Life since Louisiana

One word: whirlwind.

More words:

Leaving Louisiana, a place I came very quickly to love almost a year before, was very, very hard, so I made an adventure of it. I decided to visit a few of the towns mentioned in O Brother Where Art Thou, one of my favorite movies. I visited Yazoo City and Itta Bena on my way to staying with a friend in Nashville for my first night.


WE'RE FROM THE SAME SOIL, Yazoo City, MS


Self explanatory, Itta Bena, MS

Before I got to Yazoo City, I passed a sign for the Mississippi Petrified Forest, which I'd been meaning to get to. I think petrified wood is cool, and it was also about time to stretch my legs.

The private park is small, and the only trail was about a half mile loop. As I walked it and stared at the different pieces of petrified wood, I contemplated the cosmos, as one does. (Warning, geography vocabulary blitz ahead--)

I noticed right away that the petrified wood in Mississippi looks very different from that in Arizona, like my ring. In Arizona, it's very colorful, and in Mississippi, it's very plain. I thought about the environmental differences that caused these appearances.

The petrified wood in Mississippi is believed to be driftwood from further north in North America. I thought about how the trees, probably spruce and maple, grew in the local soils, fell for whatever reason, and traveled down prehistoric ephemeral streams to central-ish Mississippi, where water high in mineral content passed them over and replaced biological matter with stone, slowly but surely. I thought about the loess bluffs, created by wind blown sediments. I thought about the erosion process that revealed the petrified wood. I thought about the process by which stone breaks down into soil over many, many years, first as saprolite and later as the fine grains that form different kinds of soils. I wondered about the different between a rock eroding into soil and petrified wood eroding back into the earth. Are they different processes? I thought about the movement of minerals from up north to this region, how the original trees in question carried all of these things and changed the environment, and were changed by the environment...


petrified wood in Mississippi


eroded sandy bluff in Mississippi Petrified Forest

and I felt very small, but in a cozy sort of way. Like, ultimately, we're all part of this earth, and we move and change things around, but we're still part of it, and maybe that's part of the reason that I feel so connected to the environment and want to work to care for it.

...

I drove from Mississippi to Tennessee through Alabama via the Natchez Trace Parkway. I stayed with a friend in Nasvhille. The second day, I drove to Kentucky and stayed with my cousin and her wonderful family, who served as bookends to my mission year by hosting me both going to and coming from Louisiana.

I drove through southern West Virginia, passing over the New River Gorge. I spent a few days in Virginia, where Mike met me. We found an apartment and set up all of the electric, gas, cable, internet, etc. and drove back to New Jersey.



It's been a little crazy since I got back. Day one: soil survey up north. Day two: made 15 lbs of potato salad. Day three: went to the beach, and hosted a big family party (hence the potato salad).


Pequest Wildlife Management Area


the consonants in the ocean, South Seaside Park

Did I mention crazy? Grandma has been in the hospital all week (is doing much better now). I had a meltdown over a bit of a dental crisis (threatened a root canal, but so far seem to be surviving with just having a tooth ground down to alleviate some nerve inflammation and sensitivity issues). Mike is getting a new transmission in his car (thankfully THANKFULLY thankfully just barely under warranty). 

And now, in a few hours, I drive to Richmond, my new home.

New Jersey will always be home, but I'm excited about the adventures ahead in Virginia. Things are a little crazy (I may have mentioned)-- Mike and I will both have two moves under our belts this summer, plus new jobs, plus oh, getting married soon.

I vacuumed out my car today and thought, now I just need to get to the beach and get some sand in here. But I buckled in the Lorax, as ever, knowing I'd be back soon enough to accomplish that. Next weekend, actually, for a good friend's wedding.


We have a long enough lease that the dust might actually settle.

I'm ready, dust settling or not.


The Lorax, buckled into my backseat as ever, ready to go, too.

Every day is Earth Day!

Because I treat pretty much every day like Earth Day, I decided to treat April 22 like a holiday. I didn't work from home, I didn't take my work to another place, I didn't work in the evening... I just took a whole day to enjoy the beautiful world around me.


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I drove east on Highway 90 until I found a beach. That took me through some wetlands, pine forests, and small towns. I also saw one of the best signs of all time, that I regret not stopping to take a picture of: "Scenic Bypass to Space". It's referring to the NASA Stennis Space Center, but I still thought it was funny.


I drove into Mississippi and discovered Pass Christian, a small beach town. There was hardly anyone on the beach, so I parked, and I planted myself by the warm, shallow, quiet water of the Gulf of Mexico. I explored a little further in the afternoon to check out Gulfport and Biloxi, but Pass Christian wins. I'll go back.

The next, I got back to celebrating Earth Day Every Day with a grass planting with NRCS. We planted cord grass in several badly eroded areas in St. Louis Canal in the Pointe-au-Chenes Wildlife Management Area. This was the thickest, sickest mud I've been in so far. Smells varied from methane (farts) to sulfur (rotten eggs), and the bottom was so soft that I spent most of the day wading around waist deep in swirling, dark, murky boue pourrie.

It was awesome.

This project is especially exciting because there's a good chance that I'll have the opportunity to go back and check on its progress in July, before I'm done here.

The funny part about spending the entire day in the water and being totally soaked in mud, is that I had a presentation to give back in New Orleans East, and had no time to stop and change, much less shower. The good news was that it was a fairly informal talk about the wetlands, so the group was pretty amused that I was wearing the very environment that I was teaching them about. Thank goodness the talk was outside, so no one had to smell me too much.

I just love the world around me, and I'm glad I get to enjoy it in so many different places and ways.

(These were the first 350ish or so miles of 900+ that I would drive in the past week, but more on my Lafayette adventures next time!)

fall in Arkansas

Last week, I travel to Arkansas. Not a new state, but a new part of the state for me. I was attending the Presbyterians for Earth Care conference at Ferncliff Camp and Conference Center and Little Rock, which required a drive through Mississippi, the northeastern corner of Louisiana, and the southeastern corner of Arkansas.


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I admit I dozed till we were out of LA... and most of the rest of the day... (we left at 6:30AM and I was easily up till at least 2 the night before)...

But I was awake for northeastern LA, as well as most of the ride home. It was interesting to see what just a few hours' drive north does to the landscape and climate. For one, it was FALL in Arkansas!



 (It was still pretty warm in southern Louisiana when we left.) Also, there were rocks there!



(Southern Louisiana doesn't really have those occurring naturally. I'll gladly give you the geography lesson if you're curious.)

It was interesting to see how quickly the landscape would transition from small, fairly nice, well kept homes to run down trailers and dilapidated shacks. It was even more interesting to think, the latter are homes nonetheless.

I was also fascinated to look at the map later and see the the boundaries of Louisiana and Mississippi don't entirely follow the river, but are caught behind some remnant oxbow lakes leftover from the earlier days of the Mississippi River's meandering (more geography lessons for later, if you'd like).

Wide open spaces and vast agricultural land occasionally gave way to small towns, including Lake Village, AR, which had a bustling Chinese food restaurant that we stopped in (Kris asked a question about including some extra fresh ginger and garlic, which the very Caucasian server was very caught off guard by, before letting us know that they didn't have any of that but could add some garlic powder) (and man that was the saltiest Chinese food I've ever had).


Always and adventure, and always leaves me wanting to explore more.

1551 miles later

• Left Stony Point at 5AM on Monday.
• Pro: I might arrive early to my cousin's and be able to visit a while before I sleep!
• Con: I didn't get to bed on Sunday night till 11PM.
• Dropped Katie off at Newark Airport.
• Pro: One last hour with my beloved Katie before she went to Chinook, MT!
• Con: I had to say goodbye to Katie.  
• Pro: I didn't have to feel bad when that Jack Johnson song I like played.
• Stopped at Wawa in Phillipsburg to enjoy both Wawa and having my gas pumped for me one last time.
• Pro: WAWA.
• Con: I was so discombobulated by the time of day and early onset exhaustion that I don't think I got to truly enjoy the experience.
• Stayed in Kentucky with my wonderful cousin Bekea and her awesome family.
• Pro: THEY ARE AWESOME.
• Pro: They know what it's like to do that drive so they prepared a light dinner which was delicious and perfect!
• Pro: Ainsley is wonderful, smart, helpful, sunny company.
• Pro: Eben is hilarious.
• Pro: Bronwen's smile. Oh my goodness. So contagious.
• Pro: Bekea and Dan are awesome people who I don't get to see much in person.
• Pro: Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Stout
• Con: I had to leave.
• Crossed into Central time in southern Kentucky.
• Pro: This is when it hit me, that all of this is really happening.
• Con: This is when it hit me, that all of this is really happening.
• Waffle House for lunch.
• Pro: hash browns, scattered
• Waffle House for dinner.
• Pro: grits
• Pro: I have no shame. Yes I did just have Waffle House two meals in a row. I don't care what you think.
• Con: I stopped in rural Mississippi for this one, and couldn't understand a word they were saying to me.
• Hit the Louisiana border on I-59 just before 10 PM Eastern time.
• Pro: SO CLOSE!
• Pro: SO EXCITING!
• Con: My heart started racing.
• Arrived to my new home about 9:30 Central time. 
• Pro: Done driving!
• Pro: I'M HERE!!
• Con: Aforementioned racing heart finally slows down and I crashed HARD.

Google Maps, which usually serves me very well, is a lying liar. I was promised two days of 11 hours of driving, but instead had 14 hours on Monday and almost 14 hours yesterday. I did not take three hours worth of stops! I didn't. It started to feel like this, which actually happened when I backed up my hard drive before leaving home:



It was mostly just frustrating to me because I love roadtrips and adventures, but I had no time to stop and smell the geography. It's difficult to really get to know a new place from the interstate. It was neat to see the overall landscape change, but frustrating that I really had to just. keep. going. 

Because I arrived well after dark, I have few impressions of my new place, but I can tell you that our house has an awesome front porch and seven other cool ladies, that I have no clue how to pronounce anything around here, that it smelled like low tide at home as I drove through the wetlands approaching Lake Pontchartrain, and that I'm pretty excited to settle in and get started down here.