I often have a lot of opinions about things, especially after I've finished a book or something of that nature. If I continue to write reviews of book and the like, I might choose to develop a different blog for that, but as is stands I have only written this one review. Looking deeper at it I do realize that it is more a review of 3 books rather then the merely the one I finished most recently. Sorry to put such a long winded disclaimer prior to this entry, I just want to make it clear to anyone who might read this later (most likely merely the author himself) that I have shifted focus away from a travel narrative.
I generally enjoyed reading Brisingr, but I was left feeling this was a stop-gap book with really nothing important added to the story. We learned a great deal about Paolini: he has improved his skill at drawing characters; he is well aware that he has a captive audience so he can fail to edit his book and make it dry as toast at points. We also learned that he “interject” obscure words into a sentence to make the story sound more intelligent rather then worrying about the flow the sentence itself. The development of Eragon as a character seems to be secondary to all these new ideas Paolini has pushed into the series. The flow of the story was good and one thing lead to another, but why did we have development of other characters like Roran then magically mysteriously disappear in the last quarter of the book?
I honestly preferred Eldest. It was a great leap forward in the right direction from Eragon. Where as Eragon pretty obliviously had no outline and the author was apprehensive throughout that he would not make it to the end, the Eldest was everything Eragon wasn’t. That is why Brisingr is so disappointing, it’s needless long, well over 700 pages, though I generally enjoyed the experience the beginning was laughable with awkward sentence structure and with words in places that barely made sense. Why use an obscure word just because you can? Also descriptions are only good when they relate to something a reader already knows something about… what size exactly is a “winter rutabaga”?
This is the third book in this series I had expected better things by this point, not the author to become so self-possessed with his own descriptions. The last would do better to lean more toward the Eldest rather then this overly wordy in-need of a diet fantasy installment.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Run up to Thanksgiving in a nutshell...
So it’s been well over a month since my last post… not entirely sure how that happened. I had plenty of time while I was in Spain; I guess I was just doing other things. Having now been back in the US for now almost a month, I still don’t really have any idea when I’m going to get to go back.
To those who haven’t heard this story yet the reason I came back to the US was I got a job with the Spanish government teaching children in a Spanish school 4 days a week. In order to take that job, I had to come back and get a different visa then just the regular tourist one that I had prior. It has been a huge amount of work to both get into the program I’m a part of, but also to apply for the student visa that I need to go back to Espana. It looks like, even though I thought I would be back to Spain in less then a month, I won’t be going back until at least after Christmas. (I got back on Halloween). I’m just not sure if I’ll have a job if I go back that late. We’ll see I’m trying to make sure that the education ministry is well informed of how I am doing so they don’t give away my post.
Other then chasing parts of my application I’ve mostly just been sitting around the house either not doing anything, which is most of the time, watching TV, or simply reading something. So far I have finished a couple of books, the most notable and enjoyable is “Germs, Guns, and Steel” by Jared Diamond. It’s a real good read and I like his whole theory of development of human society, even if I don’t think it’s anyway the last word on societal evolution. I’d recommend it to anyone, even if they don’t believe in Human evolution (since he does make reference to at points, but it’s not overly important to the point he’s making). Though I suppose if you hold that the human race is only 5000 years old, then there might be some trouble with his ideas….so on second thought maybe that wouldn’t work.
The other real noteworthy book is the “Golden Compass” by Philip Pullman. It’s an interesting read, because you’re never really sure where he’s going to take it next. Though my main complaint with it is all the main characters are really cold. The main character is a girl who grows up at a college surrounded by students and faculty it’s really similar to my childhood. When we finally find out who her parents are, they are both pretty horrible people. Who kill people and care little for anyone except themselves. I had planned to read the entire “Dark Materials” series, but after I got the end of the first book…I decided not to continue with it.
Besides reading the news too much and hanging at my parent’s house all the time, my time has been pretty open. I have a few other books I’m working on and I really enjoy having the open ended time to myself. It’s been interesting not going anywhere for a while and I have really enjoyed the slow pace of life I have experienced in the last few months. In the US we’re so obsessed with work and getting things done all the time, that we don’t take the time to smell the roses. It’s nice to take the time to cook something or just hang out with people and talk about nothing in particular. Time, at least in the US, is used so sparingly on those kind things it’s nice to enjoy the slow pace of everything. Any its Thanksgiving so I’m going to hang out with the assembled family.
To those who haven’t heard this story yet the reason I came back to the US was I got a job with the Spanish government teaching children in a Spanish school 4 days a week. In order to take that job, I had to come back and get a different visa then just the regular tourist one that I had prior. It has been a huge amount of work to both get into the program I’m a part of, but also to apply for the student visa that I need to go back to Espana. It looks like, even though I thought I would be back to Spain in less then a month, I won’t be going back until at least after Christmas. (I got back on Halloween). I’m just not sure if I’ll have a job if I go back that late. We’ll see I’m trying to make sure that the education ministry is well informed of how I am doing so they don’t give away my post.
Other then chasing parts of my application I’ve mostly just been sitting around the house either not doing anything, which is most of the time, watching TV, or simply reading something. So far I have finished a couple of books, the most notable and enjoyable is “Germs, Guns, and Steel” by Jared Diamond. It’s a real good read and I like his whole theory of development of human society, even if I don’t think it’s anyway the last word on societal evolution. I’d recommend it to anyone, even if they don’t believe in Human evolution (since he does make reference to at points, but it’s not overly important to the point he’s making). Though I suppose if you hold that the human race is only 5000 years old, then there might be some trouble with his ideas….so on second thought maybe that wouldn’t work.
The other real noteworthy book is the “Golden Compass” by Philip Pullman. It’s an interesting read, because you’re never really sure where he’s going to take it next. Though my main complaint with it is all the main characters are really cold. The main character is a girl who grows up at a college surrounded by students and faculty it’s really similar to my childhood. When we finally find out who her parents are, they are both pretty horrible people. Who kill people and care little for anyone except themselves. I had planned to read the entire “Dark Materials” series, but after I got the end of the first book…I decided not to continue with it.
Besides reading the news too much and hanging at my parent’s house all the time, my time has been pretty open. I have a few other books I’m working on and I really enjoy having the open ended time to myself. It’s been interesting not going anywhere for a while and I have really enjoyed the slow pace of life I have experienced in the last few months. In the US we’re so obsessed with work and getting things done all the time, that we don’t take the time to smell the roses. It’s nice to take the time to cook something or just hang out with people and talk about nothing in particular. Time, at least in the US, is used so sparingly on those kind things it’s nice to enjoy the slow pace of everything. Any its Thanksgiving so I’m going to hang out with the assembled family.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Headed out on the road again
I wanted to give a big thank you for anyone who's bothered to read this blog in the last few months. The whole idea was spawned out of my parents wanting to know I was alive and keeping. Also to make sure that there was some account of my journey that was not scrawled in a notebook and entirely unreadable. Thank you for reading this and putting up with my rather bland narratives and accounts of my first trip across the United States.
As I mentioned in my last post I was living at home at my parent's house in good old Massachusetts. There was many great things about being back, not having to drive 8 hours a day, seeing friends and familiar faces regularly, and drinking a brew at the old haunts. But I was living at my parent's house which gets old about as fast as you might think. I am not trying to suggest I don't like or get a long with my folks, that is not the case at all. There is just not anything to do around Andover other then go to the movies, which you can only do so many times. I suppose there is a bar, but it barely counts as one.
I thankfully did not have to spend the entire time at home and actually hitched a ride with my mom into Boston for most of the month of August. I was taking a course at the Boston Language Institute to get a certificate to teach English as a Foreign Language, shorthand (TEFL). It was a pretty rigorous course, though I have to say it didn't make me really freak out until the last week of the month when like everything seemed to be due.
I met some really cool people, who were both students or somehow affiliated with the institute. Being around there did make me like I didn't know anything as most people who were either teachers or students knew at least 2 languages and most often 3. Sounds like I need to get my butt in gear about that.
The last week has been really chill, in fact too relaxed, I barely got anything done. It is amazing how much TV needs watching when you having nothing pressing on you. All in all it was a slow week with my evenings filled with saying goodbye to friends I know around the Boston Area. I'm going to miss them and I hope I get the opportunity to see them again. Though they too might want to fly the nest and head on the road at some point themselves. Maybe I'll see them all in glory...
As of today I headed out again. This time I headed back to Spain where I was for 2 weeks this last May, man it was fun. I currently don't have a return ticket, but I'm thinking I'll be back before my 3 month tourist visa runs out in December. We'll see how it ends up going. Spain again, should be really sweet. I'm going to start in Madrid and then figure out a plan from there. I wanted to check out Lisbon in Portugal last time I was there, so I will have to do that. Also I want to go at some point and check out Basque country it is supposed to be amazing. Provided I don't run into the terrorist separatists.
Since I will be on the road I will have some access to internet and I will also try to keep in touch with people. If you want me to send an email or a post card, contact me I'm a constant email checker.
As I mentioned in my last post I was living at home at my parent's house in good old Massachusetts. There was many great things about being back, not having to drive 8 hours a day, seeing friends and familiar faces regularly, and drinking a brew at the old haunts. But I was living at my parent's house which gets old about as fast as you might think. I am not trying to suggest I don't like or get a long with my folks, that is not the case at all. There is just not anything to do around Andover other then go to the movies, which you can only do so many times. I suppose there is a bar, but it barely counts as one.
I thankfully did not have to spend the entire time at home and actually hitched a ride with my mom into Boston for most of the month of August. I was taking a course at the Boston Language Institute to get a certificate to teach English as a Foreign Language, shorthand (TEFL). It was a pretty rigorous course, though I have to say it didn't make me really freak out until the last week of the month when like everything seemed to be due.
I met some really cool people, who were both students or somehow affiliated with the institute. Being around there did make me like I didn't know anything as most people who were either teachers or students knew at least 2 languages and most often 3. Sounds like I need to get my butt in gear about that.
The last week has been really chill, in fact too relaxed, I barely got anything done. It is amazing how much TV needs watching when you having nothing pressing on you. All in all it was a slow week with my evenings filled with saying goodbye to friends I know around the Boston Area. I'm going to miss them and I hope I get the opportunity to see them again. Though they too might want to fly the nest and head on the road at some point themselves. Maybe I'll see them all in glory...
As of today I headed out again. This time I headed back to Spain where I was for 2 weeks this last May, man it was fun. I currently don't have a return ticket, but I'm thinking I'll be back before my 3 month tourist visa runs out in December. We'll see how it ends up going. Spain again, should be really sweet. I'm going to start in Madrid and then figure out a plan from there. I wanted to check out Lisbon in Portugal last time I was there, so I will have to do that. Also I want to go at some point and check out Basque country it is supposed to be amazing. Provided I don't run into the terrorist separatists.
Since I will be on the road I will have some access to internet and I will also try to keep in touch with people. If you want me to send an email or a post card, contact me I'm a constant email checker.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
It's so weird to be back here
Traveling from Columbus the afternoon of the Sunday I responsible for all those kids I took the shortest drive I have taken on my trip. I headed to Gambier, my old collegiate stomping grounds, and met up and crashed with a friend. It was cool to see her again and we spent a good deal of time both walking around and catching up on what the other was doing. She seems to be doing pretty well and is enjoying working for the admissions department as she has since our graduation.
Gambier has and hasn’t changed much with the exception of some trees missing and a few new buildings here and there. Though as I expressed in a letter to a collegiate friend I wrote while there, it was a vacant place. I don’t mean just that the students were missing because they were, more that my time has passed from the place and I am an oddity, a remnant from some bygone time. My friends and experiences are what made the place and them being gone helps me move on as they have.
Having spent the night in Gambier at one of my friends numerous houses I headed out about mid-morning but I was slow to get started and didn’t do as much driving as I would have liked. I got past Pittsburgh quite a ways and ended up staying in a motel since there did not seem to be much in the way of state parks along I-80 in Pennsylvania. I was surprised about how much I liked the scenery, there are numerous rolling hills in Western Pennsylvania which was a refreshing changed from the flatness I had been experiencing across the Midwest. Granted the hills were nothing in size to anything in the Rockies, but the very green watered fed scene was a stark difference when compared to the parched West and Northwest I visited.
The next morning realizing I only had about 8 hours of driving to do, I figured I had some time to see a few things. Having now seen Groundhog Day, the movie, about a million times at this point, I thought I should check out Punxsutawney PA where the movie is set. It was cool to see the town and its weird devotion to the Groundhog, something most farmers truly dislike and classify as vermin. “Phil” the mascot and groundhog who either does or does not see his shadow has fiberglass statues all over the town. You could pretty easily tell that Groundhog Day, Feb 2 is the biggest day of the year in the sleepy little town. I surprised about how the whole place doesn’t look anything like the movie and it left me wondering where they actually filmed the movie.
Having now put off the drive off until noon I started to head back to MA. It was an entirely uneventful journey except for me finishing my book on tape, David McCullough’s John Adams and having to find another. I ended up starting Twilight by Stephanie Meyer about a girl who falls in love with a vampire. Unfortunately I didn’t finish its 13 hour run before I got home, so I have been trying to decide to finish it or drop it. The last installment of this book series is supposedly coming out this week, but it is definitely teenage girl fiction if there ever was any. This is due to the constant description of the love interest’s superiority, lips, and “muscular body.” I’m not one to finish something I haven’t started but this one is trying my patience and I might just have to wait until the movie comes out to find out the ending.
So now I’m back in Massachusetts for now going on two days and it’s a refreshing change to be back in familiar surroundings and scenery. I spent yesterday cleaning out my car and doing nothing in particular which was a refreshing change from driving too much. Looking at the odometer I put just a little under 10,000 miles on my car in all the time I was gone and the machine didn’t let me down. It’s official I love Volvos.
Gambier has and hasn’t changed much with the exception of some trees missing and a few new buildings here and there. Though as I expressed in a letter to a collegiate friend I wrote while there, it was a vacant place. I don’t mean just that the students were missing because they were, more that my time has passed from the place and I am an oddity, a remnant from some bygone time. My friends and experiences are what made the place and them being gone helps me move on as they have.
Having spent the night in Gambier at one of my friends numerous houses I headed out about mid-morning but I was slow to get started and didn’t do as much driving as I would have liked. I got past Pittsburgh quite a ways and ended up staying in a motel since there did not seem to be much in the way of state parks along I-80 in Pennsylvania. I was surprised about how much I liked the scenery, there are numerous rolling hills in Western Pennsylvania which was a refreshing changed from the flatness I had been experiencing across the Midwest. Granted the hills were nothing in size to anything in the Rockies, but the very green watered fed scene was a stark difference when compared to the parched West and Northwest I visited.
The next morning realizing I only had about 8 hours of driving to do, I figured I had some time to see a few things. Having now seen Groundhog Day, the movie, about a million times at this point, I thought I should check out Punxsutawney PA where the movie is set. It was cool to see the town and its weird devotion to the Groundhog, something most farmers truly dislike and classify as vermin. “Phil” the mascot and groundhog who either does or does not see his shadow has fiberglass statues all over the town. You could pretty easily tell that Groundhog Day, Feb 2 is the biggest day of the year in the sleepy little town. I surprised about how the whole place doesn’t look anything like the movie and it left me wondering where they actually filmed the movie.
Having now put off the drive off until noon I started to head back to MA. It was an entirely uneventful journey except for me finishing my book on tape, David McCullough’s John Adams and having to find another. I ended up starting Twilight by Stephanie Meyer about a girl who falls in love with a vampire. Unfortunately I didn’t finish its 13 hour run before I got home, so I have been trying to decide to finish it or drop it. The last installment of this book series is supposedly coming out this week, but it is definitely teenage girl fiction if there ever was any. This is due to the constant description of the love interest’s superiority, lips, and “muscular body.” I’m not one to finish something I haven’t started but this one is trying my patience and I might just have to wait until the movie comes out to find out the ending.
So now I’m back in Massachusetts for now going on two days and it’s a refreshing change to be back in familiar surroundings and scenery. I spent yesterday cleaning out my car and doing nothing in particular which was a refreshing change from driving too much. Looking at the odometer I put just a little under 10,000 miles on my car in all the time I was gone and the machine didn’t let me down. It’s official I love Volvos.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Two ends of the Age Spectrum
I got into Glen Ellyn, IL where my Grandparents live at about 1:30 in the afternoon. I didn’t have to drive far so I had left later in the morning but didn’t really make much difference on the final arrival time. It was really nice to take an easy day of travel after having spent the two days prior driving.
I had planned to stay with my Aunt, so I headed over there. Despite contacting her before arrival and her assurance she would be around during the day she wasn’t. I hope I don’t make this sound like it was a big deal. It being a Friday and the middle of day I was not surprised she had found something to do with herself. When you have your days free to do what you will with them and people in your life know that, activities have a tendency to come calling you; I should know I also do not have a job.
Having gotten to my aunt’s house and not found anything there to keep me occupied I decided to try to go see a movie I’ve been longing to see. Hellboy II, had been out for a while and I wanted to see it in a theatre because it looked pretty cool. Despite having a demonic title it is not about anything very deep other then the usual bad guys versus good guys. So I found a movie time online courteous of a rogue wireless network and headed over.
I would like to predicate my next statement with saying I have been trying to adapt myself to military time, or the 24-hour clock, for the last couple of months. Well I serious miscalculated the time of the movie so I was over an hour early. A showing of Batman: The Dark Knight was showing far closer to my arrival time, so I decided to see that.
It was a gritty movie and overall an artfully crafted movie. I just didn’t enjoy the whole experience because the movie was too jarring. The picture was about “the Joker’s” psychotic nature, was more unsettling then enjoyable to me. I don’t understand why we are obsessed with the crazed killer in this country. CSI and Law and Order are both formulaic around a central theme of crazy people. Why as a society do we rightfully vilify these people and then make movies about them that glorify their tragedies? Why are some horrible acts usually more thoroughly covered then amazing acts of kindness? What does the media slogan still apply “it saying it bleeds it leads” always win?
When I got out of the theatre I had got a call from my Aunt and she was around to hang out. I headed over to her place and move a bunch of my stuff into her place for the night, all the while catching up with her. It had been a few years since we had seen each other and had things to catch up on. I really like my aunt and just talking about whatever. She’s super nice and often too generously laughs at my jokes. My aunt seems to be doing well and been enjoying the time off she has had since quitting work in March. Not liking what she was doing for a living as well as an interest to take some time off had spurred her to quit. It was cool to have the validation, that as long as you have the ability to pay the bills it's ok not to have your entire life figured out by 30.
My Grandma called while we were talking and so we headed over to restaurant rendezvous. It was a place I had been to before with my aunt, grandfather, and grandmother, but I enjoyed it and we talked for almost 2 hours about things. My Grandmother is ever the conversationalist and it was good to hear about what she and Grandpa have in their lives at this point. We ended up heading back to my grandparent’s house to see a news program she had extolled the merits of over dinner. It was a cool segment that is not broadcast in the Boston area, despite being one of the news programs on PBS.
After headed back to my Aunt's I pretty much went straight to bed, since I planned to leave early the next morning. Throughout this trip I have learned that “early” is a very relative term and due to having a schedule I pretty much set on a daily basis, I have a tendency to be a little lax about starting my day in a timely fashion. I didn’t end up leaving my aunt’s house until about 9:30 which is mid morning, but it as nice to have a full night’s sleep.
After leaving my Aunt’s house it did not take me long to lose an hour by crossing yet another time zone. Since getting the book on tape it has made the driving far less momentous and I find myself really not focusing on the length of but rather just the story and the immediate driving. It is a welcome mental distraction after merely having the radio and my IPOD for weeks. I don’t think it has hampered my alertness at all, to those who might be worried about such things.
It was a middle length day driving to Columbus to see my college friend Rich and I got there about 5pm. I got into a debate with the kid within 10 minutes from walking in the door; same old Rich. It was good to see him and see what he has been up to since he moved back from Cleveland to live with his folks. He has started his own business of rehabbing old houses to turn into decent rental properties. The houses he’s buying seem to either be under foreclosure or easily gotten cheaply at very reasonable in price. He showed me his first house and what he has done so far and plans to do for it in the future. I can’t say it would be a business I would want to get into, but I got to give the guy credit as having an entrepreneurial spirit. I got to see his parents ministry which was cool, they have had a huge influx of people into the program and it was cool to hang and talk to the kids who are involved in the program. Since I was there for both the Saturday night and Sunday services I got to see the kids that were around there the most, I forgot how rambunctious kids around 10 can be.
I had planned to stay with my Aunt, so I headed over there. Despite contacting her before arrival and her assurance she would be around during the day she wasn’t. I hope I don’t make this sound like it was a big deal. It being a Friday and the middle of day I was not surprised she had found something to do with herself. When you have your days free to do what you will with them and people in your life know that, activities have a tendency to come calling you; I should know I also do not have a job.
Having gotten to my aunt’s house and not found anything there to keep me occupied I decided to try to go see a movie I’ve been longing to see. Hellboy II, had been out for a while and I wanted to see it in a theatre because it looked pretty cool. Despite having a demonic title it is not about anything very deep other then the usual bad guys versus good guys. So I found a movie time online courteous of a rogue wireless network and headed over.
I would like to predicate my next statement with saying I have been trying to adapt myself to military time, or the 24-hour clock, for the last couple of months. Well I serious miscalculated the time of the movie so I was over an hour early. A showing of Batman: The Dark Knight was showing far closer to my arrival time, so I decided to see that.
It was a gritty movie and overall an artfully crafted movie. I just didn’t enjoy the whole experience because the movie was too jarring. The picture was about “the Joker’s” psychotic nature, was more unsettling then enjoyable to me. I don’t understand why we are obsessed with the crazed killer in this country. CSI and Law and Order are both formulaic around a central theme of crazy people. Why as a society do we rightfully vilify these people and then make movies about them that glorify their tragedies? Why are some horrible acts usually more thoroughly covered then amazing acts of kindness? What does the media slogan still apply “it saying it bleeds it leads” always win?
When I got out of the theatre I had got a call from my Aunt and she was around to hang out. I headed over to her place and move a bunch of my stuff into her place for the night, all the while catching up with her. It had been a few years since we had seen each other and had things to catch up on. I really like my aunt and just talking about whatever. She’s super nice and often too generously laughs at my jokes. My aunt seems to be doing well and been enjoying the time off she has had since quitting work in March. Not liking what she was doing for a living as well as an interest to take some time off had spurred her to quit. It was cool to have the validation, that as long as you have the ability to pay the bills it's ok not to have your entire life figured out by 30.
My Grandma called while we were talking and so we headed over to restaurant rendezvous. It was a place I had been to before with my aunt, grandfather, and grandmother, but I enjoyed it and we talked for almost 2 hours about things. My Grandmother is ever the conversationalist and it was good to hear about what she and Grandpa have in their lives at this point. We ended up heading back to my grandparent’s house to see a news program she had extolled the merits of over dinner. It was a cool segment that is not broadcast in the Boston area, despite being one of the news programs on PBS.
After headed back to my Aunt's I pretty much went straight to bed, since I planned to leave early the next morning. Throughout this trip I have learned that “early” is a very relative term and due to having a schedule I pretty much set on a daily basis, I have a tendency to be a little lax about starting my day in a timely fashion. I didn’t end up leaving my aunt’s house until about 9:30 which is mid morning, but it as nice to have a full night’s sleep.
After leaving my Aunt’s house it did not take me long to lose an hour by crossing yet another time zone. Since getting the book on tape it has made the driving far less momentous and I find myself really not focusing on the length of but rather just the story and the immediate driving. It is a welcome mental distraction after merely having the radio and my IPOD for weeks. I don’t think it has hampered my alertness at all, to those who might be worried about such things.
It was a middle length day driving to Columbus to see my college friend Rich and I got there about 5pm. I got into a debate with the kid within 10 minutes from walking in the door; same old Rich. It was good to see him and see what he has been up to since he moved back from Cleveland to live with his folks. He has started his own business of rehabbing old houses to turn into decent rental properties. The houses he’s buying seem to either be under foreclosure or easily gotten cheaply at very reasonable in price. He showed me his first house and what he has done so far and plans to do for it in the future. I can’t say it would be a business I would want to get into, but I got to give the guy credit as having an entrepreneurial spirit. I got to see his parents ministry which was cool, they have had a huge influx of people into the program and it was cool to hang and talk to the kids who are involved in the program. Since I was there for both the Saturday night and Sunday services I got to see the kids that were around there the most, I forgot how rambunctious kids around 10 can be.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Purple Mtns. to Waves and waves and waves of grain
After being at the Oregon State Park I continued on to Salt Lake City, which took most of the day. It was a mostly uneventful journey with the exception of the amazing scenery zooming by my car. I will say that having traveled both though the Northwest and West, it is an increasing dry place. I have heard the reports on the news saying there is not much rain here, but it’s another thing to see it first hand. I hope that trend changes because as much as Americans are building here, it doesn’t bode well for the long term sustainability of the region.
When I got Salt Lake City, I got lost despite having good directions from my host. After being on the wrong side of town from his house, I finally got the way the streets worked and got to his place. All the streets are number and don’t really have official names, so for example you can live at 1100S and 900 E. It made finding his place a lot easier once I figured out where I was on this massive grid.
I met Joel, the guy I was staying with and learned a little about being a young attorney. He was also a really interesting guy just in his own right with a lot of interest in environmental law and it sounds like he’d recently gotten into disability claims which I made the mistake of getting confused with liability and suing for malpractice.
I crashed on his floor that night and headed out toward Colorado by way of Temple Square. It was a pretty building and the Mormons do a lot to make it look pretty. Apparently we weren’t allowed in the Temple itself, but I did get to take a picture of where they regularly had services and stuff. They had a lot of visitor centers and a museum about The Church of Latter Day Saints. I was most unsettled by the fact there was a lot of people about my age or younger just standing around there to welcome you. I figured they were all on their two years service. They bothered me with how they all looked the same with their nametags and their super neat appearance. After that initial observation I realized that if I was doing something full time, like greeting, I would probably look the same, so I decide to cut them a little slack.
From there I spent the rest of the day in the car with the weather turning hotter and hotter as I headed toward Colorado. I managed to pass the day pretty well between calling people and listening to the radio. It was still a long trip and I need to find something else to either listen or do to break up the time. I arrived in Denver and met my hosts Dave, Dan, and PJ who were really cool and gave me my own bed to sleep on. They also had a really cool dog by the name of Dante that made me wish I had one. They were a nice group of guys and I like just chilling with them for the time I was there.
When I headed into Denver the next morning, and I had intended to see a good chunk of the city and the art museum, but I unfortunately I didn’t get to the museum. I spent so much time chilling and walking around the city I got to the museum about a half hour before it closed. The city itself is pretty neat with a lot of shops and restaurants. The thing that visually makes it for me though is they’re big about getting people to create public works of art. That means there are these massive sculptures throughout the city not just the same statue throughout painted differently. There is also all these mountains all around so the scenery is cool and the people are nicer then on the East Coast.
The next day, after biding adieu to my hosts I headed over to Boulder just to check it out for a few hours. I only really had time to see the resort section and see a few things. I can see myself in the future headed back there for at least one trip. The mountains were there just being begged to be climbed in all their glory. I did take the time to see Celestial Seasonings, a tea company that has really cool pictures on their boxes. It was neat to see their factory and see how the tea gets inserted into bags and then sent to the consumer.
My only real complaint with Colorado was the lack of water both it in large pools on the ground and the lack of it coming from the sky. I’m not saying that its something they can fix, I’m sure if they thought they could get more rain they would be doing it. It was just emphasized to me by the fact it was so dry the whole time I was there. It was plenty hot, but it was so dry with no humidity that I really didn’t ever feel like I was sweating, I got dehydrated way to easily.
I managed to get into Nebraska late that night and decided to spring for a hotel because after checking the State Park list I thought there wasn’t any near the highway. As it turned out there are numerous state parks along interstate 80 in Nebraska (I’m writing it down so I’ll remember in the future). Even if it broke the bank it was a good time and refreshing change of pace; I really enjoyed having my own space and bed. I didn’t get out that early this morning because I was just enjoying lounging and now having put a lot of miles on my car I’m finally sick of driving.
I did manage to stop though Omaha today and truthfully its older sections are really depressing. There isn’t really anything in the downtown section other then a few banks and some businesses that have chosen to stick with the place. The two I noticed were ConAgra and Union Pacific, which are big names, but can’t really keep an entire city employed. Omaha has seen better days and I hope it can be looking up some day.
While in Omaha, I stopped on the outskirts and checked out a Cracker Barrel for some books on tape. It was weird being back in one, since I hadn’t been back since I stopped working at one two years ago. It might have been the one I worked in Mass. it looks exactly the same with all the merchandise in the same spot. I was able to rent a book on tape for $3.50 a week, but I had to put in a deposit for how much the whole thing sells for that I’ll get back once I return it to another Cracker Barrel down the road. I got a copy of David McCullough’s new book John Adams, it’s been really interesting and a breath of fresh air to have something to listen to while driving, I should have done it sooner. I hope I get more then one book done by the time I get home.
I also made good time going across Iowa and only really made one stop in Grinnell IA. It is home to a college of the same name that was mentioned to me when I interviewed at Kenyon. It is a small liberal arts college about the same size and locality, they both are in very rural settings, so it makes sense I might have applied there. Now having seen the place, it would have been cool to throw an application at it, not to suggest I would have changed where I went now that the hand has been played. I was just surprised it impressed me.
I’m breaking the bank yet again tonight and staying at a hotel in Davenport IA and hopefully will be headed to Chicago again to see my Aunt and Grandparents. Nite!!
When I got Salt Lake City, I got lost despite having good directions from my host. After being on the wrong side of town from his house, I finally got the way the streets worked and got to his place. All the streets are number and don’t really have official names, so for example you can live at 1100S and 900 E. It made finding his place a lot easier once I figured out where I was on this massive grid.
I met Joel, the guy I was staying with and learned a little about being a young attorney. He was also a really interesting guy just in his own right with a lot of interest in environmental law and it sounds like he’d recently gotten into disability claims which I made the mistake of getting confused with liability and suing for malpractice.
I crashed on his floor that night and headed out toward Colorado by way of Temple Square. It was a pretty building and the Mormons do a lot to make it look pretty. Apparently we weren’t allowed in the Temple itself, but I did get to take a picture of where they regularly had services and stuff. They had a lot of visitor centers and a museum about The Church of Latter Day Saints. I was most unsettled by the fact there was a lot of people about my age or younger just standing around there to welcome you. I figured they were all on their two years service. They bothered me with how they all looked the same with their nametags and their super neat appearance. After that initial observation I realized that if I was doing something full time, like greeting, I would probably look the same, so I decide to cut them a little slack.
From there I spent the rest of the day in the car with the weather turning hotter and hotter as I headed toward Colorado. I managed to pass the day pretty well between calling people and listening to the radio. It was still a long trip and I need to find something else to either listen or do to break up the time. I arrived in Denver and met my hosts Dave, Dan, and PJ who were really cool and gave me my own bed to sleep on. They also had a really cool dog by the name of Dante that made me wish I had one. They were a nice group of guys and I like just chilling with them for the time I was there.
When I headed into Denver the next morning, and I had intended to see a good chunk of the city and the art museum, but I unfortunately I didn’t get to the museum. I spent so much time chilling and walking around the city I got to the museum about a half hour before it closed. The city itself is pretty neat with a lot of shops and restaurants. The thing that visually makes it for me though is they’re big about getting people to create public works of art. That means there are these massive sculptures throughout the city not just the same statue throughout painted differently. There is also all these mountains all around so the scenery is cool and the people are nicer then on the East Coast.
The next day, after biding adieu to my hosts I headed over to Boulder just to check it out for a few hours. I only really had time to see the resort section and see a few things. I can see myself in the future headed back there for at least one trip. The mountains were there just being begged to be climbed in all their glory. I did take the time to see Celestial Seasonings, a tea company that has really cool pictures on their boxes. It was neat to see their factory and see how the tea gets inserted into bags and then sent to the consumer.
My only real complaint with Colorado was the lack of water both it in large pools on the ground and the lack of it coming from the sky. I’m not saying that its something they can fix, I’m sure if they thought they could get more rain they would be doing it. It was just emphasized to me by the fact it was so dry the whole time I was there. It was plenty hot, but it was so dry with no humidity that I really didn’t ever feel like I was sweating, I got dehydrated way to easily.
I managed to get into Nebraska late that night and decided to spring for a hotel because after checking the State Park list I thought there wasn’t any near the highway. As it turned out there are numerous state parks along interstate 80 in Nebraska (I’m writing it down so I’ll remember in the future). Even if it broke the bank it was a good time and refreshing change of pace; I really enjoyed having my own space and bed. I didn’t get out that early this morning because I was just enjoying lounging and now having put a lot of miles on my car I’m finally sick of driving.
I did manage to stop though Omaha today and truthfully its older sections are really depressing. There isn’t really anything in the downtown section other then a few banks and some businesses that have chosen to stick with the place. The two I noticed were ConAgra and Union Pacific, which are big names, but can’t really keep an entire city employed. Omaha has seen better days and I hope it can be looking up some day.
While in Omaha, I stopped on the outskirts and checked out a Cracker Barrel for some books on tape. It was weird being back in one, since I hadn’t been back since I stopped working at one two years ago. It might have been the one I worked in Mass. it looks exactly the same with all the merchandise in the same spot. I was able to rent a book on tape for $3.50 a week, but I had to put in a deposit for how much the whole thing sells for that I’ll get back once I return it to another Cracker Barrel down the road. I got a copy of David McCullough’s new book John Adams, it’s been really interesting and a breath of fresh air to have something to listen to while driving, I should have done it sooner. I hope I get more then one book done by the time I get home.
I also made good time going across Iowa and only really made one stop in Grinnell IA. It is home to a college of the same name that was mentioned to me when I interviewed at Kenyon. It is a small liberal arts college about the same size and locality, they both are in very rural settings, so it makes sense I might have applied there. Now having seen the place, it would have been cool to throw an application at it, not to suggest I would have changed where I went now that the hand has been played. I was just surprised it impressed me.
I’m breaking the bank yet again tonight and staying at a hotel in Davenport IA and hopefully will be headed to Chicago again to see my Aunt and Grandparents. Nite!!
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Fire and Death on the Road to Walla Walla, WA
Going immediately following the last entry. I managed to get down to the Burke Museum after spending most of that morning just lounging around. It was a cool museum and their Northwest Coast stuff was cool for what they had of it, the Field Museum in Chicago has a better and more extensive collection. They had some really cool things, but I wasn’t allowed to take any pictures of the stuff inside, which left me really bummed. I had made the trip there to see it and it appears the museum caters more to a younger age bracket then myself, like people under 10. Even with the exhibits being fairly simplistic they had some really neat artifacts and fossils. There was a primitive whale skeleton and they had various dinosaurs bones set up in life posses, like a stegosaurus. The stegosaurus left me the most intrigued because I have for a long time taken it has a granted that it had spines along its back and a spiked tail, the way its usually depicted. I am not an expert, but the spines anthropologists have always put along the back are in no way connected to the skeleton and could have gone another place, it seemed like to my untrained eye. Though I suppose they are putting the flat dagger shaped bones along the spine, due to dig evidence and not just conjecture. Hopefully evidence is why they look the way it does, otherwise I don’t get why the points down the spine. I found the museum enjoyable and it was cool to wander around the University of Washington’s campus afterward.
After finishing around there I was trying to head over to the City Hall area of Seattle and then maybe the Fremont Troll, but I then had the misfortune to experience what would be occupying me for the rest of my afternoon. I got a flat tire, something I had thought I had fixed prior to leaving my friend Laurel house that afternoon. The second time I had to fix it I was trying to take a short cut and ended up in an upper middle class neighborhood where I stopped under a shady tree to fix my leak.
I was minding my own business and trying to patch my leak, with yet another patch when three little people and a shepharding mom came out to play outside. It didn’t take long for me find out one of the two boys was called “Sam,” which left me feeling pleasantly surprised due to the coincidence. His mom was trying to fix his bicycle as well and it left me wishing my mom was here to bail me out of this one. (Though this mom didn’t know the first thing about bicycles, but “Sam” was still at the stage where parents are all knowing almost supernatural beings.) So I patched it for the 2nd time and headed down and over a block so I could turn around.
Well lucky me the leak wasn’t fixed, so I flipped my bike over and went at it again. At this point I was reusing patches and I was trying to get it too work, when another Mom rolls up and said “I have a pump and a patch kit if you’re still here when I get back.”
I said thanks self-assured that I was going to make it with what I had. No such luck, the patches refused to hold anything and I pumped up the tube a couple of times to see what the problem was. By this time the 2nd mom for now my 3rd patch had come back, I was still there getting more frustrated. She was very helpful and gave me a whole kit to fix the hole, that at the time I didn’t think I would need having just finished the leak. I thanked her told her were I was from and the other usual stuff people talk about when first meeting and hit the road. After getting about maybe a half a mile my fire was flat yet again. So I took the tire off again the 3rd time and used the kit she gave. I patched it and though I had got a good hold on it except the patch failed to hold around the edges, so I ripped it off and tried again. It didn’t work the 4th time either, but figured if I added another patch I couldn’t go wrong, right? I added a 5th and had just as much luck as the fourth. So had 2 patches on my tire and still have a hole and since the air was holding for a little while I decided to pump it up high and try to limp my way home. I got all of maybe a quarter mile before I needed to pump it again and at this point I just gave up and called a cab since it was past 7 by this time and been about 3pm by the time I started this escapade. My tire is still flat, I might have wrecked my back rim, and I currently don’t like my bike.
The next day I drove downtown and walked all over. Being a member of REI I checked out the original store, which was cool, though not as cool as the LL Bean store in Freeport ME. I also just wandered about just seeing things and that looked interesting. For example I bought this really sweet hat at the best Army/Navy store ever. I had intended to see the Fremont Troll sculpture that was under the Aurora Ave bridge, but I managed to forget on my way back toward Laurel’s house. Oh well something to see next time when I go back.
The following day I headed up to Vancouver BC, for the day. It took longer then I had expected partly because I started later in the day and the customs line took forever getting into Canada. The guard wanted to know about my finances as I didn’t have a job and thought I was just coming to Canada to freeload. I gave him some information, but he was kind of insulting but I finally got into Canada. Vancouver, as a city is pretty cool the buildings reflect both a Europe and American influence that is definitely Canada. I checked out downtown and a museum on the University of British Columbia’s campus and then hit the road again. It is a place I would like to visit again, but didn’t feel I had given myself enough time to adequately explore. I also know half of Vancouver’s mystique is the nature around it and I wasn’t really sure where to start since my guidebook only covered the States.
The drive back was uneventful except for an incident I had at the border. I guess I got in the right most car lane called the “Nexus lane.” The only thing I can figure is its for frequent border crossers because they people an extra ID to cross there. I got ushered into Customs Office, hoping I didn’t have to pay a fee as they sent me in with a form that said “Nexus Violater” on it. At this point I was informed that there had been adequate signage, despite seeing any, that told me I was not supposed to be in that lane. It is certainly possible that I had zoned out, but I didn’t see any signs telling me it was a $5000 fine for going in the right most lane. I started to mention this to the guard, but then realized it was better to hold my tongue and let him say his piece. He got the fine waived and sent me on my way after having talked to his supervisor. I got back to Seattle and chilled out at the house for the rest of the evening.
I got up decently early, but I didn’t get moving until later, so I had headed out at about noon and made some headway toward Oregon. It was a boring drive up until I made the turn off toward Walla Walla, WA. There was a tree and grass fire on the way with the largest individual plume of smoke I have ever seen. It was outside the small hamlet of Wallula and I actually saw a fire truck out fighting the flames, which was neat to see while passing, since stopping to gawk at the flames did not seem like the most intelligent thing to do at the time.
I continued on and got caught in a traffic jam that I figured was for an accident, since the road was pretty small I figured it was for that reason. It slowed down and I got a chance to see why things had slowed down as much as they had. It appears to have been an accident between a truck with a trailer and motorcycle and it would appear the accident was fatale for one rider of the motorcycle.
http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-25/1216588463105730.xml&storylist=orlocal
Walla Walla, WA was a pretty cool town between both Whitman College that is in town and the wine is grown there it is a pretty happening place when compared with other places of a similar size. I had the privilege of running into the annual Sweet Onion Festival and I got to see a few of the sights as well as eat a good onion sausage. Since I was running late I ended up crashing at a fairly decent Oregon state park that I really liked both for its cheapness and its general comfort.
After finishing around there I was trying to head over to the City Hall area of Seattle and then maybe the Fremont Troll, but I then had the misfortune to experience what would be occupying me for the rest of my afternoon. I got a flat tire, something I had thought I had fixed prior to leaving my friend Laurel house that afternoon. The second time I had to fix it I was trying to take a short cut and ended up in an upper middle class neighborhood where I stopped under a shady tree to fix my leak.
I was minding my own business and trying to patch my leak, with yet another patch when three little people and a shepharding mom came out to play outside. It didn’t take long for me find out one of the two boys was called “Sam,” which left me feeling pleasantly surprised due to the coincidence. His mom was trying to fix his bicycle as well and it left me wishing my mom was here to bail me out of this one. (Though this mom didn’t know the first thing about bicycles, but “Sam” was still at the stage where parents are all knowing almost supernatural beings.) So I patched it for the 2nd time and headed down and over a block so I could turn around.
Well lucky me the leak wasn’t fixed, so I flipped my bike over and went at it again. At this point I was reusing patches and I was trying to get it too work, when another Mom rolls up and said “I have a pump and a patch kit if you’re still here when I get back.”
I said thanks self-assured that I was going to make it with what I had. No such luck, the patches refused to hold anything and I pumped up the tube a couple of times to see what the problem was. By this time the 2nd mom for now my 3rd patch had come back, I was still there getting more frustrated. She was very helpful and gave me a whole kit to fix the hole, that at the time I didn’t think I would need having just finished the leak. I thanked her told her were I was from and the other usual stuff people talk about when first meeting and hit the road. After getting about maybe a half a mile my fire was flat yet again. So I took the tire off again the 3rd time and used the kit she gave. I patched it and though I had got a good hold on it except the patch failed to hold around the edges, so I ripped it off and tried again. It didn’t work the 4th time either, but figured if I added another patch I couldn’t go wrong, right? I added a 5th and had just as much luck as the fourth. So had 2 patches on my tire and still have a hole and since the air was holding for a little while I decided to pump it up high and try to limp my way home. I got all of maybe a quarter mile before I needed to pump it again and at this point I just gave up and called a cab since it was past 7 by this time and been about 3pm by the time I started this escapade. My tire is still flat, I might have wrecked my back rim, and I currently don’t like my bike.
The next day I drove downtown and walked all over. Being a member of REI I checked out the original store, which was cool, though not as cool as the LL Bean store in Freeport ME. I also just wandered about just seeing things and that looked interesting. For example I bought this really sweet hat at the best Army/Navy store ever. I had intended to see the Fremont Troll sculpture that was under the Aurora Ave bridge, but I managed to forget on my way back toward Laurel’s house. Oh well something to see next time when I go back.
The following day I headed up to Vancouver BC, for the day. It took longer then I had expected partly because I started later in the day and the customs line took forever getting into Canada. The guard wanted to know about my finances as I didn’t have a job and thought I was just coming to Canada to freeload. I gave him some information, but he was kind of insulting but I finally got into Canada. Vancouver, as a city is pretty cool the buildings reflect both a Europe and American influence that is definitely Canada. I checked out downtown and a museum on the University of British Columbia’s campus and then hit the road again. It is a place I would like to visit again, but didn’t feel I had given myself enough time to adequately explore. I also know half of Vancouver’s mystique is the nature around it and I wasn’t really sure where to start since my guidebook only covered the States.
The drive back was uneventful except for an incident I had at the border. I guess I got in the right most car lane called the “Nexus lane.” The only thing I can figure is its for frequent border crossers because they people an extra ID to cross there. I got ushered into Customs Office, hoping I didn’t have to pay a fee as they sent me in with a form that said “Nexus Violater” on it. At this point I was informed that there had been adequate signage, despite seeing any, that told me I was not supposed to be in that lane. It is certainly possible that I had zoned out, but I didn’t see any signs telling me it was a $5000 fine for going in the right most lane. I started to mention this to the guard, but then realized it was better to hold my tongue and let him say his piece. He got the fine waived and sent me on my way after having talked to his supervisor. I got back to Seattle and chilled out at the house for the rest of the evening.
I got up decently early, but I didn’t get moving until later, so I had headed out at about noon and made some headway toward Oregon. It was a boring drive up until I made the turn off toward Walla Walla, WA. There was a tree and grass fire on the way with the largest individual plume of smoke I have ever seen. It was outside the small hamlet of Wallula and I actually saw a fire truck out fighting the flames, which was neat to see while passing, since stopping to gawk at the flames did not seem like the most intelligent thing to do at the time.
I continued on and got caught in a traffic jam that I figured was for an accident, since the road was pretty small I figured it was for that reason. It slowed down and I got a chance to see why things had slowed down as much as they had. It appears to have been an accident between a truck with a trailer and motorcycle and it would appear the accident was fatale for one rider of the motorcycle.
http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-25/1216588463105730.xml&storylist=orlocal
Walla Walla, WA was a pretty cool town between both Whitman College that is in town and the wine is grown there it is a pretty happening place when compared with other places of a similar size. I had the privilege of running into the annual Sweet Onion Festival and I got to see a few of the sights as well as eat a good onion sausage. Since I was running late I ended up crashing at a fairly decent Oregon state park that I really liked both for its cheapness and its general comfort.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
The Tower to Seattle
So despite the fact I was the only occupant of the campsite, I passed a fairly peaceable night and headed out midmorning toward the Badlands and Mt Rushmore, still the only person at the campsite. I left around mid-morning and made it to the Badlands in short order.
I had intended to just stay there for the day and continue on to Mt Rushmore, but I kind of got stopped in my tracks. I was amazed, the Badlands are beautiful with its jagged towers that stretch to the sky and the really crumbly earth that seems to be in a perpetual state of flux that the roads made though it are threatened for being too permanent in this landscape. I managed to scramble up one of the spires and get a fellow tourist to take my picture. Getting down safely was another matter, as I had to go down backward and far more slowly and far less impulsive. I also did it all in sandals, smart eh?
I then ended up crashing in the Badlands since I didn’t have any other place to crash or anyone else to meet up with. It was an enjoyable night after traversing 12 miles of open dirt road and getting settled. I had made had a pit stop in town prior to heading to the site and had bought food. I was able to find a bison steak, which I ate for dinner in a meal I call “bison and rice.” I met some cool women from Colorado who had just come from the Mt Rushmore-Black Hills area. They had only good things to say about the experience so it made me hugely excited for the next day. They also suggested I check out a place in Wyoming called the “Devils Tower.” I hadn’t planned to stop there, but due to their advice and it not being too far out of my way I headed on over after I saw both Rushmore and the beginning stages of the Crazy Horse statue.
Devils Tower, is called the “Bear Lodge” by most native American tribes of the area. There is a lot of reverence for the rock in tribes in the area, for example both the Creek and the Lakota revere it and it factors into their native religion. There is a voluntary climbing ban in June when the American Indians are celebrating the solstice. People still do climb just not as many as normal. To give you an idea of what it looks like it is a giant rock made up of cylindrical columns all melded together and at least 40 stories high. In terms of just sheer geology it is one of the more amazing things I’ve ever seen, mostly because the jury is still out on how exactly the whole thing formed. The only conclusion that people are in agreement about is that it formed at the base of a volcano and somehow came to the surface. I have never been much of a rock climber, but on finding out there was no other way up the tower other then a belayed climb, I wanted to sign up for a run at it.
Having spent the night and met a number of fellow friendly travelers the prior night, I headed out on the rather long drive to Missoula. I had chewed over not staying at the Tower as it was in Wyoming and not close enough to Montana, but I just wanted to stay, so I did. Unfortunately I spent the rest of the next day wishing I had chosen differently. I ended up being on the road for about 11 hours, most of that driving. I also couldn’t really take my time as I wanted to make sure I had gotten to my Uncle and Aunt’s house before it was too late in the evening.
I arrived far later then I had anticipated and I was greeted by my Uncle, who was eager to catch up about things and tell me the state of affairs since I had seen him last. We figured out together it had been 6 years and both he and my cousins had changed some. For example most of my cousins are a lot different. Anne the youngest is in 6th grade and is at least a foot taller, plays the violin, and gotten far more talkative since I saw her last. They all seem to be doing as well as can be expected and life in Montana was slow for me, but not for them. Every member of the family always seems to be doing something and since they live on a ridge outside of town they are always trying to make sure they limit the amount of trips back to the house they have to take.
I got to see a little of Missoula MT with checking out the Farmer’s Market they have every Saturday in the summer. I also wandered around the downtown as well. Missoula seems to be doing well for itself especially compared with Butte, which I had stopped in while passing though the prior day. There seems to be a lot of people relocating to Missoula because of the scenery and just the general cost of living being a lot cheaper, then say California. I also learned that despite Montana being the 4th largest state in the nation, it has less then 1 million people in it with only 1 congress seat for the whole state.
Having now spent a few days with my cousins, I decided to head back out on the road and head toward Seattle Washington. It was a more leisurely drive as I had decided to take my time a little more then I had going across Montana. I was also helped by the shorter drive I was taking to my new destination. I got in to Seattle around 5:30 and I was going to be meeting Laurel, my friend at about 6pm so I had some time to kill. Having spent most of the day in my car I decided to go wander around on my bike and see the lay of the land more then I had from my car driving in.
Seattle is by far the most organic looking city that I have ever seen. There is trees and growing plants everywhere you look. When I first crossed the bridge going into Seattle I passed under overhangs and bypasses that were coated with creepers and other plants. Biking around I continued to see a theme of green, which did a lot to cement the accuracy of the state slogan in my own mind “The Evergreen State.” The thing I did notice that has never been mentioned to me before was how hilly the town is. I am not trying to suggest that it would rival San Francisco, but is it no even close to flat except right next the water.
I spent today biking around town and seeing a few things. The Space Needle, was the first place I stopped it and is what gives Seattle its distinctive skyline. I was entirely surprised at how short it was. Not to say it was not tall, I just expected it to be larger then it actually was. I might have been more impressed if I had gone up it, but at $18 it seemed like a waste of money. From there I headed over to the iconic shopping place in Seattle called Pike Place Market. It was a really cool shopping center, there with a lot of shops and vendors selling things from fresh fish to designer dresses. Despite being home to the original Starbucks, it did not look like most tourist trap places I’ve been to in the last month. It was a complete random grouping of shops hawking an assortment of items. The place has not really gentrified at least not yet. I am hopefully it might yet avoid the fate of most shopping areas as there are some very seedy sections that keep the place a little more interesting.
From the Market I tried to go a museum by way of a lot of window-shopping and getting lost on the way. I was trying to go to an institution called the Burke museum that is associated with the University of Washington campus. The reason I wanted to go is they supposedly have a great collection of Northwestern Coast Indian artifacts. I will hopefully be looking at it in the morning and I will be able to make more detailed account of it from there. It’s getting late, I just wanted to make sure my fans knew what was going on with me. I hope there is not to many typos in this account. Nite!!
I had intended to just stay there for the day and continue on to Mt Rushmore, but I kind of got stopped in my tracks. I was amazed, the Badlands are beautiful with its jagged towers that stretch to the sky and the really crumbly earth that seems to be in a perpetual state of flux that the roads made though it are threatened for being too permanent in this landscape. I managed to scramble up one of the spires and get a fellow tourist to take my picture. Getting down safely was another matter, as I had to go down backward and far more slowly and far less impulsive. I also did it all in sandals, smart eh?
I then ended up crashing in the Badlands since I didn’t have any other place to crash or anyone else to meet up with. It was an enjoyable night after traversing 12 miles of open dirt road and getting settled. I had made had a pit stop in town prior to heading to the site and had bought food. I was able to find a bison steak, which I ate for dinner in a meal I call “bison and rice.” I met some cool women from Colorado who had just come from the Mt Rushmore-Black Hills area. They had only good things to say about the experience so it made me hugely excited for the next day. They also suggested I check out a place in Wyoming called the “Devils Tower.” I hadn’t planned to stop there, but due to their advice and it not being too far out of my way I headed on over after I saw both Rushmore and the beginning stages of the Crazy Horse statue.
Devils Tower, is called the “Bear Lodge” by most native American tribes of the area. There is a lot of reverence for the rock in tribes in the area, for example both the Creek and the Lakota revere it and it factors into their native religion. There is a voluntary climbing ban in June when the American Indians are celebrating the solstice. People still do climb just not as many as normal. To give you an idea of what it looks like it is a giant rock made up of cylindrical columns all melded together and at least 40 stories high. In terms of just sheer geology it is one of the more amazing things I’ve ever seen, mostly because the jury is still out on how exactly the whole thing formed. The only conclusion that people are in agreement about is that it formed at the base of a volcano and somehow came to the surface. I have never been much of a rock climber, but on finding out there was no other way up the tower other then a belayed climb, I wanted to sign up for a run at it.
Having spent the night and met a number of fellow friendly travelers the prior night, I headed out on the rather long drive to Missoula. I had chewed over not staying at the Tower as it was in Wyoming and not close enough to Montana, but I just wanted to stay, so I did. Unfortunately I spent the rest of the next day wishing I had chosen differently. I ended up being on the road for about 11 hours, most of that driving. I also couldn’t really take my time as I wanted to make sure I had gotten to my Uncle and Aunt’s house before it was too late in the evening.
I arrived far later then I had anticipated and I was greeted by my Uncle, who was eager to catch up about things and tell me the state of affairs since I had seen him last. We figured out together it had been 6 years and both he and my cousins had changed some. For example most of my cousins are a lot different. Anne the youngest is in 6th grade and is at least a foot taller, plays the violin, and gotten far more talkative since I saw her last. They all seem to be doing as well as can be expected and life in Montana was slow for me, but not for them. Every member of the family always seems to be doing something and since they live on a ridge outside of town they are always trying to make sure they limit the amount of trips back to the house they have to take.
I got to see a little of Missoula MT with checking out the Farmer’s Market they have every Saturday in the summer. I also wandered around the downtown as well. Missoula seems to be doing well for itself especially compared with Butte, which I had stopped in while passing though the prior day. There seems to be a lot of people relocating to Missoula because of the scenery and just the general cost of living being a lot cheaper, then say California. I also learned that despite Montana being the 4th largest state in the nation, it has less then 1 million people in it with only 1 congress seat for the whole state.
Having now spent a few days with my cousins, I decided to head back out on the road and head toward Seattle Washington. It was a more leisurely drive as I had decided to take my time a little more then I had going across Montana. I was also helped by the shorter drive I was taking to my new destination. I got in to Seattle around 5:30 and I was going to be meeting Laurel, my friend at about 6pm so I had some time to kill. Having spent most of the day in my car I decided to go wander around on my bike and see the lay of the land more then I had from my car driving in.
Seattle is by far the most organic looking city that I have ever seen. There is trees and growing plants everywhere you look. When I first crossed the bridge going into Seattle I passed under overhangs and bypasses that were coated with creepers and other plants. Biking around I continued to see a theme of green, which did a lot to cement the accuracy of the state slogan in my own mind “The Evergreen State.” The thing I did notice that has never been mentioned to me before was how hilly the town is. I am not trying to suggest that it would rival San Francisco, but is it no even close to flat except right next the water.
I spent today biking around town and seeing a few things. The Space Needle, was the first place I stopped it and is what gives Seattle its distinctive skyline. I was entirely surprised at how short it was. Not to say it was not tall, I just expected it to be larger then it actually was. I might have been more impressed if I had gone up it, but at $18 it seemed like a waste of money. From there I headed over to the iconic shopping place in Seattle called Pike Place Market. It was a really cool shopping center, there with a lot of shops and vendors selling things from fresh fish to designer dresses. Despite being home to the original Starbucks, it did not look like most tourist trap places I’ve been to in the last month. It was a complete random grouping of shops hawking an assortment of items. The place has not really gentrified at least not yet. I am hopefully it might yet avoid the fate of most shopping areas as there are some very seedy sections that keep the place a little more interesting.
From the Market I tried to go a museum by way of a lot of window-shopping and getting lost on the way. I was trying to go to an institution called the Burke museum that is associated with the University of Washington campus. The reason I wanted to go is they supposedly have a great collection of Northwestern Coast Indian artifacts. I will hopefully be looking at it in the morning and I will be able to make more detailed account of it from there. It’s getting late, I just wanted to make sure my fans knew what was going on with me. I hope there is not to many typos in this account. Nite!!
Friday, July 11, 2008
From a Tent Reprise
This is another entry written in a tent on the evening of the 8th and I will post it whenever I get the chance to do so.
I spent yesterday both doing laundry and making sure I left my uncle’s house in a better state then I found it in. That required doing some sweeping and general cleaning of the kitchen. I had left a great deal of dishes, so I wanted to make sure I didn’t leave that for my uncle to either do or find. I also felt like I should try to improve things as a way to show my gratitude for him allowing me to stay in his house unsupervised. Cleaning took a little longer then I had intended, but it was nice to have accomplished something of substance after having been on the road for 4 weeks.
I then once again succumbed to idleness and went out to a movie, to one of the numerous movies I have wanted to see this summer. It was called “Wanted” and though the story was interesting and the characters fairly sympathetically drawn, there was so much blood. What I mean is not blood packets spewing everywhere fairly comically. No the most consistent special effect was showing how someone got their brains blown out and what the end result was. Like I said, the story was intriguing and definitely entertaining at points, but why so much blood and brain splattering?
The rest of my day was spent lounging about and cooking dinner, which went over decently well. After watching way too much Star Trek, I headed over to the MN airport and picked them up. I was able to get there and back without much trouble due to my uncle’s expert directions and I got to catch up some with my Uncle. He had been out at my aunt’s house in OR and it was cool to find out what had transpired while he was out there. I take it my aunt and my other uncle are both doing well which was good to hear. I was sorry to hear that other then my cousin Johanna, who traveled out with my uncle, that none of my other cousins came down. Gone are the days when we can all get hauled along to family gatherings together, though is that a necessary facet of growing up?
I headed out at about noon this morning and so far have had a pretty uneventful day. With all the chuckholes, I’m surprised I haven’t got a flat yet. I suppose I have to wait to be in the exact middle of South Dakota for that happen. ;) I did get to stop by the Corn Palace in Mitchell SD. It is the only corn palace in the whole world, which is something they are fond of telling you while you’re there repeatedly. The most disappointing thing about the whole visit is they are busy prepping the outside building for next year so most of the “palace” is not cover in anything other then last years decorations if anything at all. Plain plywood was showing in various spots and the murals that are usually on the outside of the building from last year were about it. Once they do have it all up though it does look pretty cool (I could tell from pictures) with the multiple colors of corn and the careful arrangement and murals.
Well tonight I’m crashing in a South Dakota state park and appear to be the only resident of the place. As a result it is deathly quiet here, which is magnified from my perspective having just left a city. The lack of people is kind of freaking me out so hopefully I will be unmolested by both man and beast tonight and be able to head out early tomorrow morning. Night!
I spent yesterday both doing laundry and making sure I left my uncle’s house in a better state then I found it in. That required doing some sweeping and general cleaning of the kitchen. I had left a great deal of dishes, so I wanted to make sure I didn’t leave that for my uncle to either do or find. I also felt like I should try to improve things as a way to show my gratitude for him allowing me to stay in his house unsupervised. Cleaning took a little longer then I had intended, but it was nice to have accomplished something of substance after having been on the road for 4 weeks.
I then once again succumbed to idleness and went out to a movie, to one of the numerous movies I have wanted to see this summer. It was called “Wanted” and though the story was interesting and the characters fairly sympathetically drawn, there was so much blood. What I mean is not blood packets spewing everywhere fairly comically. No the most consistent special effect was showing how someone got their brains blown out and what the end result was. Like I said, the story was intriguing and definitely entertaining at points, but why so much blood and brain splattering?
The rest of my day was spent lounging about and cooking dinner, which went over decently well. After watching way too much Star Trek, I headed over to the MN airport and picked them up. I was able to get there and back without much trouble due to my uncle’s expert directions and I got to catch up some with my Uncle. He had been out at my aunt’s house in OR and it was cool to find out what had transpired while he was out there. I take it my aunt and my other uncle are both doing well which was good to hear. I was sorry to hear that other then my cousin Johanna, who traveled out with my uncle, that none of my other cousins came down. Gone are the days when we can all get hauled along to family gatherings together, though is that a necessary facet of growing up?
I headed out at about noon this morning and so far have had a pretty uneventful day. With all the chuckholes, I’m surprised I haven’t got a flat yet. I suppose I have to wait to be in the exact middle of South Dakota for that happen. ;) I did get to stop by the Corn Palace in Mitchell SD. It is the only corn palace in the whole world, which is something they are fond of telling you while you’re there repeatedly. The most disappointing thing about the whole visit is they are busy prepping the outside building for next year so most of the “palace” is not cover in anything other then last years decorations if anything at all. Plain plywood was showing in various spots and the murals that are usually on the outside of the building from last year were about it. Once they do have it all up though it does look pretty cool (I could tell from pictures) with the multiple colors of corn and the careful arrangement and murals.
Well tonight I’m crashing in a South Dakota state park and appear to be the only resident of the place. As a result it is deathly quiet here, which is magnified from my perspective having just left a city. The lack of people is kind of freaking me out so hopefully I will be unmolested by both man and beast tonight and be able to head out early tomorrow morning. Night!
Monday, June 30, 2008
Chicagoland Shenanigans
After leaving the Indianapolis area at about 10am, I took a leisurely pace to get to Chicago. I had called ahead and let Reba Place Fellowship, the people I’m staying with, that I was coming. I got there a little later then I had expected because there was some confusion about whether to go left or right off the entrance ramp and I hadn’t written down any directions, who needs to do that really? ;) I went the wrong so far the wrong direction I ended up in a town by the name of Park Ridge, that is just west of Skokie, for anyone reading this who knows Chicagoland. Getting situated in the right direction I then headed to Evanston, where I was a little later then I had said but it didn’t matter. The house I’m staying at takes a siesta at about the time I arrived so there was no one about. I had called and talked to them and they had assured me that I should just come right in and make myself at home. I did just that, and situated myself in one of the two guest rooms in the basement, where I have been sleeping for the duration of my stay.
The first afternoon here, I spent it just walking around and running into people I had not seen for at least three years. Apparently I was the only summer intern from 2005, that had not maintained some contact with people. It was cool bumping into folks and seeing how they had changed and what was up with them. For example two of the people I had spent that summer with had gotten married to one another. I’ve seen them and they look good together, but that totally took me by surprise as that all developed well after I had left. Lives have a way progressing as time goes on I suppose. It was good to catch up with people, though it surprised me how much at the Clearing, the house that I stayed and are staying, has remained the same. What I mean is the rhythm of life is the same, early morning breakfast 7am, and dinner always at the same time.
That same afternoon of my arrival, after playing catch up, I headed out for a bike ride just around the neighborhood and beyond. The thing that sucked was I had tried to go down to Rogers Park, to see the other Church, Living Water, the Reba community has down there, but I started the wrong way and headed farther into Evanston instead. It was a good time and I really enjoyed the excursion that I had, even if wasn’t the way I had intended to go. Evanston, appears to have gotten a little more affluent looking then it was before, more condos going in where rentals had been before, that kind of thing. I then headed back and managed to bump into Roselyn Wilson out riding her bike as well. She is the woman I had contacted about staying at Reba again and she had set it up with the Clearing for me to stay there.
She was headed to her garden plot, so I invited myself along and followed along, to do some weeding and watering. It was cool just to commiserate about things and where we were at with things in our lives. I can’t say I have any plans, past what I think I might want to do in September, but I still like hearing from someone who had stuck around Reba, like I could have after graduation.
I then grabbed dinner at the Patch, which is the community house of which Roselyn, Jesse and Annie are apart, all of whom I know from my summer here. I bumped into both new and familiar faces and all seem to be doing well. Reba has gotten a lot younger since the summer I spent here. Apparently, the internship has gotten so popular that they have started turning people away and suggesting they apply for other communities. It has been cool to see people my own age around here, and if I ever came back here to live it would feel more like a group of my peers rather then me showing up as the sole junior statesman, which I got some feeling of when I was here during my summer. I spent my evening playing a funky board game with the aforementioned 3 people and it was a good time; I really do enjoy just chilling with people.
I headed down to Chicago the next morning to go see The Art Institute of Chicago. It was a really cool museum and I didn’t know how many really great paintings they had. The one that came as the most surprising to me was American Gothic, it’s so cool. It like Hopper’s Nighthawks, which was also there and it too has been so often parodied it really is part of the American lexicon and pop culture. The really lame thing about that museum was it is mostly under constructions until half way though July, so there was a good portion of the general collection I didn’t get to see, guess I’ll have to come back. ;) I did get to go to a hotdog stand which gave me a stereotypical Chicago hotdog. I have to say the pickles, the onions, and the peppers really do add something; I really like Chicago style.
The next day after that worked out where I didn’t really do anything other then jump on my bike and go north for lunch and play my guitar. I did help a couple I knew from my summer here move their stuff out of their apartment, that morning, but otherwise I just lounged around and it was a good time. The next day being Sunday, I went to church in the morning. I always forget how original a lot of the songs are. Back in the 70s there was a group of musicians here that did a great job writing some great songs. Granted they do the classic evangelical fare here as well, but it is interspersed with some songs that are unique to Reba as far as I’m aware. I then spent the afternoon playing Frisbee in the rain for about 2 hours. It was a great deal of fun I just needed clean dry everything by the time we were done.
That brings me to today, I got up in time for breakfast and managed to get out the house at a decent hour so I got the express “L” train to the loop. I checked out both the Sears tower and the Field Museum in the same day as well as just wondered around the city generally eating too much. The view from the Sears tower was amazing, I swear I thought I could see to the other side of Lake Michigan, since it was such a clear day. I also go to see how completely massive Chicago is by comparison with Boston. It illustrated to me how well planned out Chicago is then Boston, which has been making it really easy to navigate the last few days.
Following some lunch I then headed to the Field Museum, that has a really interesting collection of stuffed stuff. Their collection consists of a lot of taxidermal animals and things that were collected around the turn of the century. For example they have an amazing collection American Indian garb and utensils. The Field has way more then the supposed museum of the American Indian, on the Mall in DC. They have loads of amazing West Coast Indian art works like totem polls and handmade blankets. There is also a reconstructed lodge that illustrates Maori carving, though I know that is not American Indian. My only complaint with the museum is it really does cater more to kids then adults which made me feel kind of out of place. It was a good day though I hope I didn’t get a sunburn from walking around too much.
Chicago is a pretty big place and I have enjoyed my time here. I’m probably going to be here another day before I head out to Minnesota, but I don’t plan to see much more then I have already. I do want to make a note that I think if I do follow my current plan of going to Spain in the fall, I would like to move to Chicago when I head back to the States. It’s just somewhere I’ve always wanted to live, having grown up on parental nostalgia, and it feels way more free then Boston does for some reason. I could see myself spending a few years here, riding the “L” it just feels familiar, but still unknown at the same time.
The first afternoon here, I spent it just walking around and running into people I had not seen for at least three years. Apparently I was the only summer intern from 2005, that had not maintained some contact with people. It was cool bumping into folks and seeing how they had changed and what was up with them. For example two of the people I had spent that summer with had gotten married to one another. I’ve seen them and they look good together, but that totally took me by surprise as that all developed well after I had left. Lives have a way progressing as time goes on I suppose. It was good to catch up with people, though it surprised me how much at the Clearing, the house that I stayed and are staying, has remained the same. What I mean is the rhythm of life is the same, early morning breakfast 7am, and dinner always at the same time.
That same afternoon of my arrival, after playing catch up, I headed out for a bike ride just around the neighborhood and beyond. The thing that sucked was I had tried to go down to Rogers Park, to see the other Church, Living Water, the Reba community has down there, but I started the wrong way and headed farther into Evanston instead. It was a good time and I really enjoyed the excursion that I had, even if wasn’t the way I had intended to go. Evanston, appears to have gotten a little more affluent looking then it was before, more condos going in where rentals had been before, that kind of thing. I then headed back and managed to bump into Roselyn Wilson out riding her bike as well. She is the woman I had contacted about staying at Reba again and she had set it up with the Clearing for me to stay there.
She was headed to her garden plot, so I invited myself along and followed along, to do some weeding and watering. It was cool just to commiserate about things and where we were at with things in our lives. I can’t say I have any plans, past what I think I might want to do in September, but I still like hearing from someone who had stuck around Reba, like I could have after graduation.
I then grabbed dinner at the Patch, which is the community house of which Roselyn, Jesse and Annie are apart, all of whom I know from my summer here. I bumped into both new and familiar faces and all seem to be doing well. Reba has gotten a lot younger since the summer I spent here. Apparently, the internship has gotten so popular that they have started turning people away and suggesting they apply for other communities. It has been cool to see people my own age around here, and if I ever came back here to live it would feel more like a group of my peers rather then me showing up as the sole junior statesman, which I got some feeling of when I was here during my summer. I spent my evening playing a funky board game with the aforementioned 3 people and it was a good time; I really do enjoy just chilling with people.
I headed down to Chicago the next morning to go see The Art Institute of Chicago. It was a really cool museum and I didn’t know how many really great paintings they had. The one that came as the most surprising to me was American Gothic, it’s so cool. It like Hopper’s Nighthawks, which was also there and it too has been so often parodied it really is part of the American lexicon and pop culture. The really lame thing about that museum was it is mostly under constructions until half way though July, so there was a good portion of the general collection I didn’t get to see, guess I’ll have to come back. ;) I did get to go to a hotdog stand which gave me a stereotypical Chicago hotdog. I have to say the pickles, the onions, and the peppers really do add something; I really like Chicago style.
The next day after that worked out where I didn’t really do anything other then jump on my bike and go north for lunch and play my guitar. I did help a couple I knew from my summer here move their stuff out of their apartment, that morning, but otherwise I just lounged around and it was a good time. The next day being Sunday, I went to church in the morning. I always forget how original a lot of the songs are. Back in the 70s there was a group of musicians here that did a great job writing some great songs. Granted they do the classic evangelical fare here as well, but it is interspersed with some songs that are unique to Reba as far as I’m aware. I then spent the afternoon playing Frisbee in the rain for about 2 hours. It was a great deal of fun I just needed clean dry everything by the time we were done.
That brings me to today, I got up in time for breakfast and managed to get out the house at a decent hour so I got the express “L” train to the loop. I checked out both the Sears tower and the Field Museum in the same day as well as just wondered around the city generally eating too much. The view from the Sears tower was amazing, I swear I thought I could see to the other side of Lake Michigan, since it was such a clear day. I also go to see how completely massive Chicago is by comparison with Boston. It illustrated to me how well planned out Chicago is then Boston, which has been making it really easy to navigate the last few days.
Following some lunch I then headed to the Field Museum, that has a really interesting collection of stuffed stuff. Their collection consists of a lot of taxidermal animals and things that were collected around the turn of the century. For example they have an amazing collection American Indian garb and utensils. The Field has way more then the supposed museum of the American Indian, on the Mall in DC. They have loads of amazing West Coast Indian art works like totem polls and handmade blankets. There is also a reconstructed lodge that illustrates Maori carving, though I know that is not American Indian. My only complaint with the museum is it really does cater more to kids then adults which made me feel kind of out of place. It was a good day though I hope I didn’t get a sunburn from walking around too much.
Chicago is a pretty big place and I have enjoyed my time here. I’m probably going to be here another day before I head out to Minnesota, but I don’t plan to see much more then I have already. I do want to make a note that I think if I do follow my current plan of going to Spain in the fall, I would like to move to Chicago when I head back to the States. It’s just somewhere I’ve always wanted to live, having grown up on parental nostalgia, and it feels way more free then Boston does for some reason. I could see myself spending a few years here, riding the “L” it just feels familiar, but still unknown at the same time.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Hashing around Nashville
It’s been a few days since my last entry and I’m not entirely sure why that is. I had access to the Internet in Nashville, though I suppose I was distracted with fellow foreign travelers and all the nightlife. Time flies when you’re having fun. So I guess that means I have something to relate.
I got into Nashville about 4:30 Sunday night and I had figured out that there was a pretty cool hostel in the city, so I wanted to stay there. The problem was that, Google Maps gave me the worst directions to find the place. I also was not overly intelligent and didn’t write down the address. Since I was unsure of the name and didn’t have the address I had to book it to the library to get on Internet before the library closed. I got in with about 10 minutes to spare and got on through WIFI. With address of both the place I was looking for and another hostel outside the city, just in case the first one was full, I got ushered out the door of the pretty marble structure by some librarians.
Sweaty and slightly stress out that I would have crash on my car again, I headed over near the neighborhood I had been in previously and looked for the hostel. I found it in no time with the correct address, that’s a real shocker, eh? It’s called the Music City Hostel, on Patterson St in Nashville and I would recommend it to anyone. It was a really good time and if anyone is stopping though Nashville soon, it’s a great cheap place to crash for the night and Ron the owner is a pretty cool guy.
Though one of my complaints was that when I headed over to place called Swett’s I had heard about in one of my guidebooks, he made me overly nervous of heading to that part of town. I had to cross Charlotte St in Midtown Nashville, which I didn’t know before then is a dividing line “or other side of the tracks.” Swett’s is a soul food place and as a result in the Black section of town. Granted I had not known any of this when I selected the restaurant and had I been aware of it, I think I still would have done it. I headed over there on foot, because I’d spent the rest of the day in the car and needed to stretch my legs. It was good walk, I definitely went by some streets that looked a little weathered, but no one gave me any problems on the way over. I grabbed some dinner at the cafeteria, which had some pretty decent fried chicken and completely awesome sweet-potato pie. After I had plowed through my meal, I was far from short of hunger and thus headed back across town, as the hostel was less then a mile away. Like the trip there it was completely uneventful, with little to report about it. It was a good trip and even though it was more expensive then buying dinner, it was worth it for the whole experience and the sweet potato pie, hmmm.
The rest of the evening was spent hanging about with my hostel mates only one of whom was from the US and she didn’t want to talk to me. We started the night with a long walk to a bluegrass jam session that was only ok. It was a place called the Station Inn and is apparently where I lot of old acts originally played back in the day. We had a few beers and learned about people where doing and where they were traveling. A surprising number were taking Greyhound, which sounded so awful to me. It was a good time and then we headed to “the District,” on Broadway to check out a few other bars. We had a few brews there and listened to this cover band that fronted by a guy who thought he was Elvis, minus the wig.
I spent the rest of the next day sleeping in and going to a rather disappointing museum called the Country Music Hall of Fame. I was glad to learn about the trials and tribulations of the founding people of country, but it wasn’t really that thrilling to see some tacky Cadillac that was once owned by “the King”? I suppose I’m doubting the American brand, but the museum was only interesting in the respect I learned a lot about the history of how country got to be what it is today. Though as much as the memorabilia was not that exciting, the old time country sure was and I did enjoy the history, if not the mementos.
That evening we headed out again, but this time we headed to a club off the beaten strip. A place one of the ladies at the hostel had a friend playing at. We listened to about 8 bands play in about 3 hrs. It was a real good time hanging and listening to music that was only sometimes good. After that we hiked over to the Printer’s Alley, a local hot spot where we pretty ruled the place we ended up. There was literally no one in there when we showed up and we chilled listening to this guy play blue and funk covers. I liked it and if I was in Nashville again, I’d go to both those venues again.
The next morning I lounged about not wanting to hit the road, but eventually got my butt out the door. I didn’t really drive far, reflecting that reluctance to leave, and ended up at Mammoth Caves National Park. I spent last night there and took the “Grand Tour” of the place this morning, which is 4 miles underground and kind of 4hr ordeal. We went pretty slow and made a lot of frequent stops that I didn’t really need, but with 80 people things usually go slowly. Despite my complaints I really liked the place, it has the largest cave system in the world with sections of the caves only being recently discovered. It was a really neat place carved out of the limestone rock by the Echo river. It was a great trip and even though it was pretty pricey I really did enjoy it.
From there I hit the road and made some progress toward Chicago finally stopping for the night at a little hamlet outside Indianapolis called Lebanon at a cheap hotel. I have mixed feelings about getting hotel, it seems to break the whole spirit of the trip which is to experience some of the tourist sights, but also to meet people along the way. I suppose I could have looked up another couch surf for this area or looked up some people. I just spaced prior to leaving Nashville. I need to plan more ahead; I hope I can keep at that. I’m going to have time to some scheduling with all the time I have scheduled for Chicago and Minneapolis provided I’m not too much of a burden of as a houseguest.
I got into Nashville about 4:30 Sunday night and I had figured out that there was a pretty cool hostel in the city, so I wanted to stay there. The problem was that, Google Maps gave me the worst directions to find the place. I also was not overly intelligent and didn’t write down the address. Since I was unsure of the name and didn’t have the address I had to book it to the library to get on Internet before the library closed. I got in with about 10 minutes to spare and got on through WIFI. With address of both the place I was looking for and another hostel outside the city, just in case the first one was full, I got ushered out the door of the pretty marble structure by some librarians.
Sweaty and slightly stress out that I would have crash on my car again, I headed over near the neighborhood I had been in previously and looked for the hostel. I found it in no time with the correct address, that’s a real shocker, eh? It’s called the Music City Hostel, on Patterson St in Nashville and I would recommend it to anyone. It was a really good time and if anyone is stopping though Nashville soon, it’s a great cheap place to crash for the night and Ron the owner is a pretty cool guy.
Though one of my complaints was that when I headed over to place called Swett’s I had heard about in one of my guidebooks, he made me overly nervous of heading to that part of town. I had to cross Charlotte St in Midtown Nashville, which I didn’t know before then is a dividing line “or other side of the tracks.” Swett’s is a soul food place and as a result in the Black section of town. Granted I had not known any of this when I selected the restaurant and had I been aware of it, I think I still would have done it. I headed over there on foot, because I’d spent the rest of the day in the car and needed to stretch my legs. It was good walk, I definitely went by some streets that looked a little weathered, but no one gave me any problems on the way over. I grabbed some dinner at the cafeteria, which had some pretty decent fried chicken and completely awesome sweet-potato pie. After I had plowed through my meal, I was far from short of hunger and thus headed back across town, as the hostel was less then a mile away. Like the trip there it was completely uneventful, with little to report about it. It was a good trip and even though it was more expensive then buying dinner, it was worth it for the whole experience and the sweet potato pie, hmmm.
The rest of the evening was spent hanging about with my hostel mates only one of whom was from the US and she didn’t want to talk to me. We started the night with a long walk to a bluegrass jam session that was only ok. It was a place called the Station Inn and is apparently where I lot of old acts originally played back in the day. We had a few beers and learned about people where doing and where they were traveling. A surprising number were taking Greyhound, which sounded so awful to me. It was a good time and then we headed to “the District,” on Broadway to check out a few other bars. We had a few brews there and listened to this cover band that fronted by a guy who thought he was Elvis, minus the wig.
I spent the rest of the next day sleeping in and going to a rather disappointing museum called the Country Music Hall of Fame. I was glad to learn about the trials and tribulations of the founding people of country, but it wasn’t really that thrilling to see some tacky Cadillac that was once owned by “the King”? I suppose I’m doubting the American brand, but the museum was only interesting in the respect I learned a lot about the history of how country got to be what it is today. Though as much as the memorabilia was not that exciting, the old time country sure was and I did enjoy the history, if not the mementos.
That evening we headed out again, but this time we headed to a club off the beaten strip. A place one of the ladies at the hostel had a friend playing at. We listened to about 8 bands play in about 3 hrs. It was a real good time hanging and listening to music that was only sometimes good. After that we hiked over to the Printer’s Alley, a local hot spot where we pretty ruled the place we ended up. There was literally no one in there when we showed up and we chilled listening to this guy play blue and funk covers. I liked it and if I was in Nashville again, I’d go to both those venues again.
The next morning I lounged about not wanting to hit the road, but eventually got my butt out the door. I didn’t really drive far, reflecting that reluctance to leave, and ended up at Mammoth Caves National Park. I spent last night there and took the “Grand Tour” of the place this morning, which is 4 miles underground and kind of 4hr ordeal. We went pretty slow and made a lot of frequent stops that I didn’t really need, but with 80 people things usually go slowly. Despite my complaints I really liked the place, it has the largest cave system in the world with sections of the caves only being recently discovered. It was a really neat place carved out of the limestone rock by the Echo river. It was a great trip and even though it was pretty pricey I really did enjoy it.
From there I hit the road and made some progress toward Chicago finally stopping for the night at a little hamlet outside Indianapolis called Lebanon at a cheap hotel. I have mixed feelings about getting hotel, it seems to break the whole spirit of the trip which is to experience some of the tourist sights, but also to meet people along the way. I suppose I could have looked up another couch surf for this area or looked up some people. I just spaced prior to leaving Nashville. I need to plan more ahead; I hope I can keep at that. I’m going to have time to some scheduling with all the time I have scheduled for Chicago and Minneapolis provided I’m not too much of a burden of as a houseguest.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
From a Tent in GA
Written on the night of 6.21.2008 to be posted, whenever I get an Internet connection.
I’m sitting in a tent with electricity at the moment typing this entry that is probably well overdue to assuage fears of my passing.
I finished up in Charleston with Kate the nice lady I met though couchsurfering.com. She was real cool and I enjoyed talking with her about all the things she was up to. Despite being allergic to her very nice dogs, I had a good visit. She lives on James Island along the beach just outside Charleston center, and it took all of 2 minutes to walk to the seashore. It was beautiful weather, though a tad hot during the day. On the last night I was there, we headed down to the beach to see if we could see the full moon rise over the water, which unfortunately was obscured by clouds.
I headed down to Savannah mid-morning by way of an old plantation tour because it was only about a three-hour drive down the coast to Savannah from Charleston, so I figured it’d be easy to get to. The plantation called Drayton was lackluster since they had been keeping it in the same maintenance level they’d received it from the family in back in the 1970s.
After leaving the disappointment plantation and finding my way to Savannah it was a trick to find the Georgia state park called Skidaway I was staying at. At $25 a night it was a little pricey for one person, but would have been cheaper per person, had I been a group. It was very small state park, mostly consisting of a campground predominately for RVs. After finding out they had both a power hook and a hook up for cable, I really wish I had a caravan trailer.
Though I wasn’t given much time to think about the lack of my motorized monstrosity because as soon as I pitched my tent, then it started to downpour and I mean monsoon style. Wind was blowing like crazy this rather large branch fell and hit my, bummer, as I was sitting in my car marveling at all the “big fat rain,” as Forrest Gump might have put it. It finally stopped, after about and hour, and I got out to see how wet my tent was, it was pretty soaked, mostly due to my poor staking job and I had to spend some time drying it out. I also took the time to move my campsite to another one as the one I was at had turned into a gutter for all the rainwater. I learned later that the storm had been pretty bad knocking out power all around Savannah and pulling whole trees down.
Unfortunately this was not where my evening ended, I was just beginning to bed down and had gone to do the necessities when I noticed a tick had latched onto me. I HATE PARASITES. I don’t really mind most things and understand that the heavenly father has place for them in his creation, but he could have skipped those in my opinion. To get rid of the tick I ended up using the old fashion method, which is striking a match blowing it out and holding it to the critter. It hurt, but I killed it and got it off me. I only learned the following day that it probably wasn’t the best way to go about it covering it in Vaseline to suffocate it works better. This would have also lowered my chances of catching anything from this nasty bloodsucker, oh well I know now!! I was also thankful to learn later that Lime disease, is not as prevalent in the South as it is in the East and the type of tick that bit me usually doesn’t carry it, which was somewhat of a relief, though I’m watching my bit spot carefully. As much as that day was from hell, the next day went a lot smother.
I got to go around historic Savannah, both by foot and by tour bus. I see why people make such a big deal of the place, the historic district is amazing with the really old trees and houses. There is a street called Jones, which is according to Southern living magazine the most beautiful street in America. I wouldn’t give it my total endorsement, but it was one of the most amazingly stereotypically pretty southern place I’ve ever seen. I would also say that the buildings are amazingly restored and the 21 squares they have are well maintained, but what really makes the whole place is the trees. They have what they call oaks, that just sprawl above the streets and parks that give the whole place this really organic feel. It would be really cool to visit again, though I could not see myself living there. The thing I found most surprising is the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is all throughout the city and done a lot of restoration work in the historic district. I couldn’t really get a sense of their campus as the buildings seemed to be so spread out. I can see why the tour guide was saying that they are very much the life blood of the city.
Today has been spent breaking camp and heading to Atlanta, which truthfully was not that hard but both activities took far longer then I thought they would have. I was intending to leave by 8am by the latest and didn’t really head out until 9:15 as I spent a lot of time organizing my car and finding a specific place for everything. After living in it for the last week and a half it had gotten kind of messy and in need of a thorough once over organization. Getting to Atlanta also took longer then I thought and I stayed for a while to grab lunch with Olivia McGuire, an old college chum and fellow Cornerstone, who was from and living in the area. We didn’t really spend any time catching the sites or anything, just catching up which I was really glad we took the time to do. She just graduated from college and did have a job lined up but it fell through, so is busy trying to find something to do with herself. I can relate, I’ve been out two years and I still don’t have a definite plan.
I left Atlanta about 5:15 in the afternoon and headed north toward Tennessee. I was hoping to stay in a hostel in Nashville, but it being Saturday it was all booked up so there was no reason to go that far tonight, plus I wanted to see if there was much Chattanooga along the way. So as result I decided to stay in Georgia a little longer at an other state park, that once again caters mostly to RVs. There is no cable hook ups, but other then that the set up is very similar to the place I stayed in near Savannah, except I’m sleeping on gravel and I bought a power.… so we’ll see how that goes.
Good night y’all.
I’m sitting in a tent with electricity at the moment typing this entry that is probably well overdue to assuage fears of my passing.
I finished up in Charleston with Kate the nice lady I met though couchsurfering.com. She was real cool and I enjoyed talking with her about all the things she was up to. Despite being allergic to her very nice dogs, I had a good visit. She lives on James Island along the beach just outside Charleston center, and it took all of 2 minutes to walk to the seashore. It was beautiful weather, though a tad hot during the day. On the last night I was there, we headed down to the beach to see if we could see the full moon rise over the water, which unfortunately was obscured by clouds.
I headed down to Savannah mid-morning by way of an old plantation tour because it was only about a three-hour drive down the coast to Savannah from Charleston, so I figured it’d be easy to get to. The plantation called Drayton was lackluster since they had been keeping it in the same maintenance level they’d received it from the family in back in the 1970s.
After leaving the disappointment plantation and finding my way to Savannah it was a trick to find the Georgia state park called Skidaway I was staying at. At $25 a night it was a little pricey for one person, but would have been cheaper per person, had I been a group. It was very small state park, mostly consisting of a campground predominately for RVs. After finding out they had both a power hook and a hook up for cable, I really wish I had a caravan trailer.
Though I wasn’t given much time to think about the lack of my motorized monstrosity because as soon as I pitched my tent, then it started to downpour and I mean monsoon style. Wind was blowing like crazy this rather large branch fell and hit my, bummer, as I was sitting in my car marveling at all the “big fat rain,” as Forrest Gump might have put it. It finally stopped, after about and hour, and I got out to see how wet my tent was, it was pretty soaked, mostly due to my poor staking job and I had to spend some time drying it out. I also took the time to move my campsite to another one as the one I was at had turned into a gutter for all the rainwater. I learned later that the storm had been pretty bad knocking out power all around Savannah and pulling whole trees down.
Unfortunately this was not where my evening ended, I was just beginning to bed down and had gone to do the necessities when I noticed a tick had latched onto me. I HATE PARASITES. I don’t really mind most things and understand that the heavenly father has place for them in his creation, but he could have skipped those in my opinion. To get rid of the tick I ended up using the old fashion method, which is striking a match blowing it out and holding it to the critter. It hurt, but I killed it and got it off me. I only learned the following day that it probably wasn’t the best way to go about it covering it in Vaseline to suffocate it works better. This would have also lowered my chances of catching anything from this nasty bloodsucker, oh well I know now!! I was also thankful to learn later that Lime disease, is not as prevalent in the South as it is in the East and the type of tick that bit me usually doesn’t carry it, which was somewhat of a relief, though I’m watching my bit spot carefully. As much as that day was from hell, the next day went a lot smother.
I got to go around historic Savannah, both by foot and by tour bus. I see why people make such a big deal of the place, the historic district is amazing with the really old trees and houses. There is a street called Jones, which is according to Southern living magazine the most beautiful street in America. I wouldn’t give it my total endorsement, but it was one of the most amazingly stereotypically pretty southern place I’ve ever seen. I would also say that the buildings are amazingly restored and the 21 squares they have are well maintained, but what really makes the whole place is the trees. They have what they call oaks, that just sprawl above the streets and parks that give the whole place this really organic feel. It would be really cool to visit again, though I could not see myself living there. The thing I found most surprising is the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is all throughout the city and done a lot of restoration work in the historic district. I couldn’t really get a sense of their campus as the buildings seemed to be so spread out. I can see why the tour guide was saying that they are very much the life blood of the city.
Today has been spent breaking camp and heading to Atlanta, which truthfully was not that hard but both activities took far longer then I thought they would have. I was intending to leave by 8am by the latest and didn’t really head out until 9:15 as I spent a lot of time organizing my car and finding a specific place for everything. After living in it for the last week and a half it had gotten kind of messy and in need of a thorough once over organization. Getting to Atlanta also took longer then I thought and I stayed for a while to grab lunch with Olivia McGuire, an old college chum and fellow Cornerstone, who was from and living in the area. We didn’t really spend any time catching the sites or anything, just catching up which I was really glad we took the time to do. She just graduated from college and did have a job lined up but it fell through, so is busy trying to find something to do with herself. I can relate, I’ve been out two years and I still don’t have a definite plan.
I left Atlanta about 5:15 in the afternoon and headed north toward Tennessee. I was hoping to stay in a hostel in Nashville, but it being Saturday it was all booked up so there was no reason to go that far tonight, plus I wanted to see if there was much Chattanooga along the way. So as result I decided to stay in Georgia a little longer at an other state park, that once again caters mostly to RVs. There is no cable hook ups, but other then that the set up is very similar to the place I stayed in near Savannah, except I’m sleeping on gravel and I bought a power.… so we’ll see how that goes.
Good night y’all.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Washed up DC and Now headed to Charleston.
After having written up that last entry I headed out the door and hit just a few other places before I headed out of Washington DC. I went to the Library of Congress, Supreme Court, and the WWII memorial that opened fairly recently.
I have to say that the most visibly spectacular was the Library of Congress that has within the last few years been refurbished and cleaned. It was really amazing since it definitely looked like the renaissance style they were trying to replicate; just with 20th century overtones. Minerva, or Athena to those who might not know her other name, was all over the building, but there was one painting of her leading up to a balcony to the main reading room that looked like an early Art Deco piece, it was done too early for Art Deco around 1905, possibly a precursor? We didn’t get to go in the main reading room that is so iconic, since that would be disrupting the researchers who were reading at the tables. Apparently you have to be doing some project to get into that room and even then you can’t take pictures. This explanation made me want to lie so I could get into the reading room and just look up at the really awesome dome. I guess that some of the scenes that looked like the Library of Congress that were in National Treasure: Book of Secrets actually was the Library, so it was cool to have seen parts of it before. I really enjoyed looking at the whole structure and it was by far the most colorful and most ornate building in the Mall that I saw on this trip.
I then headed over to the Supreme Court, which is right next door and both directly behind the capital building. It wasn’t that remarkable of a building really by comparison with the Library. There is a lot of marble everywhere with busts of past chief justices all along the hall leading to the courtroom where the nine justices preside. They didn’t let people into the chamber except to listen to a lecture about the court, so I went downstairs to the Supreme Court Café to wait for the next lecture to start. The service was slow and food about as good, so it took a while to get my BLT. As a result I had to inhale to get back in time to hear the lecture. The older guy who gave the lecture had given it a few times, so he knew where to put the jokes thus making it a really good talk. There wasn’t any pictures allowed in the actual chamber itself, which was really lame and didn’t seem at all warranted as there was nothing that would fade or get hurt by flashbulbs. It was a beautiful room, but far more austere then the Library. There was a pantheon of lawgivers, high above our heads on the wall. They included the likes of Moses, Hammurabi, and King John who signed the Magna Carta and many others I can’t name. There was also a lot of curtains everywhere broken up by these Egyptian screens; pomp and circumstance seemed to rule there even as it is a place of change. The lecturer did go over the fact the chief justices are responsible for looking at over the 10,000 petitions the court gets every year. They only take about 100 of those to trial every year and a lot to winnow down so despite only being in session 3 days a week, they’re prepping the rest of the time.
I then biked down to the WWII memorial by way of the Washington monument and checked out the capital’s most recent addition to its line up. The whole thing is fairly large with a large fountain in the middle and there are columns marking all the states and territories that participated. I made sure to take pictures of the rectangular obelisks of the states my family is both from and currently residing. It’s really hard to me to fathom, that at my age, my Grandfathers where out fighting a war against an enemy they weren’t sure they could defeat. Now with 20/20 hindsight, it seem like Hitler and the Japanese were destined to fall but I doubt it felt like that in November of 1941. War is a huge price to pay for any generation, I’m glad my grandparents did what was necessary when they were called. I hope that my generation could do the same, though since times are so different it’s hard to say.
I then headed out of DC to Arlington and though Virginia. Everything was going well until I crossed the North Carolina border. From there I got caught in a traffic jam that lasted for about an hour, where the traffic literally did not move. Apparently two women were killed after they were thrown from the vehicle http://www.wral.com/news/news_briefs/story/3057454/ though I saw little evidence of that by the time I got to the site, other than two ambulances racing to the scene. It was actually a cool time and I got to talk to some friends on the phone and commiserate, most I hadn’t talked to in a while as I waited for traffic to clear.
From there I drove a little longer and stopped at the basic side of the road place (hotels and the usual bad restaurants) where I stopped at a Subway for some dinner. I had heard from a guy at the house I stayed at in Philly that you are allowed to stay in parking lots of most Wal-Mart’s for free. So since this particular stop on the highway had one, I headed over to eat my dinner. Well there minding my own business eating my dinner with the windows down, because was the weather was nice for once, but who should come up immediately but the security guard, who patrols the parking lot. I had some misgivings about staying in the parking lot, but this guy brushed them aside by spontaneously saying:
“You can stop here for a few hours tonight if you’d like, though I’d suggest you head over along that median toward the back of the lot where it’s quieter. I just saw you’re license plate was out of state so I figured you might be here for that. It’s real safe around here, no gangs, still a real small town.”
I didn’t really say anything throughout this whole interchange and let him head right back to cruising the lot. I ended up spending as comfortable a night in my car as can be expected. The weather agreed with me and rained, thus cooling things down. I shopped at the Wal-Mart to get a portable fan, which made things vastly better (this only confirms why Wal-Mart has this policy of letting people stay in their lots people buy stuff). If I sleep in my car again I think I’ll try another arrangement, as my legs were really cramped by early the next morning.
I grabbed a quick breakfast and then headed out decently early, before 8am. It took me a lot longer to get to Charleston then I had thought, but finding my hostess Kate was easier then anticipated as she gave very good directions. I have gotten to know Kate this evening and afternoon. I’ve learned a good deal about her and she’s a really quiet interesting and an especially good at being hostess, she served me a dinner and given me clean sheets, two things I had not expected her to provide.
I have to say that the most visibly spectacular was the Library of Congress that has within the last few years been refurbished and cleaned. It was really amazing since it definitely looked like the renaissance style they were trying to replicate; just with 20th century overtones. Minerva, or Athena to those who might not know her other name, was all over the building, but there was one painting of her leading up to a balcony to the main reading room that looked like an early Art Deco piece, it was done too early for Art Deco around 1905, possibly a precursor? We didn’t get to go in the main reading room that is so iconic, since that would be disrupting the researchers who were reading at the tables. Apparently you have to be doing some project to get into that room and even then you can’t take pictures. This explanation made me want to lie so I could get into the reading room and just look up at the really awesome dome. I guess that some of the scenes that looked like the Library of Congress that were in National Treasure: Book of Secrets actually was the Library, so it was cool to have seen parts of it before. I really enjoyed looking at the whole structure and it was by far the most colorful and most ornate building in the Mall that I saw on this trip.
I then headed over to the Supreme Court, which is right next door and both directly behind the capital building. It wasn’t that remarkable of a building really by comparison with the Library. There is a lot of marble everywhere with busts of past chief justices all along the hall leading to the courtroom where the nine justices preside. They didn’t let people into the chamber except to listen to a lecture about the court, so I went downstairs to the Supreme Court Café to wait for the next lecture to start. The service was slow and food about as good, so it took a while to get my BLT. As a result I had to inhale to get back in time to hear the lecture. The older guy who gave the lecture had given it a few times, so he knew where to put the jokes thus making it a really good talk. There wasn’t any pictures allowed in the actual chamber itself, which was really lame and didn’t seem at all warranted as there was nothing that would fade or get hurt by flashbulbs. It was a beautiful room, but far more austere then the Library. There was a pantheon of lawgivers, high above our heads on the wall. They included the likes of Moses, Hammurabi, and King John who signed the Magna Carta and many others I can’t name. There was also a lot of curtains everywhere broken up by these Egyptian screens; pomp and circumstance seemed to rule there even as it is a place of change. The lecturer did go over the fact the chief justices are responsible for looking at over the 10,000 petitions the court gets every year. They only take about 100 of those to trial every year and a lot to winnow down so despite only being in session 3 days a week, they’re prepping the rest of the time.
I then biked down to the WWII memorial by way of the Washington monument and checked out the capital’s most recent addition to its line up. The whole thing is fairly large with a large fountain in the middle and there are columns marking all the states and territories that participated. I made sure to take pictures of the rectangular obelisks of the states my family is both from and currently residing. It’s really hard to me to fathom, that at my age, my Grandfathers where out fighting a war against an enemy they weren’t sure they could defeat. Now with 20/20 hindsight, it seem like Hitler and the Japanese were destined to fall but I doubt it felt like that in November of 1941. War is a huge price to pay for any generation, I’m glad my grandparents did what was necessary when they were called. I hope that my generation could do the same, though since times are so different it’s hard to say.
I then headed out of DC to Arlington and though Virginia. Everything was going well until I crossed the North Carolina border. From there I got caught in a traffic jam that lasted for about an hour, where the traffic literally did not move. Apparently two women were killed after they were thrown from the vehicle http://www.wral.com/news/news_briefs/story/3057454/ though I saw little evidence of that by the time I got to the site, other than two ambulances racing to the scene. It was actually a cool time and I got to talk to some friends on the phone and commiserate, most I hadn’t talked to in a while as I waited for traffic to clear.
From there I drove a little longer and stopped at the basic side of the road place (hotels and the usual bad restaurants) where I stopped at a Subway for some dinner. I had heard from a guy at the house I stayed at in Philly that you are allowed to stay in parking lots of most Wal-Mart’s for free. So since this particular stop on the highway had one, I headed over to eat my dinner. Well there minding my own business eating my dinner with the windows down, because was the weather was nice for once, but who should come up immediately but the security guard, who patrols the parking lot. I had some misgivings about staying in the parking lot, but this guy brushed them aside by spontaneously saying:
“You can stop here for a few hours tonight if you’d like, though I’d suggest you head over along that median toward the back of the lot where it’s quieter. I just saw you’re license plate was out of state so I figured you might be here for that. It’s real safe around here, no gangs, still a real small town.”
I didn’t really say anything throughout this whole interchange and let him head right back to cruising the lot. I ended up spending as comfortable a night in my car as can be expected. The weather agreed with me and rained, thus cooling things down. I shopped at the Wal-Mart to get a portable fan, which made things vastly better (this only confirms why Wal-Mart has this policy of letting people stay in their lots people buy stuff). If I sleep in my car again I think I’ll try another arrangement, as my legs were really cramped by early the next morning.
I grabbed a quick breakfast and then headed out decently early, before 8am. It took me a lot longer to get to Charleston then I had thought, but finding my hostess Kate was easier then anticipated as she gave very good directions. I have gotten to know Kate this evening and afternoon. I’ve learned a good deal about her and she’s a really quiet interesting and an especially good at being hostess, she served me a dinner and given me clean sheets, two things I had not expected her to provide.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Wrapping up Washington DC
I arrived in Washington DC yesterday, by way of a lunch stop in suburbia Baltimore. It made for a fairly leisurely day in terms of driving, so I took my time both leaving Philly and getting to my destination, thus the long lunch stop.
I had stopped in that particular spot to have some crabmeat, since I guess the Chesapeake Bay is quite well known for that kind of thing. I have made a resolution to try to stop in local places all over the country to try to sample some of the local cuisine of the area. To be honest, it’s just an excuse to eat some really awesome barbeque in totally random places and eat as little McD’s as possible. As a way to illustrate how serious I am about it, I bought two guides for the trip and one of them was about food.
I didn’t see much of DC, yesterday as I got in about 5pm and most attractions were closed by that time. I spent most of the day trying to connect with my two cousins who live in the city. I have one from either side of my family, Tia from my mom’s and Peter from my dad’s.
I have actually ended up crashing at Tia’s place since she has multiple couches she can offer me. It’s been really cool staying here, the first night she cooked dinner for me, entirely unsolicited, which was really nice of her. I unfortunately have not seen much of my hostess as she has been doing really long sessions of meditative yoga, that start really early in the morning; 5am is when she’s been there the last few days. I have been able to see her in the evening and afternoons, so we have had a pretty good visit. She’s really cool and it’s always great to chill and talk about stuff.
Even with all the time I have just spent doing nothing at Tia’s house, and enjoying every minute, I did manage to get down to the Mall and see a few things. I got to see a couple sections of the Smithsonian, like National Gallery of Art, National Museum of the American Indian, and a small snippet of the Air and Space Museum. I am hoping I can spend some time down there tomorrow and see stuff that I might not have gotten to today.
I managed to get down to the National Gallery of Art which apparently has the only da Vinci painting I the US; something more remarkable in the abstract then in actuality. The painting is done by the great master I just didn’t find it to be his most remarkable work. I would just add that I see da Vinci’s more impressive work still being in the Old World. The rest of the gallery was interesting and I was struck by a bunch of the works there, just not by the ones that are the most hyped.
I then headed over to the National Museum of the American Indian because it was just opened in 2003, as an extension of the Smithsonian collection. Even though there was some really cool exhibits, I was generally disappointed because there was definitely a huge Plains Indian emphasis with a lot of the garments being from those people. Not to say there is not a lot from all over the Americas, there was, it just seemed like there was more time devoted to the Plains then, any other. I suppose it’s a new museum and they will have time to add things as they come in.
From there I was pressed for time so I spent about 10 minutes in the Air and Space Museum, which was definitely pretty cool. They had moved the Wright brother’s plane out of the main foyer, rehabbed it and added a whole exhibit about the brothers. I also saw Spaceship One, the ship that took the X Prize money for being the first privately funded ship to make it to the stratosphere and do it twice in a given period of time. The ship looked somewhat beat up, it was just neat to see something that had gone that far into the sky and hints at possible frequent space travel during my lifetime. The other new addition was from the basket or cabin that was the first balloon to go around the earth non-stop.
After wandering around I headed back toward Tia’s to meet my other cousin Peter for dinner. I hadn’t seen him in at least a couple of years and it was cool to hear what he’s been up to. He was headed overseas to France to get his MBA, at a school that is very well known for its international business emphasis. It sounded he was pretty serious about going to France for a few years, which is in keeping with what I was thinking I was doing with myself with me going to Spain. I hadn’t really ever taken the time to grab a beer with Peter before, it was a good time and something I wouldn’t mind repeating. If I can find a job over in Spain, I told him to look me up and he can come crash on my couch.
I’m sure there is something I have left out this entry, but truthfully this entry has been long enough, I don’t really need to say anything else at this juncture.
I had stopped in that particular spot to have some crabmeat, since I guess the Chesapeake Bay is quite well known for that kind of thing. I have made a resolution to try to stop in local places all over the country to try to sample some of the local cuisine of the area. To be honest, it’s just an excuse to eat some really awesome barbeque in totally random places and eat as little McD’s as possible. As a way to illustrate how serious I am about it, I bought two guides for the trip and one of them was about food.
I didn’t see much of DC, yesterday as I got in about 5pm and most attractions were closed by that time. I spent most of the day trying to connect with my two cousins who live in the city. I have one from either side of my family, Tia from my mom’s and Peter from my dad’s.
I have actually ended up crashing at Tia’s place since she has multiple couches she can offer me. It’s been really cool staying here, the first night she cooked dinner for me, entirely unsolicited, which was really nice of her. I unfortunately have not seen much of my hostess as she has been doing really long sessions of meditative yoga, that start really early in the morning; 5am is when she’s been there the last few days. I have been able to see her in the evening and afternoons, so we have had a pretty good visit. She’s really cool and it’s always great to chill and talk about stuff.
Even with all the time I have just spent doing nothing at Tia’s house, and enjoying every minute, I did manage to get down to the Mall and see a few things. I got to see a couple sections of the Smithsonian, like National Gallery of Art, National Museum of the American Indian, and a small snippet of the Air and Space Museum. I am hoping I can spend some time down there tomorrow and see stuff that I might not have gotten to today.
I managed to get down to the National Gallery of Art which apparently has the only da Vinci painting I the US; something more remarkable in the abstract then in actuality. The painting is done by the great master I just didn’t find it to be his most remarkable work. I would just add that I see da Vinci’s more impressive work still being in the Old World. The rest of the gallery was interesting and I was struck by a bunch of the works there, just not by the ones that are the most hyped.
I then headed over to the National Museum of the American Indian because it was just opened in 2003, as an extension of the Smithsonian collection. Even though there was some really cool exhibits, I was generally disappointed because there was definitely a huge Plains Indian emphasis with a lot of the garments being from those people. Not to say there is not a lot from all over the Americas, there was, it just seemed like there was more time devoted to the Plains then, any other. I suppose it’s a new museum and they will have time to add things as they come in.
From there I was pressed for time so I spent about 10 minutes in the Air and Space Museum, which was definitely pretty cool. They had moved the Wright brother’s plane out of the main foyer, rehabbed it and added a whole exhibit about the brothers. I also saw Spaceship One, the ship that took the X Prize money for being the first privately funded ship to make it to the stratosphere and do it twice in a given period of time. The ship looked somewhat beat up, it was just neat to see something that had gone that far into the sky and hints at possible frequent space travel during my lifetime. The other new addition was from the basket or cabin that was the first balloon to go around the earth non-stop.
After wandering around I headed back toward Tia’s to meet my other cousin Peter for dinner. I hadn’t seen him in at least a couple of years and it was cool to hear what he’s been up to. He was headed overseas to France to get his MBA, at a school that is very well known for its international business emphasis. It sounded he was pretty serious about going to France for a few years, which is in keeping with what I was thinking I was doing with myself with me going to Spain. I hadn’t really ever taken the time to grab a beer with Peter before, it was a good time and something I wouldn’t mind repeating. If I can find a job over in Spain, I told him to look me up and he can come crash on my couch.
I’m sure there is something I have left out this entry, but truthfully this entry has been long enough, I don’t really need to say anything else at this juncture.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Last Two days in Philly
I got into Philly and ended up crashing with a bunch of folks from the couch surfing website. It was kind of random and the first time I'd done it before. I got shown around the house by a girl I haven't seen much, since she works the night shift at a bar, it hasn't been that much of a problem since there are 6 people and a dog in the house I'm staying at. The rest of the house is pretty cool and I spent my first evening sitting around drinking a really good big bottle of Yuengling. For those who might be reading this, Yuengling is America's oldest brewery and makes some really good beer that you can't get in MA for some reason.
I then wandered around the city on my bike for most of the following day taking in a few of the sights. I saw Independence Hall from the outside because I'd been it already and didn't really want to see a bunch of empty tables. I checked out the outside of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which was neat unto itself, it's painted neoclassical, and the Rocky Statue outside it. I also went all around Philly just checking out city hall and random cool buildings and seeing the scenery. The thing that is really cool about Philly is that it's a planned city and has numbered streets going from North to South which makes it easier to navigate, then say Boston.
I also checked out one of the historic Quaker meeting houses that is around the city. I met an older retired fellow and learned a good deal about Quaker history, on a one to one basis due to the high volume of foot traffic. It would appear that even as early as the 19th century there was discussions in the Quaker commune about the divinity of Jesus and the validity of the trinity. From what this older guy told me the Quakers split up about it some time ago. The church I was in had taken a more universal approached and it sounded like was not exactly overflowing with members. It was a cool learning opportunity, since I thought the Quakers were awe inspiring in their time. It got me thinking about large religious movements in the past, do we really need to form a new church just to have a profoundly positive affect on society and for God? I couldn't really come up with an air tight answer to that question. I just would like to believe that god can move without humanity not wanting to put a new label on it.
I spent today, both getting lost in random places in Philly and going to the Art Museum, which was really cool. They have some of the best collections of rooms from other places of any museum I've been to. What I mean is overly ornate rooms from medieval times and a lot of parlors from the 18th and 19th centuries. They also had a temple from Southern India and
a formal room from a lower dignitary in China; which were truthfully the highlights. I'm just hoping that my pictures came out. I did feel sorry about all the places the museum got this stuff from as I'm sure many native people might want it back in the fullness of time. For example if the revolution hadn't happened, in China I wouldn't think they would have as much stuff as they did. In the mean time before that happens, it's was a cool museum and I really would recommend it to anyone to check out.
I also tried to get to the Eastern State Penitentiary and over stayed my time at the museum, so it was closed. I also tried to go to the Edgar Allan Poe's house which was also more of a historic marker rather then an actual exhibit.
It was a good day and I biked way too much over the last few days my legs kills in ways they never have before, so I'm hoping that it isn't a bad sign. I also need to get a new bike seat some thing I know I've been saying it for a while.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
From Philly
I spent yesterday, getting all my stuff ready and heading down to Philadelphia. Since I managed to forget some of my stuff back in Andover, I had to go back and forth to make sure I had everything. It took a lot more time to get to Philadelphia then I had thought. I think in the future I need to leave earlier when I decided to head out to a new place. It has been good so far to see a part of the country I've only passed though in the past. I've met my hosts and they are neat folks, it was a trick to find the place, as it's a little out of the main section of the city. I'm in West Philly so if I want to head down the Old Section of the city. I was chewing over bringing my bike and so far I'm glad I did, as it will be a great thing for getting around here.
Though as much as I'm going to enjoy biking places, I was also hoping that the heat would have broken by now... but I guess it's June, so heat and being overly warm is going to come with the territory. It looks like I'll be in town until probably Saturday morning. Now I get to go out and see the sites....
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Starting Down the Road
I’m heading out on the open road tomorrow. It's a little disconcerting as I don't know much about where I'm headed and what I'll be doing with myself for the next 7-8 weeks. I just spent a bunch of time today getting some sense of where I'll be and when I'll be trying to get there. It's just those plans are so tentative and could be changed at the drop of a hat, I've never had a life like that before. I usually have had external things making demands on me and making sure I'm where I'm "supposed" to be. I just feel like a piece of clay that has finally gotten out of a mold and has fallen into it's own shape. Though still being young in years, I still have time to find the shape that I will be for the rest of my life.
It is has also been really hard to leave all the people I really like in Boston and Somerville. The small group I've been in at Park St has been great and I really enjoy those that I know there. Hope Fellowship has also been great and I will really miss cooking with the Starlight team every Wednesday for the rest of the summer. All my friends around and some people I’ve just met, I’m really going to miss. I guess reminding myself about how I will miss the place I am leaving, does not really help me to leave easily. I guess I'm always one for the sentimentality at times like this. It can't be wrong to miss the people that you have known for a while?
Since this is the beginning of the blog that I plan to keep though my cross country travels, I will be updating where I am at whenever I make an entry, so people can keep abreast of where I'm currently at. Addresses will be used as necessary. Currently in Andover MA, at the parent's
It is has also been really hard to leave all the people I really like in Boston and Somerville. The small group I've been in at Park St has been great and I really enjoy those that I know there. Hope Fellowship has also been great and I will really miss cooking with the Starlight team every Wednesday for the rest of the summer. All my friends around and some people I’ve just met, I’m really going to miss. I guess reminding myself about how I will miss the place I am leaving, does not really help me to leave easily. I guess I'm always one for the sentimentality at times like this. It can't be wrong to miss the people that you have known for a while?
Since this is the beginning of the blog that I plan to keep though my cross country travels, I will be updating where I am at whenever I make an entry, so people can keep abreast of where I'm currently at. Addresses will be used as necessary. Currently in Andover MA, at the parent's
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