pics

Elliot manning the table at OSU
setup at the town hall forum at MUS
UMASS eco-village
Silk and Reverb!  at UMaine
saying goodbye to the giant Silk 

The Final Recap

The Campus Consciousness Tour was an amazing experience for me.  Traveling on a tour bus, with a band, waking up in a new place everyday, sleeping in a bunk, and all the other new things I got to experience, I could never have even imagined doing.  It took some adapting to the schedule and life on the road but it was a life I enjoyed.  It was a very faced paced lifestyle and even though I rarely had to time to sit down and relax, I loved every second of it.  I would rather be extremely busy than extremely bored, and I found myself always wanting to do something to help or be productive. 

The thing I am going to miss most about the tour is the people.  By the end of the trip all 12 of us traveling on the bus felt like a family.  Thinking back on it, for 12 people to live in such a small space and get along so well is pretty unbelievable.  I had gotten to know everyone so well, especially the people from the beginning Vanessa, Erin, Elliott, Josh, it was going to be weird not waking up on the bus with them every morning.  We spent almost a month of our lives together, living in close quarters, which almost forced us to really get to know each other, and we all got along so well.  We all had extremely different personalities too, but meshed together very well.  I definitely have some friends that I will keep in touch with after the tour!

The thing that I personally will take away from the tour is everything I learned about environmental sustainability.  I honestly didn’t know too much about it going into the tour, and being around people that were so passionate about it made me want to be too.  From the first day I realized they were very serious about the issue and after that I consciously made an effort to do everything that Reverb was trying to teach people on tour.  For example, to refill your Sigg water bottle instead of using plastic ones, or every cardboard case that I broke down from sampling I made sure got to cardboard recycling.  One morning I went to get coffee and all they had out were styrofoam cups and it made me think twice about even using it.  Before tour I was concerned about the environment, but was not aware of all the ways I could change little things I did to help it.  After tour I want to read books about it and educate myself more, because the people I was with really inspired me to.  Not only did they inspire me to be more green efficient and conscious, but also motivated me to do things in life you care about.  People like Elliott who converted a school bus to travel on straight vegetable oil and educated people while traveling over twelve thousand miles all over the country.  Vanessa who travels to Central America countries and works with underprivileged communities to help fight hunger and poverty.  Erin who constantly dug through the trash to make sure all that could be recycled was making it to the right place.  They all did these things because they cared deeply about making the world a better place, and they passed these feelings along to me.  I want to be like them and do things that matter, and affect people’s lives.

After speaking to hundreds of people, and telling them about Silk, I was really happy to be supporting a great message.  Traveling with all these people that were spreading the word about their non-profit organizations that were all in their own way helping the environment.  I felt proud to be identified with these companies, and to support a message similar. 

Overall I think it was a huge advantage for Silk to have me on the road with Reverb.  It was a great opportunity to collaborate and provide students and the public with information they would not have learned about Silk if I had not been on tour.  Also a lot of people had questions about the product and I answered everything from what is soymilk to how it's different than regular milk.  I think I did a great job of attracting people to try it, especially people that never would have even thought about trying it.  I also excited a lot of people about how great the company is, and how corporate companies can take an initiative to be green.

Thank you Silk for giving me this opportunity, the trip was a lot of work and a lot of fun at the same.  I loved representing you and would love to do it again.

Thank you Reverb for all the help you gave me on tour.  You really made everything easy for me to do my job, as well as made traveling enjoyable.  The partnership worked out great, and I appreciate your message and all you do to green tours.

Thanks all for keeping up and reading what I had to say.  I know I’m not the most eloquent author, but I enjoyed expressing myself over the course of the tour.  I hope everyone enjoyed my entries and glad you got to experience a little part of what I did over the last few weeks!

Happy Holidays!

UMASS, MSU, OSU

Overall the last week of the trip flew by…I’ll quickly recap the last three shows which were all great but very different from each other…

After University of Maine we traveled to UMASS in Amherst Massachusetts.  I woke up outside the UMASS event center, on what looked like a chilly day outside.  When I gathered my stuff to shower and walked out the door of the bus I was correct with my assumption…it was freezing outside.  I considered bundling up and going for a run, but it was too cold and I had slept later than I wanted.  The town hall forum was very intimate because only a few people showed up.  This was the least formal of all the THFs and we sat around and just conversed with each other.  The sampling at the show was pretty slow as well.  Even though we were set up at the back of the floor, opposite the stage yet center of attention, it didn’t attract as big of a crowd as I thought it would.  The bummer of the night was that it was Josh’s last show, he was leaving us to head back to Boston, and it was going to feel a lot different without him around because he really did a lot of the set up and making sure everything was going smoothly. 

Next we had a long drive to Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI.  This was a solid 15 hour drive so I tried to stay up as late as I could that night on the bus.  This way I would sleep late the next day cutting down on the time during the day to sit on the bus.  I knew how boring it could get sitting for 6 hours, and I awoke around 1 pm the next day, only to sit on the bus for a little longer.  Those three hours flew by and before I knew it we were at the Marriott in downtown East Lansing.  The town was a great college town with a few blocks of restaurants and bars, and we were staying in the middle of it all.  That night we had off so I asked my friend that had just graduated from MSU a few good spots to go.  We also met up with some of the OAR guys and had a pretty fun time.

We were only a half-mile from the Event Center and headed over there early the next morning.  It was lightly snowing which I enjoyed because it finally felt like it was getting to be late November.  I had to concentrate on getting out a lot of samples during the day because this venue would not allow me to sample that night until after concessions closed, which was about 45 minutes after OAR went on.  I knew this could potentially be a problem because the majority of our traffic was before OAR went on.  I sampled a few cases at the town hall forum, which was in the student center.  I really liked the MSU campus it was pretty big but felt organized and easy to get around.  The buildings were older but seemed nice.  There was a decent crowd at the forum all who enjoyed the samples and some t-shirts.  The students seemed very aware and had some really involved student groups on campus.  Later on at the show I set up just the raffle with the guitar, and then planned later on to hand out samples.  I had a lot of people sign up for the raffle and sampling after went a lot better than I thought.  In between songs a lot of people came out to go to the bathroom or get a drink, and since concessions were closed, a cold chocolate Silk was the perfect answer for them.

On we traveled to Ohio State, our last stop on the tour, so it was our last night on the bus.  I had a lot of things to organize but kept on pushing them off.  I couldn’t believe the tour was over already!  I felt like I could live on the bus for another few weeks, because I had grown so accustomed to it.  We had to be off the bus by 9am the next morning because Dave our bus driver was just dropping us off and then making his way back home to Nashville.  Luckily I got in contact with my friends Joey and Quinn who go to OSU and they just happened to live 10 houses away from the Newport, a downtown club in Columbus where the show was.  I was able to bring all my stuff, which had accumulated over the trip to more I had come with, and pretty much took over Quinn’s room.  I quickly showered at his place and then rushed off to the town hall forum on campus.  Once again, I was trying to do as much sampling as I could during the day because the show that night was not a typical one.  It was a Bud Light sponsored over 21 event, and I wasn’t sure how many of those people would want to sample a chocolate Silk vs. a Bud Light.  The venue was also very small so we only had one table to fit all of Silk, Reverb, and Oxfam’s stuff on it.  We decided considering the type of show, and that it was our last we should try and enjoy.  We had the table set up from when doors opened to a little after OAR went on, but the interest died down after OAR started playing, so we then broke it down.

This show was an interesting way to end the tour, because it didn’t feel like a college show, what we had been used to, but it felt like a regular concert.  The OAR guys all went to OSU so it felt like they were right at home, and the crowd was fun and into the show.  The venue also was older but perfect for a 1500 intimate show, because it had a small floor and a balcony that overlooked the floor.  I tried to enjoy the show as much as a I could knowing it was going to be my last one for a while…a really bittersweet feeling because it felt good that it was all over, but at the same time I didn’t want it to end.

University of Maine

We had a great little day off in Portland but the downside of staying in Portland was we had to wake up a little earlier to drive two hours up to Orno, ME the next morning.  University of Maine had a pretty nice campus, and it seemed it was similar size to Delaware about 20,000 students and about a 20 minute walk from one end of campus the other.  The venue however was a little different, it was a giant open field house, but had a similar feeling to a huge metal barn.  Being that we were as far north almost to Canada, it was not too warm inside either.

Today was going to be a pretty cool day, because Reverb had hired people to follow us around and tape our daily activities for a video they wanted to make about the Campus Consciousness Tour.  We went about our daily activities, and the camera crew just followed us around all day.  It was pretty fun walking to the town hall forum through campus, with the camera crew running around us to try and get the best shot.  I felt like I was either famous or on a reality show with the cameras following us.  The town hall forum went really well that day to.  We had a decent turn out, and I set up a little table with the Silk table cloth and samples for people to take, it looked very formal.

Later on in the day when I was setting up my booth the camera crew interviewed me.  They asked me a lot really good questions about Reverb and Silk’s relationship.  Also about sampling and people’s reactions, and the affect Silk’s message was having on them.  I got a chance to talk about all the reasons why Silk was supporting the CCT and all the company does to be environmentally sustainable.  Also later on when we had the eco-village totally set up, they filmed us in action.  They got some good footage of me handing out samples, and people drinking them.  In addition, they got my volunteers and I talking to students and educating them about Silk.  I’m excited to see how the video comes out, because it is an awesome opportunity to show how Silk is involved on the tour.  It also would be great PR for the company to show and promote!

That particular show I went through samples really quickly.  No one who I asked to try it turned me down except for one guy that gave me an excuse he was chewing gum.  I told him he’d love it if he just gave it a chance, then he asked me if I promised and I said yes.  Later he came back up to me and said, “you were right it’s really good.”  A lot of people started to drink it right away instead of putting it in their bag for later, which was good for the cameraman to get on tape.  The one thing that stuck out to me tonight was people seemed to be really receiving the message better about Silk’s green initiative.  A lot of people that I told about offsetting to wind energy were really engaged with the idea and I had long conversations with a few people about it.  It was really cool for me because a lot of the time people were initially surprised, but then just acknowledge the information and walk off.  I was happy to be getting questions about how exactly Silk offsets and other questions concerning wind energy.  I really felt like I was getting the message across here to more people, than at previous schools.

I guess I was in an interview mood because the school newspaper was doing a documentary/article and I caught them at the right time to do an interview with them.  I feel like as much publicity as Silk can get for this tour the better.  I mean that is predominately why I am here, to represent the brand and increase awareness to the people who I am around.  Definitely a hugely productive day, between the video, my interview with the newspaper, and in general the strong interest from people at the show learning about Silk.

Benj the bassist of the band is so awesome!  In his interview he told me he gave a big shout-out to Silk for being sponsor.  He has been the one in the band promoting campus consciousness tour’s message the strongest, and at the same time is a big Silk fan.  Thanks Benj!

Bucknell University

The next day was a rainy one at Bucknell.  It had rained both days we were in Delaware and still raining in Bucknell was kind of a downer for everyone.  It was Saturday though so we got to watch some college football.

The venue was smaller and we had an area on the upper level, that overlooked the floor and stage, to set up our stuff.  I grabbed a spot right in the middle of the venue, just around the corner from the other tables, because I thought it would be a better place to sample.  It’s also where we were going to put just the inflatable, but I have come to realize I like it better when the inflatable, sampling, and table are all in one place.  A few times the inflatable couldn’t fit by the table so we put it somewhere near the entrance where everyone could see it.  Also at Delaware the barrel coolers were leaking so I had my volunteers hand out samples outside, and that wasn’t ideal because I didn’t get to see people’s reactions to Silk.  It also really goes hand in hand, “try a sample, you could win a year’s supply.”

Sampling at Bucknell was a little slower than it had been at Delaware.  Since we were upstairs a lot of people came in the entrance and went straight to the floor.  Everyone could see us from the floor, so we did have a decent amount of people come check it out.  Tonight I stood by one of the barrel coolers next to the inflatable and handed out samples.  My two volunteers also handed out samples on the other side of the table.  This was different than in the past because no one was standing behind the table, asking people to sign up for the raffle.  I feel that since no one was standing behind the table more people stopped to check it out.  At Delaware the new specially made raffle forms got delivered and they are awesome looking!  The form describes exactly what is being raffled off.  So for people stopping by, if I am distracted talking someone else, can read the form and know what they are signing up to win.  I think it may be intimidating for someone to be standing behind the table watching you fill out a form to win, also some people are just shy and would rather walk by than ask what the signed guitar and huge Silk carton is doing there.  I think I may continue to try and be out in front of the table, and have people sign up.

The night went well, at the end I had a lot of raffle tickets filled out, and no samples.  Since everyone could see it, I left the inflatable up for most of the show.  I felt like it was in a good spot, and should have a presence during the show.  I don’t really think it had that much of an impact leaving it up longer, because everyone was watching the show, but even if it caught a few people’s eye I was ok with it.

My brother Mike came down from Penn State for the show, so he hung out with me for a little while I handed out samples.  We had a really good view of the show so he watched it near the table with me.  He also got the chance to wonder around.  I got him a guest pass so he could go wherever he wanted to.  He got there around dinner time so I was happy we got to eat dinner together, the catering was pretty good that night too.  Then there was a meet and greet with the band so I got to introduce him to some of the guys.  I felt bad I kind of had to ditch him to do my job, but at the same time he could watch the show wherever he wanted to, hang out on the bus or backstage, and do a lot of things that most people don’t get the chance to do at a concert.  After I cleaned up all my stuff we went down and watched the show from the side of the stage.  It was definitely the best show OAR has put on so far!

The next day we we had a day off and we were stopping in Portland, ME.  That is also where Reverb is based so we had plans to go out to dinner with Adam and Lauren (the founders of Reverb).  We went to a place called flatbread pizza right on the water.  It was a cute little place that just served pizza and salad and used all locally grown and organic products to make their food.  I had tasted a few flatbread gluten-free pizzas at expo and was hoping that this place had a gluten-free option, because I am allergic.  Sure enough I asked, and they make a single size gluten-free pizza.  It was the best pizza I have had in a long time!  Even better than the kinds I tried at expo because it was fresh out of the oven.  I really contemplated ordering some to ship home, but decided against it.  Besides the food being awesome dinner was great.  Everyone casually conversed about different things, and I had a chance to sit down and talk and get to know Lauren and Adam.  They seem like really great nice people, you can tell they really care about what Reverb is all about and what we are doing.  We talked about how happy they were to have SIlk on board and how much of a really great partnership it is between the two organizations.  I think so far the tour has been a great success and it has really given SIlk a chance to get out and show people that it supports an environmental initiative, especially to folks who normally would not have know that.

The night in Portland was great, I also got a chance to meet Brian and Emily, who also work in the Reverb office.  Overall everyone had a good time and it was really great to meet Adam and Lauren because everyone has spoken so highly of them.  Rightly so, they seem like good-hearted, motivated, friendly people.

pics from Udel

Ria, Katie, Caitlin and I on the bus
Josh and his cousins
the awesome crowd at Delaware
the student group's table with stage in the back

University of Delaware

We got to the Hilton in Newark, DE early the next morning and when I woke up our room keys were already lined up on the counter of the front of the bus.  I grabbed my key and some clothes for the next few days and headed up to the room.  Usually I try and pack clothes in my day bag for a few days so I don’t have to continually pull my bag out from underneath the bus.  The hotel was really nice, I have stayed there before, but it’s funny to me that the really nice hotels don’t have any complimentary coffee out or anything.  I have gotten used to the Hampton Inn coffee all day in the lobby and continental breakfast, because for the most part that is where we have stayed on this trip. 

I made a few calls to some friends who were still at Delaware, to see what everyone’s plans were for the night.  Everyone came to pretty much to the same consensus of watching the Pats vs Jets game and then going to Deer Park Tavern to listen to Kristen and the Noise, a pretty good cover band that usually plays at Deer Park on Thursday nights.  I did have some things on my list to do when I got back including grabbing nachos and a margarita at Sante Fe, my favorite place on campus.  When I went to school I would eat at Sante Fe at least a once a week.  Then Erin is a vegan and there is a pretty good restaurant on campus known for its vegan options, so I thought it would be cool to eat there for dinner.

My roommate Katie is finishing up her last semester at UD so I was really happy I was going to get to spend some time with her.  She had class from 2-8 that day but after that she came and met us for dinner at Home Grown, the vegan place.  The rest of the night was pretty fun.  The football game was a great close game to watch, and Deer Park was just like another Thursday night, however with a lot less people that I knew there, a decent amount of our friends have graduated.  It felt good to be back though.

The next day was the show.  I had some time in the morning, and decided I would try and shower and do a load of laundry at Katie’s place.  It was also Elliott’s 25^th birthday and his favorite kind of cake is funfetti, so I thought it would be nice to make him a funfetti cake.  I had a lot of things to do and not a whole lot of time before the town hall forum at 1pm to do them.  Katie picked me up and we quickly stopped at Acme bout some stuff to make the cake, got to her place and made the cake while throwing in my laundry and throwing the cake in the oven.  Hopped in the shower and then checked the cake in the oven.  I was extremely productive in that hour, but the cake still had to be cooled and iced, and laundry thrown in the dryer.  Katie said she could do this for me, after she had class and I had the town hall forum.  I guess that’s what good friends are for.

The forum was really appealing to me because I had never been involved in anything like this on campus before.  I wanted to see what types of clubs were on campus and what types of things they did.  I talked for a while with some really nice girls about how they liked Delaware and I came to find out that Delaware as a state is trying to build a wind farm somewhere down by Rehobeth beach.  The students on campus have been trying to get the University involved with that, and possible offsetting a lot of their energy to the development.  This obviously caught my attention because Silk offsets all of their energy to wind energy.  I think I would actually enjoyed to be part of this group, if I knew about it, while I was a student.  They do fun things like go camping, next week they were organizing a clothing swop, and some other events that caught my interest.  This trip overall is making me a lot more aware of even just the small things people can do to improve the environment.  It is a serious issue and if people were just a little bit more in tune with the things they use and waste, that awareness could go a long way.

For the rest of the day I did the usual…finding out where I could get ice, set up the table, get the products off the bus and what not.  I told Katie she should come drop off the cake and my laundry and eat dinner with us provided by catering.  We all waited around the bus for her because Elliott had no idea I made him a cake and we were going to surprise him.  She ended up just dropping the cake off and because she still had some things to do and get ready to come to the show. 

The show that night was crazy!  I went through samples really really quickly based on just the sure volume of people coming to the show.  I would have continued to put more and more samples out but I had to ration myself to make sure I have enough for the next two shows.  We had a pretty cool spot for set up, which looked out over the venue, and was directly in front of the stage.  I was excited because we were going to be able to listen to the opening band VACO who were sharing the bus with.  None of us had gotten a chance to hear them yet because we were always outside or doors were shut closing us out.

I saw some of my friends that still went to Delaware and they all wanted me to try and get them to meet the band, and get back stage and stuff.  I asked a few people and quickly realized that it wasn’t going to work.  Josh was really nice though and told me that he would clean up for me so I could go watch the show with my friends.  I grabbed three of them that I saw and took them with me to watch the show in some better seats than they were in.  It was fun watching the show with them and they were really appreciative that I got them to some pretty sweet seats.  Delaware definitely had the best turn out so far for a show.  Not only just number wise but also crowd was really into the show, I was proud my Alma Mater represented!

After the show I took Katie back with me to the bus, so she could see our home.  Also it’s really funny but Josh’s cousin Martin Cahill, goes to Delaware, and I was friends with him.  So Martin brought some of our other friends from Delaware back to the bus, including my Caitlin Germain who I had played soccer with and was another good friend a year younger than me.  We had a crowded little bus party, but it was fun!  It was cool to show people what I have been doing, and all my friends were super jealous of my job.  Cahill even was threatening to try and hide on the bus somewhere so he could sneak to Bucknell with us.  Everyone partied on the bus until our driver Dave got back around 1:30am.  We said our goodbyes, and headed off from Delaware to Bucknell.  Josh and I were glad it seemed like my friends and his cousins had a good time hanging out with us.

Overall it was good to hang out with friends I knew, in a very familiar city.  It was weird being back without a few people… shout out to Emily Sammis!  We missed you!  Check out the blog for some pics in a little…

pics from WFU

my awesome volunteers drinking Silk
Vanessa and I at helping at Campus Kitchens
the green where were set up on
the chapel where the concert was, also where we set up outside
another building on campus promoting the OAR show

Wake Forest University

I woke up the next morning at Wake Forest, which was much more appealing out the window compared to WVU.  The show tonight was going to be in an old chapel in the middle of campus.  It looked really pretty from the outside.  Josh told me that we were going to set our eco-village right outside the entrance.  I checked it out and we had an awesome spot right in front of the large chapel, which was right on the green.  The sun slowly started peaking out of the clouds while we set up and it felt like a great fall day.  I walked around campus and this was another really pretty campus.  I think I rank it just under Emory.  All the buildings were older brown brick, and the insides looked new and updated. 

So yesterday I think I forgot to say that we added five new guys to our bus.  The opening act called Virginia Coalition who was opening for OAR for the last half of the tour.  We were now sharing our bus with them.  All of us had a little reorganization to do before they got on, because before we had our large bags in an empty bunk and we would just take clothes out of there and put it in our day bags to go get changed or shower somewhere.  Now we had to make room under the bus for our bags and keep our day bags in our bunks with us.  I did manage to snag a drawer to fit all my shoes so I didn’t have to worry about that.  The VACO guys seemed nice but things were going to be a lot more crowded because all 12 bunks were now full. 

I got back to the bus, after finishing setting up the tents, and the VACO guys were playing football and heading to try and kick field goals on the field right by the bus.  I don’t think I have ever really tried to kick a field goal, and being a soccer player I was interested to try.  I threw on some sneakers and kicked some field goals with the guys.  It took me a few tries to put some arch on it, vs kicking it like a soccer shot.  But I impressed the guys and made a few about 20 yd field goals.  That was about as far as I could kick.

After that I waited a while for some ice so I could get my products cold for sampling later.  Once I got the products on ice Vanessa and I heard that there was a Starbucks on campus and decided we would go find it to get some coffee.  As the day went on it started to get a little colder, and cloudy, so we just prayed that it wouldn’t rain.  There is nothing worse than being cold and wet.  On our walk back we heard from Elliott that the head woman running the WFU show, Cathy, had suggested that some of us go check out Campus Kitchens.  Which was and organization on campus where the dining hall donated their left over food, and students volunteered to prepare the left over food and serve it to different soup kitchens around the area.  Cathy thought it would be good to go over and talk to these students about the Campus Consciousness Tour and especially the humanitarian issues it concerns, because the environmental and humanitarian issues really go hand in hand.  I brought a case of Silk with me to donate, and we ended up helping them prepare food for an hour.  The volunteers were starting to prepare a Thanksgiving meal for about 80 people, so Vanessa and I hopped in and were assigned to make some stuffing.  It was really fun to talk the students to see why they were volunteering and help them out a little.

We would have helped for longer but we had to head back to the eco-village and meet our volunteers.  I grabbed a few layers from the bus because it was a little chilly and then met my awesome volunteers.  So far I have been really lucky and have had awesome people helping me.  People that are really upbeat and are good at handing out samples, because it’s not such a good job for people who are introverted or shy.  I even snapped some pictures of them drinking Silk, it was so good they had two while they were volunteering!  Tonight I also noticed that a lot more guys were telling me that they loved Silk.  I didn’t even really have to coarse them to try it, everyone was really willing to give it a shot.  Most of the guys at past shows that have come up to me and told me they like Silk but because they are lactose intolerant.  Tonight a guy told me, I’m not even lactose intolerant but they sell this in the student center and I always buy two to drink while I study.  I thought that was awesome that they sell the single serves because they are perfect portable size to people take with them while they find a place to study.

After packing up our village, I checked out the show and it was awesome because I got right up front, next to the stage.  Some venues its been hard to get a good view but this one show I had the opportunity to take some awesome pictures, including some great close ups!  I got a few smiles and waves from the guys while they were playing, it seemed they were happy I was watching the show.

After the show all I wanted to do that night was to relax and watch Almost Famous.  I had bought it a few days prior in WVU because before I left for tour everyone said I had to watch it, especially because I had never seen it before.  Josh, Elliott and some other people on the bus said it was a really good movie too, so I decided I should buy it.  I agree with everyone it was a really good movie, I enjoyed it!  But once it was over all I wanted to do was go to bed.

I was so excited to get to UD the next day!  A chance to see a lot of my friends that were still there, because I missed homecoming a few weeks back.  The bus was traveling through the night and were going to wake up at the hotel.  Then we had Thursday night off, and the show is Friday, so a lot of time to hang out and show everyone what an awesome school Delaware was.

pics from WVU

the muffin-top coliseum
what they call the "giant cement toilet bowl" building
the PRT
one of a kind...the coolest thing about WVU

West Virginia University

We arrived early in Nashville Tennessee, it was weird because I felt the bus stop and park, turn off, and I knew it was still early so I was going to continue to sleep.  But then I felt it turn back on, and drive a little, stop again…well long story short the rooms weren’t ready so Dave, our bus driver, and Josh went to waffle house to eat breakfast while the rest of us all sleeping.  When I awoke we were in the hotel parking lot.  Our rooms still weren’t ready so Elliott, Vanessa, Erin and I decided to grab some breakfast.  We were only a few blocks away from Vanderbilt University so we figured there would be a breakfast place somewhere around there.  The Vanderbilt campus was very nice as well.  The buildings were older brown brick, and there were a lot of trees and walking paths throughout the campus.  It felt bigger than I expected, it was a good morning walk, even though it was a little colder than it had been, the cold air felt refreshing.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing, because usually the days are pretty hectic.  Later that night we went downtown and found a sports bar to watch the Giants game.  It also was next to a bunch of country type bars, every one I past had live music.  We hit a few places up after the game and it was fun to sing and dance to some live country music.  The band was really good.

Nashville was a blast but I did not look forward to sitting on the bus all day to get to West Virginia.  The highlight of day was stopping at Waffle house for breakfast, where I had a delicious omelet and some hash browns.  We got on the bus at 9am and got to our hotel in West Virginia around 8pm.  Even with a few hour nap it was a long day, and when we got out of the bus it was colder than expected.  Vanessa and I decided it was too cold to leave the room and ordered some Chinese for dinner. 

Our hotel was only about a half mile from the venue, so we got there around 10am in time for load out of all the trailers.  The West Virginia Coliseum looked like a giant cement muffin top, and that’s what we called it for the rest of the day.  There was no catering so Vanessa and I decided we would wonder to try and find some breakfast for the bus.  We asked a security guard where the best place to get coffee would be and he had no real suggestions.  We then tried to ask him where the heart of campus was and he said it was pretty spread out.  We found out he wasn’t lying, because later we were driven about 10 min away to the town hall forum.  This part of campus was very hilly, which makes sense because they are the mountaineers.  It had a few decent looking older buildings, but not much was done to upkeep them.  Honestly not my favorite campus I had been to so far.

The town hall forum was a little bit a disappointment, the teacher that set us up with the room informed us that it was mountaineer week and a lot of other things were going on around campus.  We chatted with a nice girl Kayla for a while and she described to us that West Virginia was a huge mining state and their economy ran on the coal mining.  This included mountain top blasting where they would blast a mountaintop off so it could supply coal for only about a decade or two.  If they were take time to mine through the mountain they could get coal supply for a lot longer, but blasting was easier.  Also this sometimes polluted the water, destroyed a lot of the natural resources around the mountain.  Overall they couldn’t get the school to do a whole lot because everyone thought they had to rely on coal, which there were alternatives that no one paid attention to.

On our way back from the forum we decided to take West Virginia’s famous public transportation called the PRT.  It was an electrically powered rail system that had a few stops throughout the campus.  As we walked out of the student center we bought some mountaineer food that they had set up for the week, which included a kettle corn stand and other carnival type food.  We munched on our snacks and asked a few people to point us in the right direction to the PRT.  As we got to the gate we scrounged for 50 cents each, which wasn’t working.  A nice girl saw us struggling and swiped us all through because students didn’t have to pay.  Then as we waited for the next tram, we started chatting with a few people about if we were in the right spot.  We were told we were and just had to take it to the engineering building and then walk from there to the coliseum, which apparently wasn’t too far.  As the doors opened, we started to walk on and were immediately being yelled at to get off.  No one told us that when the doors opened you had to look up and there was a sign telling us where the tram was going.  When we got on the tram was not going to the engineering building so good thing people told us to get off!  We made it to the right place eventually…check out the pictures of what this thing looked like.

The venue seemed to get pretty crowded, but you could tell not a lot of students weren’t really down with the message of CCT, because we had virtually no volunteers.  Therefore, I thought I wasn’t sure how quickly we were going to go through samples, because with no volunteers and a small set-up inside I didn’t know how much traffic we were going to attract.  Surely enough I went through samples pretty steadily and a lot of people got pretty excited about it.  I even got a picture of a bunch of kids all drinking their Silk.  I was happy to see that all the samples went.  I have noticed that mostly the girls tell me that they love it and drink it all the time.  I always have to convince the guys to try and they end up liking it.

So far West Virginia was the worst school to try and get Reverb’s message out.  Usually we are overwhelmed with volunteers and cheerful people willing to help, however cold, cloudy West Virginia.  Hopefully Wake Forest will be a little better.

pics from U of SA

pics from Emory

pedaling to make my smoothie with the bike
of course made with SIlk!!
the eco-village
Emory campus
all the buildings looked that pretty

pics from GSU

 the stage
my volunteers and I
the set up

University of Southern Alabama

The next morning most of us slept a little later because we went bed pretty late.  I definitely had a fun night, but the show must go on.  One thing I haven’t really talked about is where we shower and do all that kind of stuff.  Don’t worry I have been showering and staying clean.  Each spot has some type of backstage area, with a crew room, a room for the band, and a room for the opening act.  So far we have been parked right near the gym facilities so I have just gone in and asked to use the locker room showers.  I just say I’m there with the band for the show and everyone has been pretty accommodating.  If there is not a separate locker room the best time to shower is right around 10am or 11am when everyone else is unloading the trucks and the band is pretty much still sleeping.

University of Southern Alabama in Mobile, AL was an inside show and we were parked right outside the coliseum.  I couldn’t tell where the campus was but it seemed like we were nowhere near it.  I decided I wasn’t going to go to the town hall forum today because it was Saturday and the school was predominantly a commuter school, so they weren’t expecting too many people to show up.  Also it would be nice to help Josh set up on his birthday, because he usually sets up most of the stuff himself while we are at the forum.  I quickly showered and we set up inside right near the entrance.  It was a fairly easy set up because we couldn’t use the tents inside. 

The concert venue was pretty cool.  It was a basketball stadium but they took out the floor and put the stage close to one of the sides.  Then they had seats lining up right to the stage.  The time always flies by during the day and before I knew it, it was time to meet my volunteers and start the night.  This show, I did notice, that it seemed a little slow.  People’s reactions were slightly less enthused about trying Silk.  As it got closer to the show a steady crowd slowly filed in and we handed out our samples. There wasn’t really a mad rush.  I think I was just a little disappointed because the previous three shows had been so good, that this one was just a little slower.  In the end I reached out to a lot of new people that had never tried it.  It was funny actually one guy went to sign up for the raffle and I told him that it was for the guitar and a year supply of Silk, and he asks, what is that?  I told him its soymilk and then he asks, why would I enter to win a year supply if I don’t even know if I like it?  I told him good news I had a sample right here for him to try.  And let him taste it, he then immediately started filling out his raffle form.  I go, I guess that means you like it, and he smiled and shook his head.  I later caught him coming back for another sample, it was pretty funny.

This show was the last really deep south show.  In general the southern people were really nice.  Each school was very different though.  Samford was very conservative and you didn’t fit in if you didn’t have a polo tucked into khakis with combed over hair.  Georgia Southern had a pep rally before the show, where they had a homecoming court and picked the homecoming king and queen haha my volunteers told me its definitely a southern thing.  Emory was more normal, because it didn’t really feel like you were in the south it seemed like a mix of people from all over went there.  Southern Alabama was more like Samford with a mix of preppy to also almost farmer like, and I saw a lot of boots.

This was also the fourth show in a row and we had a break for the next two days.  We are driving to Nashville, Tennessee and staying there for the night.  It isn’t that far so we were going to get there pretty early in the morning and have the day to spend in Nashville.  I am pretty excited to have some time to relax and also see a new city.  I’ll definitely have to find a nice little place to watch the Giants game at 8:15.  I’m sure we can find a little southern sports bar somewhere…

Hope everyone else is having a good weekend!!  Pictures will follow soon…

Emory University

The next morning I woke up at Emory University in Atlanta Georgia.  I looked out the window and we parked outside a large field and the stage, which was also in the center of campus.  It was another sunny fall day, and I was happy I had some time to go for a run.  I can’t even describe to you how beautiful the campus is.  All of the buildings were white marble on the outside, with red roofs similar to CU Boulder, and they all looked brand new.  As I ran through campus it was especially pretty with orange and yellows of the falling leaves.  There was some construction on a few buildings, some up keeping on older buildings (that still looked brand new) and some new being built.  I thought to myself I had to come back later in the day and take some pictures.  However the pictures really can’t display how awesome it was.

The other really cool thing about Emory is that it is extremely environmentally conscious.  All of the buildings being built had to be LEAD certified, which meant it was a “green” building.  Currently, they already had 10 LEAD certified buildings on campus, including two dorms they just built that were LEAD gold certified which has the most specifications.  I think this is really cool, especially since most of the schools we had been to down south were really not into the whole green thing.  The advisor at Georgia Southern told us that a lot of people on campus don’t even think global warming exists.  So to see a campus so updated in its ways was pretty nice.

As the day went on the sun seemed to disappear and it looked like it was going to rain.  We hoped that it wasn’t because the show was outside, but sure enough as I was rolling my Silk barrel coolers over to the eco-village it started to rain a little.  It stopped shortly so that was good, but later on when doors for the show were about to open so did the doors of the clouds…it absolutely started pouring.  We had our eco-village tents set up so everyone didn’t get wet, but it was a bummer that is was raining.  I thought this might disrupt the turn out, because most of the people that stopped by our tents were people that came early to the show, also during the opening act.  I was wrong though, we had a nice little crowd around the village for while and people would come and stand under the tents with us to get out of the rain.  The rain slowly stopped and more and more people came piling in, and thankfully the rain held off for the rest of the night.

Despite being a little wet and cold the night was a success.  It was interesting one of the student groups brought a bicycle-powered blender, and a bunch of fruit, ice, and juice to make smoothies.  The blender ran by pedaling the bike.  It was really cool, and I even gave them some Silk samples to use because we all know how delicious a smoothie is made with Silk.

Once again everyone who tried the samples really really like it.  I had to go back to the bus a few times and get more samples, because we were quickly going through them.  The other things people get excited for is the raffle for a year supply of Silk.  I usually push the awesome signed guitar by OAR we have on display, and its funny when people are like nah I don’t play guitar, and then I say, and a year supply of Silk, and they hop at the chance to win that.  I just hope that the winner is someone who likes Silk.

So overall I am really enjoying traveling.  I love the fact that I wake up somewhere different every morning and get to experience new places I have never been before.  On our bus people are always coming and going.  After the second show we added two guys, Jack and Jason.  They record each show with audio equipment and sell the show on a USB immediately after.  The USB is on a wristband you can wear that says OAR, along with the songs from their newest CD.  We also picked up Bob, who works for Oxfam, for a few shows. He was with us from Samford to Emory, and was really helpful at the town hall forums and had a lot of cool input.  Rhea, from Climate Counts another non-profit, hopped on for two shows as well and left with Bob after Emory.  It’s funny though because I always seem to meet people from New Jersey.  Erin, from Reverb who I’m traveling with is from Brick, NJ (down the shore) and went to Ramapo College also in NJ.  Jack is from NJ as well and went to high school at Pingry, which is really close to where I grew up.  And Bob grew up in Hunterdon County and Central NJ, went to Voorhees high school and now lives in Summit.  Even my volunteer was from Warren, NJ.  I was initially surprised of why she was at school all the way down in Georgia, but honestly if I had seem the campus when I was applying to school I would have considered going there too.  It just shows how small the world really is.

After we cleaned up the Emory show we were intruiged to check out some frats because the line of fraternities on campus started with a house that overlooked the field where the show was.  All day the one frat that was visible, was putting up lights and blasting music.   This entertained us as we were setting up the village.  They were obviously setting up for a party because it also was a Friday night.  After the show we decided that we were going to go up there and check out the scene, and try to score some beer from some nice frat guys.  It was an adventure Elliott and I took on and we successfully came back with a nice 30 pack of Bud Light.  The perfect present for Josh who was turning 30 at midnight!!  We had a fun rest of the night hanging out on the bus playing music and getting to know each other over a few drinks, and of course celebrating for Josh and his bday.

Georgia Southern University

I awoke to feeling the bus stop, so I figured we had to be at our next location.  I lied in my bunk for a little trying to figure out what time it was and if anyone was up yet.  We have been going back and forth between Central and East Coast time and then with the time chance I haven't really had a grasp of what time it was since we left Cleveland.  Anyway it was around 8:20 give or take an hour, and I didn't want to be the slacker on the bus if there were things to do so I got up.  Walked into the front room to notice it was another awesome sunny day, and we were parked in a parking lot outside what looked like some soccer fields and a running trail.  I immediately decided I wanted to get a work out in sometime that morning, but more importantly... "Where are we?" I asked Josh.  "Statesboro Georgia," he replied and that was a good enough answer for me.

 

Before I worked out I wanted to maker sure there was somewhere suitable to shower.  I wondered the complex, which looked like they were setting up the stage outside.  The stage was right next to, what looked like a newly built gym facility.  Vanessa and I walked inside and my eyes lit up because the facility looked like a top of the line gym facility.  We nicely asked the front desk if there were showers we could use and more importantly if we could work out.  She confirmed both so I had a great work-out and shower which put me in an upbeat mood for the rest of the day.

 

It was an awesome day!  We set up our eco-village at the back of the lawn, because the event indeed was outside.  The usual day regime followed: town hall forum, set-up, down-time, show.  We hadn't really gotten a chance to officially meet the band, so we were going to do that today after their sound check at around 4pm.  So this meant we had to have everything pretty much ready to go by then, just incase the band wanted to come check out the village for themselves.  As we were finishing setting up, OAR was doing their sound check.  They played a bunch of great songs and I think the combination of the music and warm sunshine just put everyone in a good mood.  We started playing catch with the frisbee and just hanging out having fun.  When the sound check was over we headed down to meet Mark the lead singer, Jerry the saxophonist, Richard the guitarist, Chris the drummer, Michael who was on keyboards and has been playing with them for the last three years, and of course Benji the bassist who I had talked to a few times at the town hall forums.  All the guys were really cool and after talking for a while we were all hungry so headed over to catering to grab some dinner.  We all chatted and ate dinner, but had to run out after a while so we could get to the tents and meet the volunteers.

 

Sampling was awesome tonight!  I had to go back to the bus twice to reload on samples because we ran out.  Then later on after we ran out towards the end of the night, people were coming back for more!  They couldn't get enough of the Chocolate deliciousness.  I was surprised really how many people came back asking for another sample, or how many more people sampled tonight compared to the past two shows.  It didn't feel like things were any more crowded but the difference was everyone here wanted to try it.  No one really turned it down, which was really cool.

 

Definitely best day so far…

Samford pics

Silk booth looking good outside

Elliott and Josh admiring my booth (they mostly put it together)

The Concert Hall

really pretty building on campus (they all were this brick with white columns)

Samford University

The city of Birmingham, AL was nice.  Near the hotel we were staying, there were a few churches and restaurants around but overall the town seemed pretty empty.  We found a cute little artsy, type vegan restaurant/bar, and watched the election with some of probably the most liberal, democratic people in Alabama.  It turned out to be pretty fun though, and I definitely will never forget the Bottle Tree and the night of that election in Alabama.

The next morning we arrived early on the campus of Samford.  As we drove in through the brick columns, officially on campus, I admired the beauty of it.  We parked the bus and I really wanted to get out and explore the campus because it seemed so pretty.  The campus was surrounded by fall colored trees, and it was an amazing sunny, warm day.  I snapped a few pictures of the brown brick buildings and enjoyed the weather why we had some time as the crates were being unloaded from the trucks.

I was looking forward to the next town hall forum.  I received some emails from people at Silk the previous day saying they got word in CO that press about the town hall forum was in the Alabama Newspaper.  This was exciting because we thought this meant that there would be a big turn out.  I grabbed some Silk product and headed towards the forum.  We waited for people to pile in to the small auditorium and 5 minutes before showtime, we tried to go outside and recruit people to come in and join our discussion.  Also Benji, the bassest in the band, was attending this forum so we really wanted to impress him.  He is very passionate about the issues and was excited to get out and talk to students.  Especially, because he feels our generation is the generation that has the most power to fix the environmental problems, and do proactive things to help improve the situation.

Similar to Iowa, we didn't have a great turn out, but the students that come have a passion for issues and they learn and listen to what the speakers have to say.  This is also where I really get a chance to talk to the students.  While I am give them samples and talk to them about why Silk is on the tour.  These are the people that care about the fact that Silk offsets 100% of the energy used to wind energy.  That the Silk office recycles, uses compostable products in the cafeteria, even as far as having items in the office made from recyclable material like the cubicles and carpet.  The people at the forum care about these issues and understand what an effort it takes, especially for a corporate company, to do these things.

Helping set up the rest of the booths in the eco-village, getting the product on ice, and few other odds and ends took up the rest of the afternoon.  Soon it was showtime...I got my new set of volunteers.  My booth was set up outside tonight, which was great because everyone going in to the show was attracted to the booth.  The reaction of Silk was a lot better than in Iowa.  I didn't get as many funny faces and people that had never tried it before were more willing.  A lot of students told me that their parents buy it at home and they drink it sometimes.  I got a lot of people that really like to drink it.  I later learned that it was actually good I was outside because the venue wouldn't allow people inside to their seats with the Silk.  So people were chugging them at the door before the went in...at least they were drinking it:)  I was happy with the reaction, and it was cool to get a chance to be outside and hit the people before they even got inside.  It is hard, however, to get people to listen to why Silk is there.  Most students coming to the concert are coming for the band, and here and there someone is interested in what the campus consciousness tour really is.  Most importantly the name and the product is getting out to audience that normally wouldn't even consider it.

We packed up the show and I was excited because my Aunt Kathie was flying in to Birmingham that night and I hadn't seen her in a few weeks.  She took a cab over to the venue and got a chance to check out the bus and meet my busmates!  We hung out for a while and because it was late she only stayed for a little, but I was really happy a family member got a chance to see what my life is like on the bus.  

Then back to my bunk...back to sleep...I had no idea where I would be waking up but not in Birmingham...

Iowa State University

We made it successfully to Ames, IA after a long day of driving.  It felt good to get to the hotel, get some food, and promptly go to bed, because for some reason I was tired from doing nothing all day.  When I say “we “ I mean my four new friends, Josh, Elliott, Erin, Vanessa and I.  So far, that is the dynamic of the bus and is awesome!

Early the next morning we loaded back onto the bus, and headed towards campus.  As we pulled up onto campus I noticed some high-rises of dorm buildings.  We parked right outside the Concert Hall venue in what seemed like the athletic part of the campus.  Which was near the pretty big football stadium and other theater and athletic buildings.  The next thing that I noticed was how old the buildings looked both inside and out.  Inside the concert hall when standing on stage it looked like you were in a spaceship.  There was a main crowd in the center, including lower, middle, upper levels and balconies on the sides in an oval type shape.  The catering was down in the basement, which felt almost like a dungeon due to the grey cement floors and older white painted cement structure within the whole building.   Despite the cell feeling, breakfast was enjoyable and a great start to the day.

After breakfast we walked around the venue and figured out where we were going to set up our eco-village, and started to unload our supplies from the crates.  Even though there was not much space we made it work, and had a great spot right by the doors where people came in.  For a little, we quickly popped up some tents and unloaded Silk, Oxfam, and Reverb paraphernalia.  However, we didn’t have a lot of time before the town hall forum, which was to be held at 12:30pm in a building on campus.

At each campus there was going to be a town hall forum in the afternoon.  This was a chance for students on campus to sit in and listen to what the Campus Consciousness Tour was all about.  In addition each school had a few student groups that had similar goals and ideas parallel to the tour.  These groups were the ones that were going to talk about not only how people can make an impact, but what students could do on their very own campus to get involved.  The panel included Elliott from Reverb, Vanessa from Oxfam, and the President from each one of the student groups, as well as a member of the band.  On this particular day a band member could not make it because their flight was not getting in on time.

I definitely wanted to check out the forum and get a feel for what it was all about.  I think it is a really great way to not only have us, from the tour, talking about what we do, but to go one step further and have it feasible for the students to do some of the things we talk about on their own campus.

What are the issues?  Reverb’s whole philosophy is doing what they can to overall help the environment.  Josh, Elliott, and Erin are very passionate about issues such as recycling, using alternative fuel sources, alternative energy sources, and generally just not being wasteful.  They specifically focus on all of the energy and resources wasted on tour.  Sometimes upwards to 20 vehicles are traveling across the country touring, and most of these vehicles are large busses and trucks.  Think about how much emissions are cut down but running all of these vehicles on bio-diesel fuel.  Also recycling may seem like something easy to do, but how easy is it when there are no recycling bins around?  Reverb puts out recycling bins all over the venue, including backstage, and on the buses encouraging people to recycle.  As well as having compostable and recyclable products used for catering.  In general these are the issues in general talked about at the town hall forum.

How Silk ties in:  Silk is a company already does all these things that Reverb works to do on each tour.  Silk was one of the first companies to offset 100% of its energy used, to wind energy.  There are ways to recycle a lot of what is used in the office, and the cafeteria carries compostable and recyclable products.

In general the Iowa town hall forum could have had a little better attendance, and a more proactive crowd (by that I mean they were shy/ could have participated more).  But for the first one it went pretty smoothly, and the people who attended were definitely interested in the issues.

For the rest of the day we prepared our eco-village for the show that night.  The eco-village is all about educating the students and people coming to the concert, including why the tour is actually even taking place. Everything came out great…

The show is the part I enjoy the most especially getting people excited about the product.  I had four volunteers to help me pass out samples and have people sign up for the Silk raffle, which included an OAR autographed guitar and posters, a year supply of Silk, and some other Silk products.  I gave the volunteers a few topics to mention to people about Silk, such as it taste good, its healthy, and the company is environmentally friendly.

The reaction to Silk was mixed, a ton of people came up to the tent saying, “I love this stuff I drink it all the time. It’s great!”  Then on the other hand you have the people that give you a funny face when you ask them if they want to try some Soymilk.  Some are willing to give it a shot and try a sample, and some are not.  That is just the way it goes.  Most of the people that I convince to try it like it, and can easily get over the fact that they are drinking soymilk.  The volunteers were great and really upbeat in getting people to try the product.  Overall we had the perfect amount of samples because we ran out just before OAR went on, and also attracted a lot of peoples’ attention.

We cleaned the village up pretty quickly and I still had some time to catch the end of the concert.  It is so awesome being able to go wherever I want, so I strolled up to the first row right next to the stage without a person saying a word to me.   The day felt a little hectic because a lot was unexpected, but was by and large a success.  It felt good to be done everything for that day and just kick back and listen to the band.

After the show we all relaxed on the bus waiting for our 1am departure to Birmingham Alabama.  I was a little nervous because this was the first night we would be sleeping through the night on the bus.  I climbed up to my bunk and crawled in.  It took a few minutes to get all my stuff that I had up there with me situated, because it is a pretty confined space.  I then got comfortable under the covers and was sound asleep within a few minutes.  I only awoke a few times, when the bus hit a bump or was making a sharp turn or something, but would just roll over and fall back asleep.  Sleeping on the bust was actually fun and completely fine!

So this has been a pretty long entry…and we are almost in Birmingham Alabama!!