TOMS Shoes » roadtrip

why do all good things come to an end?

hajarMW — Fri, 22 May 2009 00:07:53 +0000

Yes I said “end” but we will be Vagabonds for life!!This experience was quite a journey and I think all of us have learned so much about ourselves in the process. To all of our readers who have been following our tour and watching our videos, thank you for all of your support. We will leave this experience with some great stories to share with our friends and families. I will never forget the crazy moments with our 15 passenger van. Driving that thing was an experience in itself.

Time definitely went by fast for us. Just being back at the office and driving down Olympic Blvd. again has brought back so many memories of the beginning of our journey. I feel we have grown so much in this short time and I’m glad to see all of the familiar faces at HQ and even some new faces, too! Vagabonds, I love you all and it has been a privilege to get to know and make memories with all of you. I have to say that I started this tour with 3 pairs of TOMS and I am leaving with 15! My favorite right now is the pair that i designed while we were in Chicago, what do you think? Cool huh? I plan to wear them all summer and enjoy my TOMS tan lines too.

So long guys! Peace and love be with all of you! -Hajar

Eleven weeks on the road. Insane. We were sent off in style, and brought back in style. Friday we got here and were welcomed with hugs, smiles, rainbows, and cookies. Just kidding about the cookies. But seriously, the last week I’ve just been taking some time to think about what I just did. What we all just did. We just put shoes on so many kids feet, together. I had no idea at the beginning of this that it would feel this great, that I would feel like I accomplished something so grand. And truth be told, I didn’t do it alone. You guys did it, too. Maybe you didn’t buy a pair of shoes on the tour, but you read our blogs, watched our videos, and encouraged us while we were on the road. You kept us going when we didn’t think we could drive another mile or lift another box. So this is as much your accomplishment as ours. Thank you.

As for the next move, I’m planning on debriefing from being on the road. I might need to keep a TOMS box in my car at all times, and randomly carry it into places to unload it. I also will probably need to do laundry at laundromats for a bit, just to not have a complete shock to the system. Maybe one day I’ll have clothes in a closet, and will sleep and shower in the same place everyday, but at heart I’ll always be a Vagabond. Tia OUT.

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time’s flying by but we still lookin fly

blairSW — Mon, 11 May 2009 20:55:32 +0000

This week has just flown right by us. We went from San Diego to Beverly Hills to Salt Lake and have now ended up in Vegas… to be reunited with the rest of the Vagabond family!

Our Event at Point Loma was amazing dance parties and pictures galore! Our rep created a TOMS photo booth which of course made for some epic photos:

Team SW with our awesome rep Max!!

Kelli’s dream come true! An entire Mustache Militia!

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looking up at the desert sky

kelliSW — Sat, 02 May 2009 00:13:12 +0000

Friday night we did just that! Our dear friend Luis put on an amazing event in Phoenix that was jam packed with adventure! Adventure including me dropping a huge event table on my bare foot, that was great for sure! haha! So many excited faces for TOMS and some reps from Invisible Children showed up as well. There were artist stations set up, where people could move from station to station to get their TOMS painted. My best, Sentrock, even painted some shoes to be raffled off for the night! Phoenix provided much needed respite seeing that I still have my apartment there. We re-charged our batteries and have now returned back to beautiful Southern California, only we almost got blown away at a dinosaur park yesterday.

Last night we had the pleasure of taking TOMS to Chapman University for the first time, and our rep Natalie was a brilliant host. In the first 15 minutes, 5 items had already been purchased. These guys were great at coming up with shoe names: my personal favorite was El Shoepacabra! Yes! Such creativity!

Right now, many of us Vagabonds around the country are watching The Rescue live in Chicago. Invisible Children is dear to our hearts and we all wish we could be there singing along. There are hundreds of people singing “In the name of love, Oprah come and rescue us” in hopes to be rescued after being out in the Chicago streets since Saturday afternoon. Our hearts are beating for Joseph Kony’s child soldiers.

Next week we get to meet up with all the other Vagabonds and dance the night away in Vegas. We are all so excited. I know I don’t speak alone when I say that a little bit of my heart is in each of those Vaga Vans across the country… it will be nice to have us all together once again.

Tour is winding down but we aren’t done yet. We have promises to keep and miles to go before we sleep!

A sample of Sentrock’s art work

A portrait of Blair our rep’s friend Greg did! Perfect! ha

Tiny Blair in the bottom left corner of the photo, about to get blown away and eaten by the T-Rex

hangin out with some Triceratops, no big deal

Wario got so scared at the dinosaur park, he was hiding for at least an hour

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roadtrip to chicago!

tiaMW — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 22:33:57 +0000

When you think Midwest roadtrip, you think of passing through Chicago. And we are all up in it! I am in love with this place! We had two amazing events this weekend!

First one was at OhNo!Doom Art Gallery, where there were over ten artists that donated their time to paint shoes for the people that came! It was amazing, and a ton of fun. I got some shoes painted, and I haven’t gotten a chance to rock them yet because it’s been raining. But soon…

Then we participated in a barefoot walk at Willow Creek Community Church. The youth came out in full force, helping the church to meet their goal for the school they support in South Africa! It was really great to a part of that.

We also had pizza. Not just any pizza, but pizza that is the end all for any other pizza. Chicago style pizza.

So good. You don’t even know. My life is forever changed.

But let’s get serious here guys. I can’t event believe that tour is wrapping up. It seems like just a few weeks ago we were constantly saying ‘it’s almost here!’ And now, we are in the midst of week nine I think? Cah-razy.

But stick around, we aren’t done yet!

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we got rescued!

justinNW — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:27:17 +0000

I don’t know if any of you have noticed, but the Team Ndubs… err Team USA schedule has been kinda light lately. Well all that changed this week. We had plenty to do. After an amazing event with some of my friends from Nashville we were off to Kirksville, MO.

Look at all my friends. My middle school dreams of popularity are finally coming true

From there we headed to Columbia, and then from there it was off to St. Louis where we had one of the coolest experiences of our tour. We were able to attend The Rescue in conjunction with Invisible Children. If you don’t know about Invisible Children, you absolutely have to check it out! www.invisiblechildren.com Anyway, we basically met at a location and abducted ourselves to raise awareness about the children who are abducted to serve as soldiers in Uganda. We marched to the St. Louis Arch where we waited for a political figure or a celebrity to come rescue us. We were there for a while. Like almost 24 hours. But I think we had the world’s most compact outdoor slumber party while we waited for someone to come rescue us.

The beginnings of the slumber party

Check out the awesome pillowtop mattresses they brought in for us. They were made of brick.

I won’t lie though. We were a little confused. I mean, we just kind of assumed we could be the rescuers. We’re celebrities, right? We have videos on youtube! Like 9 of them! With literally tens upon tens of hits. Well, despite our obvious celebrity status, we didn’t quite count. (apparently they were looking for an “A-list” celebrity… we fall somewhere between the x-z range of celebrity status). Eventually we got rescued just in time to get to one of our most fun events yet at New Life Church. Check out the sweet shoes designed by the lead singer of one of the bands that played!

Anyway, in keeping up with our original name, Team Ndubs, we are now headed from Missouri to Fresno, California. It’s gonna be a long drive, but I’m sure with the three of us behind the wheel of our Vagavan we might make it. We’ll see ya soon!

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