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.