The first few days of the trip were really special, Ireland was beautiful and I was still filled with the initial joy of realizing that the trip had actually begun... we were really doing it. The first night we camped in Rush was amazing... and all we did was eat bread and cheese on the beach... but I tell you now; that was the best bread and cheese I had ever eaten... even after I dropped it in the sand 3 times.

"On behalf of Ryanair, we sincerely apologise for the disruption to your recent flight with us."

Round 3 of the Ryan Air reimbursement quest... this time not in person... "Read More" for the complete letter of understanding...

From: Ryanair Customer Services [ This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ]

Subject: Your Correspondence with Ryanair

Dear Shane Sevo,

Following your recent correspondence to us regarding booking confirmation number MWGLBN...

So we have been back for about 20 days now... and its already time for a reunion get together. Burgers at Mike's house and an extended hangout with some photos at my place.

It's a bit of a staggered event with a lot of people filtering in all their different memories and stories. We are comfortable with each other, but there is some post trip anxiety in the air. Everyone is getting back to their normal lives, and we wonder what the trip really amounted to.

So we try to figure it out by telling stories, some on the tip of our tongues... others need a jog from a good photo.

It seems like we are all looking for the "big ones". The stories and moments that are shocking or note worthy because of their extreme nature.

This is to be expected, and it has become my typical routine with coworkers to try to give them a glimpse of something that they can't quite handle or figure out so they can be satisifed in knowing how "crazy" it must have been...

So we have spent the last 3 months on Seawolfe's case about his buffer... and in an ironic twist we seem to be stuck in Dublin after not taking mr. Wolfe's buffer advice...

For those of you not in the know, a buffer is the amount of time that you insert between events in your life in order to smoothly glide between one appointment or commitment to the next. This buffer gives you all sorts of mental freedom to enjoy the passing thoughts as you traverse from one moment to the next.

Or you can schedule everything so that it buts up to the next thing and slightly overlaps all of your commitments in such a way that you need a team of stratagists in order to get you through alive.

We got greedy in our last few days and tried to pack in as much as we could before the flight home... we then bought a connecting flight to our flight home that touched down one and a half hours before our homeward flight to the states left.... should be no problem right, RyanAir is the on-time airline... well they turned out to be on time, but only after about 7 or 8 guesses.

Our flight scheduled for 9:30 did not leave until 4:00 pm

we missed our flight home...

Well in about two minutes we will leave from the Christensons in Belgium and hop on a plain to Dublin. From there it will be just a few more hours before we touch down in Chicago... marking the end of the SuperTrip '07.  We recieved one last night of unexpected reprieve thanks to the hospitality of the Chirstensons after we saw seawolfe off last night.  It was good to sit back for a moment and collect ourselves before heading home.  There are still many memories just forming and a lot of discussions caught in mid sentence... I am looking forward to putting together the story of what happened to us over the past few months into something that is worth sharing with more than just each other... it will take some time... look forward to the aftermath if you have followed us this far.

See you in the states!

Shane 

Well, the last week has come upon us.  When meeting people we now tell them that we have been traveling for 3 months and we are on our way home... indeed we have run out of time and the itinerary is getting cut short in order to meet our plane in Dublin on the 30th.

In a wierd sort of subconscience way I think we have all cataloged our trip visualy by the movie posters that come and go with each month.  This one did not last very long, be we certainly embraced it as our trip mantra and group nickname.

When it was released in france in read "Band of Savages" instead of the "Wild Hogs".  We find both of them appropriate, but tend to only refer to ourselves as wild hogs when we are riding some sort of two wheeled vehicle.

Most of the time we are the "Band of Savages"

This is just a little behind the scenes trivia, feel free to comment as to who is who in this movie poster, or who ought to play each of us in the eventual remake of the supertrip as a dramatic feature film.