Tag: driving-day

Moab, UT to Green River State Park, UT — 55.6 mi, 1805 ft

I often think about how this crazy cross country biking experience the seven of us are having feels so extraordinarily unique to us, but in actuality is anything but singular. Not only have we met multiple cross country riders this summer (shoutout Stanford Spokes), but we are literally living the exact same days as the MIT Spokes team before us, and probably the MIT Spokes team before them, and before that, and so on and so on. Today we are going on almost the exact same route, rest stops, and destination as MIT Spokes 2025. But did we have the exact same day? It’s a good thing we have the blogs as the bookkeepers as history.

Moab, UT -> Green River, UT — 56.8mi, 1900ft

Even with the same endpoints, somehow our genius route team (me and Carmy) managed to cut out a mile and a hundred feet of elevation. How did we accomplish this, despite our Moab Airbnb being a bit farther than last year’s? We rounded the corner of the route that went on Interstate 70 onto a gravel road, avoiding an 80 MPH highway. Before you, my dear audience, erupt in a round of applause for Carmen and I, we must acknowledge our forefather: Joseph Alvarez of Spokes 2025. Joseph singlehandedly made all 55 bike routes from scratch last year and very charitably shared them all with us, including details about where they took rest stops and how paved the road is. We are incredibly fortunate to be building on top of the strong foundations he left us. He also happens to be the author of last year’s blog on this day, Day 53, which was his driver’s day. Since today is also my driver x blogger day, I thought it would be interesting to compare our Day 53s, one year apart.

It’s that time of the week again, its Joseph’s blogging day! But it’s also my driving day, woot woot. This morning, we would finally leave the Schmitt’s, who pretty much enabled us to go full vacation mode while in Moab. It would be back to reality for us. The thing was, the people weren’t ready. In fact, the spokies were very disorganized today and locked out. As people were leaving, Charles remembered that he shipped his cycling shoes to Moab, then spent half an hour finding if they were shipped to the Airbnb we stayed at. Simultaneously, everyone decided last minute to go to a cafe in Moab before the first rest stop, but Ramona never got the message. I too pulled up to the cafe, partially to hang out but also because I was ravenous from a smaller than usual breakfast. I got myself a fire sandwich.

We also were fortunate enough to stay in an Airbnb in Moab, but not fortunate enough to get to stay with the Schmitt’s, Sarah’s family (another 2025 Spokie, but you should’ve already known this from her sweet comments on our blogs). I want to say a HUGE thank you to Margaret, the Airbnb host who very generously donated us our stay in Moab—we could not have had a more beautiful and relaxing double rest day. It really was hard to get back to reality after full vacation mode, and it was a dilly-dally morning for us too. No cafe stop in the Moab downtown though; even I broke the driver coffee shop run tradition because of my recent realization that every penny I spend so thoughtlessly on coffee now is directly coming out of the amount of money I have for my gap year.

After Charles eventually realized his cycling shoes weren’t delivered, he too started heading towards the cafe. Hearing this news, I also remembered that Ramona was nearly at the first rest stop and I still needed to get groceries before I left Moab. You see, Moab is a bit of an oasis in the desolation of southwest Utah. Green River, our destination for the day, was a lot smaller and I suspected there wouldn’t be as much variety in groceries. I rushed to the grocery store to buy ingredients for today’s dinner, a gnocchi and rigatoni soup, as Ishaq went off on his own sidequest: buying new Specialized tires. Ishaq’s tires may have been slightly leaky, but it wasn’t enough to warrant getting new tires. This was entirely a luxury purchase (Ishaq paid for it himself of course). Ishaq delivered me his new tires as I was walking out of the grocery store. I then rushed over to the first rest stop, where I was sure people were already waiting. Ramona had long since passed the first rest stop after refilling her water and I figured she was going to get to the second rest stop before me. The big issue here is that our last two rest stops were in the middle of nowhere on the side of the road, meaning that the bikers wouldn’t be able go self supported. This meant that I really had to be able to support the bikers and be there, especially in the heat. This is the start of my driver struggles. I get to the first rest stop, a gas station, where everyone but Ishaq is waiting for me. I get them all sorted, then wait for Ishaq to eventually show up. While he was getting himself sorted for the next stretch, I went to fill up on gas and realized that gas was pretty darn expensive out here, so I only put in like 5 gallons. It’s enough to get me to Green River.

I also realized the oasis that was Moab and wanted to knock out grocery shopping and toiletries restocking before I left, but I wasn’t in the same rush. I LOVE grocery stores, wandering each aisle lovingly brushing my hand over color of cereal box you could possibly dream of, eyes wide with the capitalistic idea that I could and should have anything I want all the time. I actually tried to be much more efficient than I usually am, but it took time to think of the perfect ratio of new exciting and old tried-and-tested snacks for the team: green grapes, apricots, citrus slices in sugar syrup, piña colada Naked smoothie, kettle corn Popcorners, lemon Oreo thins, and Wheat Thins; jalapeno sourdough, swiss and smoky-hot colby jack cheese, chimmichurri hummus, Grillo’s pickles, and sundried tomatoes for sandwiches; powdered country lemonade and Pepsi for drinks; face wash, body wash, detergent, anti-itch cream, and toothpaste for toiletries; and 3 bags of ice. This somehow took me an hour and so I too was very late to the first rest stop. Spokes 2025 had a lot of gas station rest stops which I usually change into whatever looks interesting when I zoom in on Google Maps, which has resulted in some bizarre rest stops. Today it was some tourist attraction called Moab Giants, “an indoor and outdoor dino experience.” It was $18 for entry to see a bunch of huge plastic dinosaurs, so naturally I found the team camped out at the cafe instead. Fortunately, nobody’s buying new tires, nobody had left the rest stop early, and so this was NOT the start of my driver struggles. I didn’t fill gas here because I kept telling the team excitedly about this alien themed gas station I wanted to check out next…

After Ishaq left, I rushed to meet Ramona at the second rest stop, passing the bikers along the way. They seemed to be struggling a bit. This road was heavily trafficked, high speed, and there was almost no shoulder. This is probably the worst possible combination of conditions for a biker, and I was a bit worried for them. Charles was stopped on the side of the road, seemingly to take a breather from the stressful biking. I eventually make it to the second rest stop, but then realize that making a sharp left turn on this single lane highway with cars going 80 was going to be impossible. I pass the stop and pull off a bit later. I prepare to make a very scary u-turn. It’s like making a U-turn on an interstate, but you can’t even see the cars coming until half a mile away. I manage not to die and finally meet Ramona, who had been waiting for around 15 minutes. This is where everything goes wrong. Ramona’s back derailleur cable had snapped, leaving her unable to shift gears. This wasn’t something we could fix ourselves, so Ramona’s bike would have to get to a shop. This was very inconvenient. There were no bike shops in Green River and tomorrow was not a rest day, but a long cycling day through a desolate part of Utah, meaning that driving a long distance for a bike repair was not an option. Our only two options were to either have Ramona be a passenger princess until we reached Escalante three days later or to speed back to Moab, where bike shops were abundant. We decided to speed back to Moab. As we were preparing to drive back, some of the bikers arrived and I was able to serve them, but for those who were further behind, I left them a care package of waters and food that I would later pick up. The plan was to drop Ramona off in Moab, drive the 40 miles back to rest stop 3, then drive back to Moab to pick Ramona up, then drive all the way to Green River to set up camp. This was going to be complicated and very annoying for me, the driver. But alas, this is part of the job.

I drive back to Moab and drop Ramona off, then prepare to make the drive back. This is when I receive a text that the bikers had found a wacky alien themed gas station/convenience store, where they were able to fill up on water. I ask if everyone’s good with me staying in Moab, as this would make the day a lot easier logistically. I do worry about Greta, as she chose to take a stint on a dirt road to avoid the scary highway and she wouldn’t pass by the ufo store. This meant doing 30 or so miles in the Utah heat self supported. She said that she was fine with it, so I decided to stay. I go back into the bike shop and see Ramona intently watching the mechanic do his thing. She really likes this mechanic, he’s very down to earth and knows what he’s talking about. I go to the food truck park that we had stopped at two days ago and grab myself a fire quesadilla. I’m just able to finish my quesadilla when Ramona finally comes out with her fixed bike.

Despite reading this portion of Joseph’s blog the night before, there was literally no other road out of Moab and our bikers again had to brave our most dangerous road yet. The team arrived at the same highway turnout second rest stop and told me they had just biked through hell, if hell was 70 MPH cars flying a foot next to your bike. I, on the other hand, told them I just drove through heaven, if heaven was “a wacky alien themed gas station/convenience store” called Jackass Joe’s. It was on the corner of the dangerous highway and I-70, the corner we cut out of the route in favor of dirt off-roading (perhaps the same road Greta took?) so the bikers wouldn’t be able to see it, which was a real shame. It was genuinely the most bizarre gas station I had ever seen, but bizarre in a way that was like wow only a human could have fever-dreamt up this place and wow the categorization of gas station store is so loose that you can really maximize free will when designing one. The story behind it goes:

“After the 1947 Roswell crash, the U.S. government began more than just a cover-up—they built a secret tunnel system under the codename AREA-STUPID. The first route stretched west to Crescent Junction, Utah, where Exit 182 and the roadside stop known as Jackass Joe’s became its hidden gateway. Beneath the surface lies a network said to connect to a top-secret lab within 1.5 miles, guarded and off-limits to the public. Conspiracy theorists claim this facility houses Roswell artifacts—and perhaps even extraterrestrial beings—making Jackass Joe’s an unlikely front for one of America’s deepest secrets.”

This was all written in the back of the convenience store in a room labeled MUSEUM. The museum was about the world’s largest piece of beef jerky, which I can assure you was heavily advertised on many signs littering the exit of the interstate. There is also a story about the beef jerky of course, which goes like this:

“You’ve found it! Hanging right here on the wall of Jackass Joe’s, displayed like a sacred relic. A massive, leathery slab stretching nearly 8 feet wide: the world’s largest slice of jerky. The locals say it didn’t come from any ordinary cow. Oh no. Back in the late 1950s, when the desert skies were buzzing with UFO sightings, a herd of cattle went missing from a nearby ranch. A week later, the cows came back… but something was different. Their eyes glowed faintly green, their mooing echoed like a broken radio signal, and the rancher swore they hummed when they chewed grass.

Not long after, strange lights were seen circling over Crescent Junction. Witnesses claimed to see beams of blue fire lift the cattle skyward, as if the aliens had returned to reclaim their radioactive prize. But one cow—legend calls him Big Bessie Joe—never made it off the ground. Rumor says he was too heavy and too stubborn for even aliens to abduct. When Bessie finally wandered into Jackass Joe’s parking lot, folks say he collapsed right there under the neon sign, his body humming with otherworldly energy. The government tried to whisk him away, but Joe was faster. He carved and cured that cow himself, and what was left became the largest, most mysterious jerky slab on Earth.

Some say it still pulses faintly at night if you turn off all the lights. Others claim it smells different depending on who’s standing near it—like mesquite for humans, but something unrecognizable for… less human visitors. And every now and then, a traveler swears they see faint handprints burned into the jerky, as though aliens keep coming back to check their work.”

The store was full of weird jerky flavors, weird candy flavors, weird soda flavors, weird chips flavors, etc. that were all advertised in handwritten green neon posterboard signs telling you not to be lame and try the exotic flavors—I don’t know how they were importing KitKat flavors only sold in Japan to Crescent Junction, Utah. Overwhelmed by all the options and not wanting to be late to the second rest stop too, I left with nothing but a FREE communal fountain drink for the team and many photos to show the team. On my way out, I met THE Jackass Joe himself and I expressed how impressed I was at the place he had created, a place so unabashedly unashamedly unapologetically weird AF that it was even kind of inspiring. Jackass Joe if you are reading this, I LOVED IT!!!! 

Anyway, back to the story of the day…

We rush out of Moab, hoping to catch the bikers before they reach the third rest stop, but then realize it’s a pointless effort and change course straight to the campground. We arrive and see half of the cyclists sitting around, waiting for us. We set up camp relatively quickly and laze around for a bit. We actually have electricity and good signal for once, which is a nice change from most of our camping. Some people go for a dip in the Green River and I eventually start to set up dinner. Ruth goes to a laundromat and I cook up a feast. There’s not much else to report for the night, it was pretty calm following a bit of a hectic day. I got good sleep, rare for camping nights. See you next time, where we ascend into Zion’s backcountry!

I drive straight to the third rest stop where I have about 40 minutes to work on my national park post card coloring book I bought yesterday in the nice AC of the car, which I was extremely excited for. The bikers, meanwhile, rode through straight mud in the 90+ degree desert heat. It turns out that the “clever” dirt road we re-routed to cutoff the highway corner was completely swamped. Caked in mud, dripping in sweat, panting like dogs (jk), the team made their quickest rest stop ever to finish fast towards the campground.

Most of our campground days this summer have been my driver days, so I knew the drill. I spent an hour setting up camp by myself, which is always much harder than I think. As I fumbled around trying to stick one end of the tent pole into place, the other one would unstick and the whole tent would collapse because there was nothing holding its shape. This went on for a couple minutes, during which a neighboring couple came up to me to ask if I was waiting for other people to show up and if they could park in a spot near our site, which then made me conjure the image of me camping in this state park with all this gear all by myself, which was pretty funny but also extremely chuddy. Then the team showed up with personal cantaloupes for everyone and finished setting up. Some people finally decided to eat the yummy food I had got for lunch and had been asking them all day to try, some people went for a dip in the Green River with our floatie in an optimal shaded position, some people worked on their blogs in our cute campground setup.

I have no idea how last year’s team COOKED in their campgrounds; I genuinely think it would take us three hours to even set up a fire or whatever the heck you need to operate a grill. We drove to Tamarisk Restaurant instead, who very generously donated us the most delicious chilaquiles and french dip subs, and whose house-made raspberry iced tea was SO INSANELY DELICIOUS that I asked the drivers the next day to get me one for the morning, which singlehandedly kept my mood up for a solid 40 miles straight (foreshadowing for tomorrow), and that I still think about all the time to this day (foreshadowing for the ten days this blog is late). Afterwards, Nunu went to the laundromat, we all turned in for bed, it was a pretty calm evening for Spokes 2026 as well. I also got really good sleep at this campground. Maybe there was sleeping magic in the air. See you next time, after a couple of extremely buns* days in which we were apparently climbing Zion’s backcountry (I didn’t realize it extends so far)! 

PS: This is from my last driver day so this is two weeks late, but I want to give the biggest bestest hugest shoutout to Joe from Trek Highlands Ranch in Denver, who fixed up all our bikes so smoothly that none of us have run into a single tire or derailleur issue since. Joe if you are reading this, you are truly a hero of our trip and I often look back just to think about how awesome of a bike shop experience that was.

PPS: To answer Sarah’s question from two blogs ago about who everybody’s godly parent would be if we were in the Percy Jackson Universe (these were communally decided, for the record):

• Carmen: Artemis
• Nunu: Hecate
• Aarushi: Aphrodite
• Tatiana: Hermes
• Drew: Mars
• Nate: Pluto
• Caroline: Pan

One could say we are the chosen seven on a grand quest to fulfill the Great Prophecy…

Sending love and tailwinds to all the Spokes teams who paved the way for us,

Aarushi

* “In modern slang, buns means ‘bad,’ ‘terrible,’ or of very poor quality. If someone says ‘that movie was buns’ or ‘you’re buns at this game,’ they mean it is awful or that a person is bad at something… According to Merriam-Webster, this usage evolved as a short, milder version of other posterior-related slang terms like ‘cheeks’ or ‘ass’ to describe something low-quality.” (Google AI Overview, 2026)

Mammoth Cave, KY to Bowling Green, KY — 35.6 mi, 1393 ft

Reading the latest blogs, it feels like emotional whiplash the way the team has experienced the lowest of lows and highest of highs together, often within the span of a couple hours. In the last week, I crashed headfirst into a tree, Caroline got bit by a dog, Tatiana sprained her ankle, Nate/Tatiana/Drew battled through a literal war zone of rabid dogs, Nunu/Drew’s butts have been on fire, Caroline/me’s numb hands are losing fine motor skills, we’ve all gotten some of the worst sleep of our life, and all while biking a few hundred miles. At the same time, we’ve rock scrambled up a gorgeous secluded emerald-moss-green waterfall that I stuck my face in and felt reborn, danced on top of stools on a splash pad in the middle-of-nowhere Kentucky pretending it was Ibiza, listened to Riptide around a bonfire on a warm summer night, slept in hammocks underneath the stars, and eaten free meal after free meal, all thanks to the kindness of dozens of strangers we’ve gotten the chance to meet. As the normalcy of this insane routine has been settling in, I’ve been forgetting lately that the rest of the world is still spinning as it usually does. My family is still following the same routine I’ve witnessed for ten years, my friends are still waking up to go work their internships every morning, my lab is still working on the research projects I left a month ago, and I’m in some la la land where my main concern is that my blog is late.*

I’ve been lucky to have had some pretty amazing summers and IAPs in my four years at MIT, yet every time I come back to campus and get back into my normal semester routine, what had previously seemed like some of the best moments of my life quickly fade into some distant fever dream. I always wish I somehow had a better record of my life but I am ordinarily too lazy to actually do anything about it, so alas it has stayed merely a wish. Until this summer. And so, I will now describe to you today’s events in as much detail as I can muster.

It seems like everybody’s circadian rhythm has adjusted to the 6 AM daily wakeups, because  everyone was up around the campsite before Tatiana’s alarm rang at 9 AM, our latest wakeup of the summer. We were biking in the afternoon today because we booked a 11:45 AM Mammoth Cave Historical Tour. Today marked the HISTORIC RETURN OF SPOKES 2026 because for the first time in a week, everybody was ready to bike, in spite of lingering injuries and dog fears. It was the second shortest route of the summer, a beautiful 35-mile downhill, and I was the chud* who was driving it, selflessly switching my driving day with Tatiana so she could spend more time with her boyfriend Noah who was coming to visit this weekend. 

Since nobody else wanted to drive, we had to return the extra car we had rented while half the team was sagged out these last few days. Nunu and I decided to make use of our later morning to go return it to our destination for the day, Bowling Green. I learned how to drive the massively wide ½-ton Ford F-150 pickup truck for the first time, checking the side view mirrors every fifteen seconds to make sure I was still barely within the lane lines. Nunu was driving our team minivan, whose overhead storage bag was now pretty empty as our camping gear had been taken out for the night. We’d previously run into some issues driving the minivan with a flaccid overhead bag (stuff falling out on a side road in Luray; the bag itself half falling off on the freeway in Elkhorn City…) yet we still didn’t think to remove it before starting off to BG. Speeding down I-65, I saw the back of the bag thumping up and down on the car roof, so I kept an extra careful eye on it to make sure nothing flew out. Unfortunately, I lost Nunu halfway down the interstate since I was driving cautiously with the F-150, until I get a call from her as I take the exit: the bag had completely unzipped on the highway. As I went to fill the truck up with gas, she took stock of what was left in the Enterprise parking lot. Two camping pillows, a sleeping pad, a camping chair, a hammock, and Caroline’s nice blanket had been lost in the wind (they were nowhere to be seen even when I drove down I-65 again later that day). Nunu and I drove back to the team feeling like serious chuds*; even the extra $100 the kind Enterprise lady gave back to us for returning our rental a day early didn’t improve our moods. The chud-est part of it all was that right as we pulled into our campsite, we felt the first drops of rainfall, and found out that there was a flood warning issued with thunderstorms predicted for all day. So we probably shouldn’t have even returned that extra rental car. 

We arrived five minutes after we were supposed to have been checked out of the campsite to our whole team suited up and ready to load the car. We threw everything in and biked to the national park’s visitor center, just barely making it to our tour group in time. 

I actually really enjoyed the cave tour, which I spent goofing off saying stupid stuff to the rest of the team, making sure we stayed at the front of the line, taking really blurry photos to put in my blog, resisting the urge to touch every rock I walked past, and trying to remember everything the guide said so I can repeat it back to you all. The legend goes that Mammoth Cave was discovered by a guy named John Houchin, who stumbled upon its cool breeze while hunting a bear in 1797. The cave became a hotspot for saltpeter mining, a key ingredient in gunpowder, from 1810-1815, with the value of a pound of saltpeter increasing from two cents to a dollar to back to nothing in the span of those five years, as America cut itself off from trade with Great Britain during the War of 1812 and then went right back to it. In 1816, a year after everyone had abandoned the site, somebody who was looking to buy it came knocking, and the cave has been an active visitor tour site since. The cave is full of artifacts from indigenous people dating back to 5000 BCE, everything from stone tools to limestone tombs containing human bodies with skin and nails intact. It’s also the longest cave system in the entire world!! 

That paragraph pretty much sums up everything we learned on the whole tour. After two hours of looking at rocks, we were famished as usual and we replenished our bodies with cheeseburgers and pizza at the overpriced visitor center cafe. Despite the thunderstorm forecast, we felt barely a few drops of rain so our fearless bikers decided to continue forward with the plan to bike, starting off around 3 PM (our latest start to date).

As the driver, I instead went to the Mammoth Cave Post Office to mail the postcard I had picked up earlier in the visitor center to my family. As the performative young adult I am, I’ve collected postcards from wherever I’ve gone around the world but always just as wall decor. Thanks to WikiHow, I learned how to actually mail a postcard for the first time in Virginia, and, copying my teammates, I’m trying to send one to my family from every state (SURPRISE!). Now that I’ve found out how they’re actually meant to be used, postcards really are such a cute concept!! It feels like I’m slipping in a sweet secret surprise every time I slip the card through the slot of the blue USPS mailbox.

After that, I drove to our one and only rest stop for the day: BUC-EE’s!!!!! I had been told by my fellow Texan teammates that BUC-EE’s was like if Costco was a gas station convenience store, like if the American Dream could come true from aisles of gummies and soda and fudge and brisket sandwiches, because there was nothing more American than the row of soda fountains only being available in 32 (L) or 44 oz (XL) cups—except maybe the rows and rows of AMERICA’S 250TH merch. As soon as I walked inside those doors, I lost myself. Red, white, and blue kool-aid ran through my veins as I ran through every aisle scoping my options, the white of my eyes as wide as saucer plates as I took in the enormity of the snack selection before me, and I thought to myself, how amazing what capitalism has done for our country. Nunu, Nate, and I finally settled on an electrolyte can, sour peach gummies, caramel popcorn, candied almonds, lemon soda, cheese and pretzels, and an XXL brisket sandwich. Caroline, Carmen, Drew, and Tatiana split another XXL brisket sandwich, rainbow-sprinkle cookie dough, dark chocolate caramel fudge, spicy pickles, watermelon, and Arizona soda. As we sat in a circle on the cement outside BUC-EE’s to devour our haul, the sudden amazement, patriotism, and greed for capitalism that took over me was quickly replaced by a fierce belief in communism: I held out my hand for a piece of every snack that every Spokes member had bought. Team tax isn’t cheap.

When the bikers left for Bowling Green, I went straight for our Airbnb to unload all our bags. When I saw what greeted me upon arrival, I literally wept tears of joy and jumped for joy at the same time. Two neighboring townhouses, each with 3 full bedrooms and bathrooms, a kitchen with an island, a cozy living and dining room, in-unit laundry, and all brand spanking new. We each got our own bedrooms to sleep in. Let me repeat that: WE EACH HAD OUR VERY OWN BEDROOMS COMPLETE WITH A KING SIZE BED!!!! After cold campground nights and deflated air mattresses and three people crammed on sofa couches, this was genuinely heaven. I literally cannot thank our hosts enough: Sam, our thoughtful Bowling Green learning festival coordinator, and Adam and Lindsey, the couple who very kindly let us stay in their home for free.

I singlehandedly unloaded every single thing in the car to make enough space for all eight seats in the car to go up, so we could drive around together on the following rest day + learning festival day. As I stocked the fridge with two of every kind of soda/drink we had so every possible option would be cold for the team upon arrival, I felt like a serious hero. Until I later realized that Tatiana’s boyfriend Noah was coming tomorrow with an extra rental car, and nobody really drank anything I had put in the fridge, so may be I was DTM*. I don’t mind though; my favorite part of being the driver is being able to do things that make the team happy.

I joined the team at Thai Thai, where they had stopped 3 miles before the end for a free dinner graciously provided by the restaurant owners. After days of fried chicken in Kentucky, the vegetables and noodles and basil and fried rice seriously hit the spot. A huge huge thank you and shout out to Thai Thai of Bowling Green; the best Thai food I’ve had in a long time!

When we came back to the Airbnb, we allocated one hour of shower and blogging time until 10:30 PM, when the moment I had been waiting for for eighteen days finally came. I had genuinely been asking the team every single day what the move was tonight and if tonight was the night, to the point where it felt like I was Curry shooting from the moon hoping one night I make the basket, and the joke became that it would never happen all summer. I am talking, of course, about MOVIE NIGHT!!!!! 

I was actually so excited I thought I would explode from happiness as Nunu put on We’re The Millers, a comedy about a small-time pot dealer turned international drug smuggler with the help of a fake family of four he put together (The Millers) to look less suspicious. Although half the team went to bed before the movie finished, I thought it was really funny so shoutout Nunu for a great pick.

And then I also went to sleep, splayed out across my king bed in the master bedroom. It’s crazy how in one day you can wake up with every muscle feeling like lead in a sleeping bag that smells like feet and then end the very same day with all your dreams coming true.

Sending love to you all as per usual,

Aarushi

*For reference I timed this blog and it took me 8 hours across 5 days (1, 3, 1, 1, 2). Hope you enjoyed the detail because this might never happen again.

*In modern slang, “buss” (often used as “bussin”) means that something is excellent, impressive, or amazing. It is primarily used by Gen Z and younger generations to describe great food or a really fun experience. Common Usages: “This taco is bussin!” (The food tastes incredible.) “That party last night was bussin.” (The event was a lot of fun.) (citation: Google AI Overview, 2026).

*In internet slang, a chud is a derogatory term used to insult someone perceived as boorish, unintelligent, or socially maladjusted. It comes from the 1984 sci-fi horror film C.H.U.D., which stands for Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller—a movie about radioactive, man-eating sewer mutants. On platforms like Reddit, Twitter/X, and political forums, it is used to describe toxic, bad-faith internet trolls or far-right reactionaries.Outside of politics, it is often used similarly to words like “nerd,” “creep,” or “loser,” specifically implying that someone is physically unappealing, socially awkward, and terminally online. Interestingly, the term has recently been co-opted by some young internet users as a self-deprecating joke to describe themselves when feeling hopeless or “cringy”. (citation: Google AI Overview, 2026).

*DTM most commonly stands for the internet slang “doing too much”. It is used to call out someone who is being overly dramatic, over-the-top, or trying way harder than a situation requires. Think of it as a quick, modern way to tell someone to chill out or relax. (citation: Google AI Overview, 2026).