May Good Luck Guide You

It was hard to pick just one picture to capture the mood of our going away party. That is until I found this gem. It may not be obvious but this picture was taken before closing time and Matt and I were clearly enjoying ourselves. Our eyes are closed, I'm practically doing the white man's overbite dance move and my hair is tore up (sorry Anthony). What I love about this shot is if you look closely above the door, you'll see it says, "May Good Luck Guide You." I couldn't have thought of a better theme or mantra for our trip than that.

Durty Nelly's Bar was brave enough to host our friends, family and collegues for our farewell party on Saturday, April 8. Matt and I punched in our party time clocks at about 5:30 pm with guest expected to arrive at 6:00 pm. I sucked down water all day in preparation for the long night ahead. Many a night has started with the phrase, "I'll just drink alot of water in between drinks." The best laid plans of mice and men has proved fatal to me in the past. A false sense of security if you will. Friendly faces started trickling in about 6:30 letting lose to a flood of people around 7pm. I wouldn't say the night was a blur more like a suspension of time and space. It's a bit surreal to combine worlds of people in your life. I felt like a kid with my room full of toys to play with but instead of there being toys there were my most favorite people to play with.

The atmosphere at Durty Nelly's steadily turned from festive to circus freakish. We weren't the only ones with the idea of throwing a party at that bar. I went hoarse trying to talk over the music and roars of the crowd. As the place thinned dancing quickly filled the empty spaces. The DJ tried to make us dizzy by playing U2's Vertigo not once, but 4 times in the course of an hour. Balloons, car bombs, 312 lb stripper, weines in BBQ sauce, Turf Divas, BCU, poker buddies, Rancho, VA, USF, UCSF, O'Donnell & Zibilich Clans, we could not have asked for a better send off. We finally clocked out of the bar at 2 am and walked out on our own two feet. We were drunk, not on Durty Nelly's libations, but on all the beautiful people in our lives who support us, love us and who laugh with us and at us. What fun would this trip around the world be unless we had people who cared about where we went, what we saw or what gave us upset tummies. This trip isn't just for us, it's for all of you.