigel going so fast? With my luck of course while riding, a truck passed me, ran over a puddle, and splashed it all over me. Of course, once we got into the Tagbilaran, my fright didn’t get any better because driving in the city is far worse.

The city of Tabilaran, Bohol.

50 peso haircut. Not bad.

After dodging vans, cars, trucks, and tricycles, Nigel and I made it to the BQ mall. I was impressed by the mall because it was as modern as one in the US. It was small though. Nigel and I walked around and I tried to absorb all my surroundings while he told me all about what’s around. We ate at a Pizza Hut restaurant (99 pesos for a pizza, drink, and soup), went to a pharmacy for my wounds, and got a haircut for 50 pesos. Additionally he showed me the best money changer, the immigration office, and a good bank. In the mall I bought 3 pairs of shorts which I needed. It was a very productive day.

I had to return the bike by 5 pm so we left around 4 pm. Well, I survived one way, just one more way to go. Once we got out of the city, I started to really get more of the feel of the bike. I rather enjoyed it actually and went a little faster than before. I still though had some fear, which I guess you should always have on a motorcycle to keep on your toes.

Photo Booth fun on my Mac with bartender Rain.

Photo Booth fun with Amy.

Back in Alona I went to Coco Vida bar next to Hayahay to check my email on my laptop. Connection was bad so we just played around with Photo Booth and the built-in camera on my laptop (Macbook Pro). Markus, Thomas, and everyone around me, including the bartenders ,were having a blast. Went out to eat dinner with Hamid, Thomas, Amy, Harold, and Markus at the Powder Keg. I heard good things about it and thought it would be good and was disappointed in the amount and quality of food.

Oops bar. All the usual girls were there. I drank lite with only one order of rum and cokes. We played Liar Liar and Genga as usual.

- jason

Buoyancy, Chicken, Oops!

Markus showing off his buoyancy at Buoyancy Gardens

I woke up a little late and so had to rush to get my camera and strobe all set up before our dives at 9:30 am. The day of dives was at Bouyancy Gardens and Sanctuary. Shortly after I descended (about 10 meters) I noticed bubbles coming out of my strobe light. It was leaking as I could also see the o-ring sticking out. I signaled to Luer that something was wrong and surfaced. At the boat, Rene was there and he said he would rinse the strobe in fresh water and let it dry. Lucky he’s a photographer and knows what to do.

Crappy shot of octopus, but a shot.

The dive itself was a nice change of pace from the typical wall dives. Buoyancy Gardens is basically an underwater desert with patches of coral here and there. I see where it gets its name because it’s a good place to fine tune and check one’s buoyancy. I tried taking pictures sans strobe but they mostly came out crappy because my settings on my camera was all messed up. Diving at Sanctuary was cool in that Patrick spotted a fairly good sized octopus which was laying around.

Yum, tasty BBQ chicken.

I went out to dinner with Thomas, Markus, and Hamid. Hamid and I were craving bbq chicken a lot but Thomas didn’t eat any red meat. After looking for a while that would satisfy all, we ended up first eating BBQ chicken and then going to Trudi’s Place so Thomas could eat some spaghetti. Afterwards Markus, Thomas, and I hung out at Coco Vida bar for a few drinks until happy hour at Oops bar. It was Saturday, so it was disco night at Oops. There I danced a bunch and had a good time.

A frogfish lays uncamoflauged in hard corals.

- jason

Barracudas and Mona Lisa

School of barracuda swim by.

I did two great dives at Balicasag Island today -- Black Forest and Cathedral. Among the highlights that I saw was a white frogfish, an orangutan crab, lionfish, napolean wrasse, and a large school of barracuda that swam around us. Large schools of fish are always impressive, but when they’re 3 foot barracuda it is even better.

Patrick swims towards the school of barracuda.

After the dives and some cleaning up, I had dinner with Hamid, Jos, Marion, Amy, Markus, and Thomas at Hayahay where we used our 10% off vouchers. While waiting for our food, a bartender from Coco Vida, Mona Lisa (no joke, that’s her name) walked by said “hi” and asked how I was. Mona is a very sexy, flirtatious girl that would fit right in at a Hollywood hipster bar. Hamid and a few others at our table joked about how so many girls around knew my name; it’s quite funny.

Crab in feather star.

Flatworm

After Hayahay, we ended up at Oops Bar!. Of course, we had the usual happy hour rum and cokes, Genga games, and just a good time.

- jason

Diving at Snake Island and Arco

Our first dive for the day was at Snake Island - a sunken island in the middle of the sea. I love the name of the site because it sounds like some Pirate inhabited island from some movie. The dive site is called Snake Island because there’s a lot of sea snakes that swim around there. The sea snakes are extremely poisonous - 10 times more lethal than a black mamba snake. The dive at Snake Island was fantastic.

A feather star swims to a new location

Early in the dive, a snake swam across our group. Then a feather star swam around and landed somewhere; these are common in the reef but rarely have I’ve seen them swim. I later found an odd looking red scorpion fish with a yellow mouth, a snowflake eel, large puffer fish, and two banded sea snakes intertwined in a soft coral.

Two snakes swim out and are attacked by a territorial fish before swimming away.

When I went in close to take a picture of the two snakes, they were curious of me and swam up my camera. They then swam out into the open and were attacked by a small territorial fish, and then swam away. This was definitely the highlight of my dive. At the surface we hung out on the boat and ate lunch. It was a beautifully sunny day and the water was glassy calm.

Lunchtime break. I guess you can't complain.

In-between dives Dawn takes a nap.

The next dive, Arco, was also a good dive. We descended 90 feet to look for a pygmy seahorse in a sea fan. We didn’t find one but we did see a large frogfish, lionfish, nudibranchs, and two moray eels. I didn’t see the second eel until it swam right in front of me while I was taking a picture of the other; I was a bit surprised.

A nudibranch crawls along some macro algae.

A frogfish lays still on coral.

After the dives I just hung out at the dive shop with all the others. Talked to Dawn more about Korea and all her travels. Ate dinner at Hayahay and hung out at the usual Oops Bar!.

- jason

A day off from diving

Journaling at the bar.

I took the day off from diving to get a lot of errands done and just to take a break. Mainly, I needed to catch up a little on journaling and do laundry. In my haste to pack things and move, I really didn’t put much thought into what clothes I was bringing to the Philippines. I packed too few shorts with decent pockets (board shorts don’t have good pockets) and too many shirts. I also should have brought a toothbrush holder case and shampoo. I was too lazy to take a tricycle to the main city Tagbilaran so I just did all my errands locally within walking distance.

Laundry at the place I am staying at is 40 pesos/kilo (kilo = 2.2 lbs). That’s one cool thing about living out here, is that, I finally get to learn metric in my daily life (I wouldn’t learn it otherwise). I don’t mind the price, but, they said my laundry would be done in a couple days. I was pretty much out of clean shorts and planned to have my laundry cleaned by end of day. They said I could try another laundry place.

I went to the other laundry place down the way (which is also a travel/tour agent). They were 65 pesos/kilo and would have it the next day; not ideal, but doable. In addition to dropping off laundry, I found a local market down the road and didn’t realize was there. I picked up some shampoo which I now need because my hair grew out.

I finished all my errands by late morning and decided to journal at a local bar which is right next to Hayahay, a restaurant that has free (for me because I have the password) internet. Internet didn’t work when I tried it before but now it worked beautifully. I ended up ordering a fresh pineapple shake and eating a chili pork dish which was surprisingly tasty. I wrote my journal quite a bit but still didn’t really catch up. Why does it take so long? I guess trying to remember things takes time and it’s too easy to just sit here and do nothing.

Very good tasting chicken.

For dinner that night I decided to explore and find something cheap -- too many touristy restaurants on the beach. I found a barbeque chicken stand on the side of the road. A whole chicken cost me 160 pesos ($4 USD) and I had some rice and a beer. The chicken was big and very tasty. In fact, I only ate 1/3 of the chicken and took the rest to go.

Buy 1 get 1 free happy hour rum/cokes make it difficult to order just one.

Later that night I hung out with Dawn, Amy, Markus, and Thomas at Oops! bar. As usual, all the lovely bar girls were there. Dawn was hungry and so I gave her my chicken to eat. She pretty much at the rest of it! We played Liar Liar with some of the girls at the bar and I drank a bunch of caipirainas.

- jason

Pygmy seahorse!

Pygmy seahorse in gorgonian fan coral

Woke up around 7:30 a.m. which is now the norm to get ready and eat a little breakfast. Sander introduced me to these banana pancakes which are awesome. By 9:30 a.m., we set out onto the boat for a 30 minute ride to Balicasag Island. It was a sunny morning and fairly mellow surf. The two dive sites we dived were “Cathedral” and “Black Forest”.

A large school of jacks

Cathedral was a nice wall dive where I saw a yellow nudibranch, a hard to find pygmy seahorse, scorpion fish, and the usual little crabs and such. I went down to 94 feet and the temperature of the water was 78 degrees Fahrenheit. Very nice dive. Back on the boat we ate lunch and unfortunately the weather got cool as the sun went behind clouds.


The next dive, Black Forest, had poorer visibility but had lots of fish swimming around. The amount of fish was very impressive and is hard to describe in words or a picture. The most impressive part of the dive though was a large school of jacks that swam by. There were hundreds of them.

- jason

Two dives at Pungtud and Gak Ang, Oops!

That fuzzy red thing in the middle is a crab.

The day started off as a nice sunny day. I basically did two dives today at Pungtud and Gak Ang divesites. On the boat I met Dawn who is originally from Seattle but works in Korea teaching english (very inspirational). My dive buddies that went with me on my dives were Thomas and Markus who are from Germany and my divemaster was Noel.

For our dives, we saw lots of scorpion fish, anglerfish, frogfish, nudibranchs, shrimp, and jellyfish. There’s quite a bit of life along the reef which makes each dive pretty diverse.

Small crab defending his soft coral.

Small anemone shrimp on anemone with clownfish

After the dives, I basically just lounged around the dive resort, drinking the light but good San Miguel beer. Talking with others, I met Ben who is from New York but getting his MBA in Taiwan. There he learned perfect Taiwanese. I also met Amy who is also from Seattle but teaches english in Korea (different school than Dawn); surprisingly, that’s three Americans living abroad. The number of people I’ve met that either travel for months or live and work abroad is more common than not. I’m just starting and feel a little late in the game. For example, Sander, a dive instructor from Holland, has traveled to more than 80 countries!

Ben asked me if I wanted to go to dinner with him and I agreed. It was his last night in the area and he wanted it to be good. He had his heart set on Italian food (one of the best restaurants in the area) and so we went there. Unfortunately, the restaurant was booked because of a birthday party. We walked further down the street and found a place with 25 peso San Miguel Beers on happy hour. We dropped by for a beer. There I met Roger from Holland, a friend of Ben’s who took some scuba classes with him.

We ended up eating at Pyramid Grill where we picked out a large fish for 600 pesos, vegetable skewers, and a few San Miguels. It was a delicious dinner that we ate on the beach.

Vilma playing Genga with me at Oops!

Afterwards, we went to Oops! bar to hang out. There I played Genga for the first time with Vilma, a bartender there. Happy hour is at 9 - 10 pm where rum and cokes are half off ($0.50 USD each); this is very dangerous because you can’t just order one at a time. After several games of Genga, I went to a table where Ben, Sander, Amy, and Dawn were hanging out.

Dawn with one of her rum/cokes.

I gave Dawn a couple rums/cokes I didn’t want. By the end of the night 8 drinks and was pretty happy. She told me all about teaching in Korea and how her company paid for her flight there, and pays for her apartment, and how much vacation time she gets. Also, she told me about how good the food was and how cheap everything was there. Most anyone can qualify and you get paid a good amount of money. It sounded very tempting actually. Who knows, maybe I will be teaching in Korea later this year.

- jason

First dive at Genesis Divers on Alona

A small anemone shrimp on an anemone.

School of jacks swimming above

I naturally woke up early (7am) and eventually had breakfast on the beach at Hayahay (owned by Genesis). I had two reasons to go there; try to get onto their free internet and have a nice breakfast on the beach. The internet failed to connect because something was wrong with their router (found out later, it works now) and the food was decent.

My one and only dive for the day was at “Santuary” which was actually quite nice. I went along with Susan and Daniel, a Swiss couple; I thought they were German. Our Divemaster was Luer. I saw a lot of little shrimp, a frogfish, and nudibranchs which were fine. A few batfish followed us around trying to get food out of us (people feed them). The highlight of the dive was a small school of jacks that swam in a ball above me then swam around me. Very cool.

For dinner I ate at Trudi’s Place which my friend Cecilia and I ate at when I visited in 2007. I had the seafood curry with rice. It was good and not too expensive. After dinner I walked over to Oops! bar to hang out. Met Nigel who was going to dive with me the next day. He’s from England and a very inspirational person because like me, he dropped a lot of what he was doing (25 years at his last job) and decided to travel around and dive.

- jason

Getting to Alona Beach

I woke up around 9:30 am and ate breakfast with Day, and Jim. As usual, it was good. During the morning, there was a sense of rushing around as Jim had to prepare for performing an oral surgery, Day was trying to figure out directions to the airport (no mapquest in Phil), and I had to pack. Day drove me to the airport at around 12:30 pm which was later than we wanted. My flight was at 3 pm and I wanted to get there 2 hours before. Plus, we didn’t know how traffic would be (it’s worse than Los Angeles).

We made it just in time and I actually had some time to spare. Pity I had to pay extra for having 14 extra kilos in weight for my baggage. This time, I went through the two security check points with no issues. My flight left right on time and was only 1.5 hours long. The plane was a medium sized plane, though it was slightly scary on takeoff because the landing gear sounded like it had a hard time closing. Additionally, we had one of the roughest landings I’ve experienced.

A driver picked me up in a van from Tagbilaran to Alona Beach. The drive was shorter than I thought, only 35 minutes. I booked a room beforehand at Genesis Divers which was a dive resort I used before. It’s not a fancy place, but, the people are friendly and it’s at a good location. I met Luer who is the manager and Arlene showed me to my room.

My room was actually better than I thought it would be. It’s bigger than I thought and there are more amenities like a few drawers to put my clothes. Security is also better than I thought. The only thing I didn’t like was a funky smell in the place, it’s kinda dark, and my bed sheets were gummy feeling (cleaned?). Plus, my pillow was the saddest pillow I’ve ever seen. I didn’t feel clean on my bed. Thankfully though, the shared bath and shower are decently clean.

That evening I hung out in the common area with Luer, Sander (a dive instructor), Marc (a local foreign resident), and Giso, the owner. We had several San Miguel beers which put me in a good buzz. Afterwards, I ate dinner at some local restaurant on the beach. I had a fresh grilled snapper, some rice, and a San Miguel. All of it cost me 270 pesos ($6.70 USD). It was relatively expensive, but I had to splurge.

I walked to a nearby favorite bar called “Oops Bar!”. It was crowded and there were people dancing. I’ve never seen the bar this crowded before. I tried to find a place at the bar but couldn’t so I decided to smoke a cigar and hang out at the beach. It was my private celebration for making it out to the Philippines. The last week took a toll on me with all the stressing, moving, lack of sleep, and random problems (car broke, airport security problem, etc). I’m fortunate to have a good set of friends and family that helped get me through it all.

- jason

Diving at Anilao, Batangas with Day

Jim drove Day, Jeni, and I at 6 am to embark on our 4 hour drive to Batangas, just south of Manila. At first it sounded a little crazy driving 4 hours to just do a few dives. It ended up being a fun little dive-road trip adventure. On the way, we met up with two of Jeni’s friends when we ate breakfast at McDonalds.

We dove with the Blue Azul dive resort. Our Divemaster, Dennis, kept on trying to talk to me in Tagalog because he thought I was Filipino. We did two dives, which were good but a little chaotic because most of the people diving haven’t dove in a couple years and there were two first time scuba (intro dives) divers. Despite that, they were both fun dives and it was interesting seeing how the divemasters handled everything.

We hung out around the resort after the dive which was fine except for all the mosquitoes biting me. When we got our bill we were shocked to see how much everything costed. They seemed to have charged us for every little thing about the dive - boat rental, extra gas on boat for staying out too long, etc. On top of this, Jeni knew the manager and this was his discount to us.

We drove back in the evening and I pretty much slept the entire drive back. I was so exhausted.

- jason