Yesterday, Lukas informed me that he wasn't going to be able to come on the 4th of July trip. His business is going through some rough times, and he needs to be there. Then today, less than 24 hours before the trip is to begin in ernest, Camille writes to tell me that her boss just forced her to move her vacation back a week; now she can't come either.

I was just about ready to unveil the humorous title of the trip, the Tour de Fourth... but now it has become the less-extravagant Tour de Four. Grant, Mike, Erin, and I will be bringing MIT nerdiness to the desert. It'll still be a blast, I'm sure, but I'm really feeling bad that Lukas, Allana, and Camille can't meet my other friends and won't get to see the things we're going to do.

So it's been a hectic day of rearranging the trip logistics.

Add to that the fact that a wildfire seems to have broken out in the vicinity of Carlsbad Caverns National Park, and I don't quite understand what's being implied here.

Anyway, Erin and Mike are already in town. We played some frisbee today and ended up at Dan's place with Ali, Mac, Nate, and Havi playing DDR and SSX and Tekken Tag, munching on snacks, and watching "Club Kill Yourself 2000" (CKY2K) again and cracking up. The more I hang out with Dan the more I think he rocks. And he kicks some serious heineken at DDR too.

We tried to do some more meteor watching again tonight, but it was cloudy and drizzly and we just ended up sitting around on a picnic table getting wet.

Tommorow, we pick up the rental car, drive to Albuquerque for supplies and Grant, then drive to Carlsbad and the fun begins. Time to get my beauty sleep.