adventures in and around and around and around Terrebonne Parish

I found a little dog today.



After church, I went to Morgan City and then took the scenic route back to Houma to visit a friend in a nursing home there. He was wandering along the side of a busy road in downtown Houma and I couldn't just keep driving. His fur was a mess and full of sticks and leaves and he seemed so confused. He was nervous when I approached him but sniffed my hand and let me scoop him up. In fact, after I scooped him up he decided we were best friends, and sat happily in my arms as we wandered around the neighborhood to see if anyone recognized him. First I tried to call the vet listed on his tag. They're closed on weekends.



No answer at the first few houses. A man on a bike passed by and thought it might belong to a couple in a blue house down the street. So little dog and I went there.

They had a few little dogs, and this one was not one of theirs, but they thought his name was Poofy and he belonged to a girl who lived around the corner. She drives a silver Nissan Versa with lots of bumper stickers.

There was no such car to be found on that street, but one of the women sitting outside on her porch was pretty sure he belonged to the house across the street.

No one was at the house across the street, so I left one of my cards with a note on the back.

Little dog (who I decided was more of a Doofy than a Poofy) was very tired and panting, so I decided to take him to a friend's house in Bayou Blue 20 minutes away to hang out and get him some water while we came up with a plan. I tried to get most of the sticks and leaves out of his hair.

The people weren't home but I have a key, so I got a bowl of water and we played in the back yard as not to disturb the cats in the house. Doofy wandered around a sniffed some things, and finally made noise for the first time when he noticed the neighbor's rooster, who was about twice his size.

I called the vet's emergency line, which said to call animal control, which said to call the police station, which said to call the vet's emergency line, which said to call animal control... animal control wouldn't pick up the dog unless it was hurt or aggressive. Doofy was healthy and sweet. I asked if I should break his leg, because I needed to get back to New Orleans and shouldn't bring Doofy back with me. They didn't think it was very funny, but didn't really offer any help either.

I called the police again. They had zero suggestions. Doofy smelled some flowers and drank some water.

I got a call! From the house where I left my card! Her dog was home with her, but thanks for leaving my information. She suggested I look up a local lost pets page on Facebook that tends to be pretty responsive.

I do not have a phone that is capable of doing such things. This was the first time I felt bad about that. (I still don't want one though.)

My parents kindly did some internet research for me. I sent my dad a picture using my phone (see, I'm at least a little high tech), and he managed to get that information to the page's administrator. Eventually, she called me and offered to take the dog until the vet was open tomorrow. She lived in Houma and took her own dogs to Doofy's vet, and often fostered dogs who turned up like this.

So I went to meet her in a shopping center parking lot back down in Houma. Doofy fell asleep sitting up.




The woman met me, and was really kind. Turns out her father sat behind me in church this morning, and his mother-in-law is the friend who I was trying to get to visit in Houma in the first place when I found Doofy.

I love that everyone down the bayou is related. I love nice people who do nice things like take care of nice little lost dogs. I love that my parents were totally on board with helping me instead of criticizing me for having an old timey cell phone. I love the conversation that my parents were having--

"She's a piece of work." -Dad
"It's all MY fault." -Mom (meaning, she taught me the whole stop- and- help- the- poor- sad- animal- thing)
"I know." -Dad

I love that my dad would stop and do the same thing anyway.

I also love that I now have proof that I was not trying to avoid a date with Mike early in our more- than- friends- relationship, when I made him pull over to pick up a sad, wet beagle on a rainy morning by the side of a busy highway when he was trying to take me out for brunch for a second date so I would stop saying "You have to go on more than one date for it to be considered dating". This is just who I am.

This is what my day ended up looking like:



tl;dr: another typical story about how I put over 200 miles on my car today (broke 62,000 miles, in fact).

Nothing like driving across the state, through the Pines, on Route 70, enjoying the last of a beautiful day's sunshine, having three of your favorite girls in the recently cleaned car with you. Also awesome-- the destination was the Haddonfield Presbyterian Church, one of my stops on the Johnsonburg World Tour last year, to enjoy the beautiful concert put on by Baylor A Capella. Great day.

je ne sais PA

Busy weekend. Lotta driving.

Part 1: camp to Bethlehem, PA: My good old friend Tim got married to a really cool girl this weekend, and I was honored to be there. The drive wasn't too long or too bad, although despite my several years behind the wheel of a stick shift vehicle, I still struggle not to cry or barf or die when I come upon a large, steep hill that I have never come to before. Well, apparently Bethlehem is hilly. It wasn't too bad for the most part except for one hill at a stop light. I did make it without stalling though.

The wedding took place in a beautiful historic church in a very beautiful historic part of town. I found Bethlehem to be a really nice mix of post-industrial city and gorgeous old town. Really old brick and stone buildings that have been kept up very well with old steel mills in the distance. And hills. Plenty of those. And a fun wedding!


Tree of the day: the tulip poplar that I stood under as I took this in front of the church

Part 2: Bethlehem to my big brother's place: This drive was boring, but let's talk about where my brother lives. I was initially frustrated by a very long road without any house numbers (my first time to his new place), but I found it and enjoyed a pleasant evening out with some friends and then back home on the back deck enjoying the fresh smells of lots of plants. What I would find the next morning was an incredible yard with many lovely trees and flowers.

Tree of the day here: Honeysuckle tree. I've only ever seen honeysuckle as a bush but my nose was extremely happy to find this tree. Also, driving out of his town, I found it to be full of historic farms and beautiful stone walls and old houses. Quite nice.

Part 3: Philadelphia area to Haddonfield, NJ: I took many small roads from my brother's place to get back to I-76 and New Jersey, ending up on a tiny side street that reminded me of Pittsburgh given the extreme incline. I was thankful it was early in the morning and there weren't many people around to A) stop me on one of those intense hills or B) witness the terrified look on my face as I made it over each one (successfully, thank you). It wasn't a bad drive, and I was amused by the narrow and steep roads leading me into Philly to pick up the interstate. The rest of the drive was boring major roads, till I got to Haddonfield, where this weekend's church visit was.

Haddonfield surprised me. I expected some kind of suburbia (outside of Cherry Hill, Camden, Philly) but not what I found. The church I visited, First Presbyterian, was very beautiful and very old. And huge! Stairs and doors everywhere. I was so lost. The sanctuary itself was more of an ampitheater, and an older woman sitting behind me told me the windows were Tiffany's. Yikes. It was quite lovely. I had a nice visit.

Part 4: Haddonfield back to camp: Leaving town, I was in the mood for a bagel, but let me tell you there are no bagel shops on the right side of the road between Haddonfield and camp. I drove down the main avenue and enjoyed all of the little shops all close together, a nice walkable area with obviously huge and old houses on the fringe. I took I-295 to Route 31, which was more boring than I remember. And I was exhausted at this point, so it felt like it took seven years to drive back to camp, even though there were no traffic issues. The one bagel shop I found on the right was closed. Lame.

But, another weekend with a lot of driving and a lot of sightseeing. Not sightseeing like my Grandma calls it (aka being lost), but just seeing new and different places, which I obviously always enjoy.

not driving to Idaho... this week...

Today I broke 156,000 miles on my car. That's about 7,500 for the year so far and well over 65,000 since I bought my sweet little automobile about four years ago.

This is what I drove over the weekend:

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On Saturday, when I was at camp, I was talking with a few people about how my thesis revisions were going, and some goals I'd set for myself to finish (which I've since renegotiated with myself, thank you). My boss said, "Yeah, but you know you have a friend in Idaho who will call you this week and say, 'Come visit this afternoon!' and you'll be like, 'ok!'" and I said no, I didn't know anyone in Idaho. (Which is only sort of true-- I know Josh Ritter is from Idaho, but he lives in NYC now anyway.)

Anyway, Friday I spent some time attempting said revisions and then floated down to Allentown to help kick off a big event to raise money for VIP's work in Malawi. It was great to see the people I traveled with last summer and to be part of such an exciting thing. Also, because I was driving to camp afterward, it prompted me to try a new route, which ended up adding an extra half hour to my journey because 206 is a very slow, traffic light-ful road through Trenton.

This weekend was Spruce Up Day at Johnsonburg, a good time of fellowship and site preparation. My Sunday morning church visit was to Pluckemin, where one of our board members is currently serving as an interim pastor. It was, as always, a wonderful visit. The church itself is a little more than a century and a half old, a lovely sanctuary that was different from all of the others I've visited in that it had no stained glass. While at first that seemed strange, I realized that I really liked how bright it was as a result of being all regular plain panes.

Pluckemin is a tiny historic town along the now well-traveled Route 206. I had barely touched that road until I began taking it to camp last summer as a short cut between I-287 and I-80. While it's hilly and mostly single lane, it actually cuts a good 20 minutes of the drive from Toms River to camp. Well, since taking this newest position at camp, I have gone up and down 206 several times. I think I've seen all of that road now.

I made it home for Mothers Day and have attempted to take a short respite from crazy marathon driving since then, though I did go to Rutgers today, and will be visiting Morris Plains this Sunday...

over 2 mph!

This Sunday's gypsy-esque zig-zagging was actually relatively confined:


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Church visit of the weekend: Old Bergen Church in Jersey City. Beautiful old building with really nice people inside. Not that any of the churches I've visited have been unwelcoming, but this one was especially warm. I got hugged just for walking through the door, and it was a small enough congregation that they knew I wasn't a regular. The pastor was just called from the central church in Louisville, KY, where he used to have lunch with Johnsonburg's former program director, who now works for the central church (who I picked up from LaGuardia last summer). That was a neat connection to have before even meeting the guy. Another good visit-- they even sent me home with the flowers, which I decided to leave at my next stop...

Grandma's house in Belleville. It was actually somewhat of a pleasant drive from Jersey City to there, along the Belleville Turnpike, which runs through the Meadowlands. Taylor was visiting for the weekend. He had seen one of my uncles post on my Facebook wall that another uncle had a concert this weekend, and suggested we go. So, since the plan was to be in Jersey City and later Bergen County, it seemed reasonable to visit Grandma, who lives kinda between the two places. We had lunch with my matriarch and two of her brothers before heading to Ridgefield.

Uncle Fred's concert was lovely, and as always, I was happy to see some Spains. What really struck me about this weekend's adventures is how similar everything in that part of the state looks to me-- all small cities in various condition with cramped, busy streets. My parents both grew up in a similar area, where they could just walk to the store to pick up milk or bread or whatever. Where my grandparents and great grandparents lived without a car for most of their lives, because it just wasn't required. So different from where I grew up!

On the way home, we stopped in Edison in search of Indian food, which we found at a sweet little place called Chopstick. There was only one guy running the front of the restaurant, but he was really cool and patient with my questions. Dinner was great. I'd go back.

My Sunday adventures have really added mileage to my car... I'm fast closing in on 154,000, already over 4500 miles since the new year... that's an average of about 45 miles per day!

Adventures with Abi

This weekend's adventures featured a copilot: Abi, one of the only Johnsonburg staffers who also lives in Ocean County. I did forewarn her about the adventures that she'd have to accompany me for, mainly a visit to a church a little over two hours south of camp. But first: Friday!

We left for camp from Toms River mid-morning. The weather was incredibly gorgeous, the ride plenty easy. The highlight: getting stuck behind a tractor going 20 mph on County Road 612 in Allamuchy. While this might sound like the antithesis of highlight for some, I was enjoying driving with the windows down and feeling like I wasn't in any sort of hurry. It was a nice reminder that we were in the country. It made me smile.

We were at camp to work a junior high retreat, which went very well, I think. It was much cooler out, but still sunny. We had a great group of people together to work the retreat, and a pretty sweet speaker. I always enjoying working with youth in that beautiful place.

So, today. Ridiculous. While the drive to the Woodbury church was long, it was pretty easy and mostly lovely, through a lot of farm country and small, historic downtowns (Route 206 most of the way, which is becoming more familiar). Leaving camp, it was quite dark and cold, but we were able to enjoy the super moon until the pretty sunrise over said farms about an hour into our drive. The visit went well at the church and it turned out to be a beautiful spring day.

Leaving the church, I told Abi how sometimes when heading home, I liked to just choose county roads with a certain whimsy and see what I could discover as a way home. She said, "Ok!" so we turned right instead of left, although that first stretch lasted about two blocks when we saw a Rita's and remembered that it was the first day of spring! free ice! and stopped. While waiting on line for them to open, I double checked that she didn't mind wandering, mostly through Pine Barrens, and her response? "Sure! I don't get out much."

She said I could quote her on that.

This is what happened next:

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So we didn't make a ton of progress early on due to roads lying about their cardinal directions ("Let's go south northeast!" -Abi) but eventually found some really peaceful stretches of the Pine Barrens. It ended up being free stuff day as far as we were concerned-- our free water ices were one thing. Later, we pulled over to take a picture in front of a ridiculous super hero woman statue in front of a tire place and a worker ran out and gave us a bobblehead doll of said statue for free.



A while after that, we found a sign that said Free Manure, but we just took a picture, didn't actually receive any manure. Honest.



We stopped by Bass River State forest but didn't really have a good enough map available to find that pygmy forest that I've become infatuated with, so we carried on and eventually hit the east coast in Tuckerton. Since we didn't end up making a pilgrimage to anything in particular, we visited Barnegat Lighthouse before getting Abi home. The light was closed "due to worker illness" so we walked around and enjoyed the salty air for a few minutes before bringing our adventure to an end, 18 Wawas later (+2 more for me between Forked River and home). Hooray for South Jersey!


no power lines in Wharton State forest means a glorious drive through untrimmed pitch pines

I will be breaking 153,000 miles on my car tomorrow.

I pine for... not the feller buncher.

Meet my arch nemesis: the Feller Buncher.


The first time I saw one of these in action, it was in the construction zone one Route 1 behind Cook Campus of Rutgers. The machine kind of hugs the tree and then saws right though its base. I was so in shock that such a machine would exist that I actually stalled my car staring at it all sorts of slack jawed and upset.

Well, we met again today. I didn't stall the car, but I may have yelled at the trucks, not that they listened as they chopped down my beloved pitch pines (which win the tree of the day award for a record fourth time as best I can tell from my own blog) along the Garden State Parkway southbound. And why was I driving southbound on the soon- to- be- wider- GSP South?

I spent the last two days in Atlantic City at the American Camp Association Tri-State meeting (which oddly enough involved people from all over the country). It was a great conference. I attended a slew of sessions about marketing and youth development and media and this crazy awesome lady. I got to have a lot of great conversations about how to build relationships with parents and how teens are interacting with media and each other and how interfaith communities can be about conversation and not conversion.

But let's be honest. In addition to learning all sorts of interesting things that are relevant to my job at camp, my work with the youth in my church and my life in general, I really enjoyed the drive. I rarely have an excuse to take the Parkway south through the Pinelands National Reserve. This time of year (not summer) it's peaceful and empty. No rush hour traffic. Hardly any traffic at all! I've probably mentioned before how much I love seeing the various stages of forestation in this region that, if humans would stop meddling, would be driven by fire ecology (although the human meddling part probably leads to some of the fires the pitch pine so desperately needs to propagate). I love that it's green even though nothing else is yet. I love seeing the vast stretches of wetlands around the Bass and Mullica Rivers, too.

I do not love feller bunchers, although I have to admit the name is kind of fun.

This morning I left home as the sun arose in a glorious way, with a few thin dark purple clouds stretched in front of the deep orange sphere. It was a beautiful day to make that drive with the windows down, that incredible smell of pine mixed with salty air. Goal for the (hopefully not so distant) future: visit Bass River State Forest (for the pygmy pines), Apple Pie Hill (the highest point of the Pinelands) and Brendan Byrne State Forest (because I've passed it a million times, every time I go to Virginia or anywhere else west or south of where I live), possibly all in one glorious Pine Barrens loving day...

So that's my green for the day. Despite my name being an Americanization of a Gaelic word, I did nothing to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. My bad. No beer of the day, not even Guinness or green beer (which I've never had, actually). Love those Pine Barrens though.

around the Garden State

Today I made a trip to Freehold to visit the nearest brew shop. I needed to buy a case of empties so I could bottle my beer tonight. I should have planned better and just saved my bottles since Christmas... oh well.

I wasn't in any sort of hurry so I welcomed the trip up Route 9, which is normally a pretty trafficky, annoying road. Today was no exception but it was sunny and all I really have planned for this evening is bottling my homebrew. Route 9 wasn't what really inspired this entry though.

To get to the brew shop, I had to take a few county roads just a few miles to get to the business district of Freehold. Along one of those roads, I saw a sign for one of the NJ Agriculture Experiment Stations. I regret not stopping to take a picture. It was really serene, just a large stretch of space covered in snow. I wonder what they'll be growing there this spring, summer and fall.

This was interesting to me because there have been a few articles in the news this week about the potential imminent close of the NJ Museum of Agriculture. This might not seem like a big deal to those of you reading this who are not food/agriculture nerds, but then there's me, who worked on the campus of Rutgers that had the farm and the Ag Experiment Station, whose faculty email address was on the Ag Experiment Station server... but it is a little more relevant than that. I understand funds have to be cut from somewhere but can't help but wonder if there's some sort of volunteer-based solution, or if they will maintain the building until they can open again. Every state has an agricultural museum, and come on, New Jersey is called the Garden State! While farming has declined since WWII for all sorts of reasons-- suburbanization, shift in agriculture around the country, issues with government subsidies (now I'm getting into stuff I actually taught in that class on Cook Campus), it is still very present all over the place. I love stumbling upon little farms in places where I might not expect them. I love our farmers' markets. It does still exist here, even if most people believe that New Jersey is best represented by the part of the Turnpike up around Elizabeth and Newark. Yes, we have urban spaces. But, we're a diverse state. That's why I love it.

Like I said, I wasn't in a rush, so going home I decided to just take roads south and east sort of whimsically. It's hard to get lost when you live at the shore. A little further along my drive I ended up here (give it a second to load):

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If you can't read that sign, it says, "SITE OF THE VERDSLOFF FAMILY FARM 1943-2006". This is where Business Route 33 rejoins the rest of Route 33. It's sad that small family farms struggle to sustain themselves and compete in the greater market, but I was amused by one more sign (literally) of our heritage as a super agricultural state.

Eventually, I stopped seeing little farms and found myself driving along the coast. It was a beautiful day and there were very few cars on the road once I got into Bay Head. I cracked the window on this cold day to enjoy a little bit of salty air before getting home and sanitizing all of my bottles and bottling equipment.

Also, my car is almost to 150,500 miles, which would be about 2000 since the start of the year... and I'm heading to Virginia this week for a short visit.


EDITED TO ADD: This article... it looks like the museum is definitely going to close unless some drastic intervention happens... sad.

anything but sedentary

Last night was the first night I slept in my own bed in 2011.

The rest of my time in Virginia was great-- the Doyle wedding was super lovely, it was awesome to spend some time with some amazing people, and I got to see some parts of Virginia I'd never seen before. After the wedding, Taylor and I returned to Vienna via Appomattox Courthouse, Lynchburg (to celebrate his brother's birthday), the Blue Ridge Parkway and Charlottesville, which also included stopping in this other town:

Click on people's faces in the photo to tag them.

It seems a little silly that no one ever shared this town's existence with me before.

Taylor made me this map to show me the amoeba-shaped loop we took through the state. After returning to NJ and making a few more side trips this week as I started working at camp, I wondered, what would my own since-New Year's map look like? Google actually only allows 25 stops on a given map, so I had to do two: Virginia, New Jersey, which totaled about 1375 miles in the first 13 days of the new year, not including any other side trips or errands, which I made quite a few of. Now, not all of these happened in my own car, but probably about 700 of those miles did.

After looking at maps and realizing how much driving I've done so far, or even how much riding in cars I've done total, I thought it might be interesting to track my mileage for the year... but then I realized that would be absolutely ridiculous. Hello! Have you read this blog?! I do not sit still. My toothbrush is safely tucked in my red toiletries bag and ready to go at all times. However, I think I will keep track of how far my car goes, because that's way easier. Starting mileage for 2011: about 148,500. Current mileage: 149202, which means I've more than broken 60,000 miles on this car since I bought it in May 2007. Remember when I'd reached 50,000? That's right. July. Ten thousand miles in six months.

Things are going well at camp so far. I attended a Presbytery meeting with Kurt and Lorelei on my first day and have been organizing things in preparation to visit other churches and groups around the state to advocate camp. It snowed the night I arrived so I stayed at Harry and Ann's house rather than needing to be dug out of Lakeside first thing the following morning. It was a peaceful few days up there. Warren County knows how to clear roads (ahem, Monmouth, you should study) but everything else was otherwise blanketed in beautiful, clean snow and framed in icicles.

77%

I'll be moving back into Lakeside next week!

It's been a busy couple of weeks of 2011 so far, but I'm pleased.

be safe, friends!

Last night I was running an errand with my friend Purba in New Brunswick. The light turned green, I put my car into gear and started to move, only to hear her yell out-- as she did I noticed a kid sprinting in front of my car. Not someone out to exercise, just someone in a hurry. He didn't appear to look at all, just ran full speed into traffic and kept going down the street. I probably would have hit him if Purba didn't notice him and yell. Granted, I wouldn't have been going very fast, but still.

I subscribe to the headlines of NJ.com in my Google Reader, and have noticed a ton lately about pedestrian and cyclist accidents, often resulting in death. The most recent one was yesterday afternoon on Route 1 near Rutgers, before that was actually a Rutgers student killed while biking last week. And actually, just now searching in my Reader to see just how many articles about such accidents have come up in the last few weeks and month, another one came up-- a guy my age from Toms River was hit in Brick earlier this week, and died this morning.

Obviously, sometimes pedestrians aren't paying attention (like that kid last night), and obviously, sometimes drivers are not paying attention. I feel like I see people running red lights way more now than when I started driving. What is with the general attention deficit on the roads lately?

We all have our moments. I drive quite a lot, and I think I'm pretty good at it, but I have my moments too. However, I'm constantly checking out what's going on around me, trying to be aware of other people's moments, because sometimes I feel like no one else is paying attention to anything else on the road.

Please walk, bike and drive safely. Be careful. I like you and don't want to read about you next.

50,000+ miles later

Rather than spending this week's day off on my graduate work, I instead spent it driving great distances within my beloved state to see my beloved undergrad advisor, who was vacationing with her family in Cape May Point. I figured, when in doubt about my masters, visit the person who has actually already successfully seen me through obtaining a degree. This was a great choice for several reasons:

1. I got to drive basically the entire length of New Jersey.
1a. This included going straight through the Pinelands National Reserve, pitch pines and wetlands galore, oh happy day!
2. I got to swim in the ocean (sort of, it was kind of where the Atlantic meets the Delaware Bay, but there were waves, and salt, and that's all that matters).
3. I got to chat about things, grad school related and not, with someone totally awesome.
3a. It's reassuring to discuss my challenges in grad school with Melina because she knows me as a student, and she successfully went through the same program I'm in.
4. Melina has really cute children. REALLY cute.

So, 380 miles over the course of about 36 hours was pretty sweet. I visited my parents and slept at home in Toms River, which was nice. The trip back to TR from Cape May was not so nice though. That part of the Garden State Parkway is under quite a bit of construction, and received heavy rains on and off during the day. It wasn't actively raining as I drove by the start of the construction zone, around mile 60, but I saw a truck a little ahead of me hit a pretty deep puddle, so I tapped the brake to slow down a little before getting to it myself. Unfortunately, the water started way sooner than I had thought, and I began to hydroplane a little. I stayed under control for a few moments before careening toward the guardrail along the left lane and then starting to fly toward the construction zone--and cars-- in the right lanes. I began to spin a little bit, and as the rear of the car headed perpendicular to the right side of the road and I saw a car heading toward my door, I panicked and slammed the brake, which sent me spinning into the construction zone, taking out a few of those orange barrels and finally coming to a stop, facing in the right direction in a huge puddle in the construction area.

I think I'm a pretty good driver; I do enough of it. In fact, this morning I broke 139,000 miles on my little (now scratched up) car, which is more than 50,000 more than I bought it with just over 3 years ago. That's a lot, considering I'd drive it to college and leave it parked for most of the semester, for the first year I had it. When I drive, I'm often more worried about other crazies around me than my own ability. However, yesterday afternoon, I am extremely grateful for all those around me on the Parkway who were on their game, paying attention and driving carefully. The fact that my faithful automobile and I weren't harmed means that we can enjoy more roadtrips together in the future, starting with this weekend, when I drive great distances in New Jersey again to deliver my friend Tim home to South Seaside Park for his birthday, and go to the Ocean County Fair to celebrate it with our friends.

a tale of two creatures who both get ridiculously car sick

I don't usually update this from home base (Toms River), but there's a theme here.

I've been in Toms River for the past six days. I made the trip from my work (about 2 hours) to hang out at home for Fathers Day (my first in the country since college!) and just relax a bit with my family and friends and animals.

Sunday, my parents and older brother and I went up north to spend Dad Day itself with some other fathers I'm related to-- my uncle, my grandfather. I rode with big brother, who is a fine driver, but for whatever reason, the stars were aligned, the sun was in my face, there was stop and go traffic, my medicine makes me groggy, I felt pretty sick for the majority of the trip. Know what though? The irony found within my love of roadtrips and travelling in general is that I am the car-sickest person I think I know. I mean, I've been known to get super nauseous, even need to stop and actually get sick, while driving. While driving! So just imagine me as a passenger for more than five minutes. Dramamine? Makes me sicker. I'm hopeless.

The other real reason I came home was to see my dog. Rumple's been riddled with various types of cancer for the past year and a half or more. She's really hung in there; labs are notoriously stoic. She was diagnosed with a second cancer a few months ago and put on the same pain medicine I take for my pain disorder, and responded so well that we've just kind of kept things that way since then. I was glad to move back home when my funding at Rutgers was up this spring, and hang out with my dog all the time. She's a good companion. She's slept on or next to my bed for years and years. She's my bud. And she's not comfortable anymore. So we have come to the very difficult conclusion that it's time, and will be visiting the vet for the last time this evening.



In our last days together, I've thought a lot about her company over the years. We got her when I was a freshman in high school, around the time that I had mono. The little puppy would sleep all curled up on my shoulder as I napped the days away. However, an even earlier memory of sweet Rumple is when I first met her. Mom and my big brother brought her home from a shelter, absolutely frothing at the mouth. My reaction to the very tiny lab-pit bull mix? Holy crap guys, way to pick the rabid one. She was perfectly healthy though, aside from being royally car sick. After we lost our first dog, Abby, who loved car rides, we vowed that any dog who subsequently joined the family would be brought everywhere. Except, Rumple hates the car so much we often have to take her out the back door and pretend we're not going for a car ride. In fact, training her as a puppy, when she was in big trouble, we'd just rattle the keys and she'd go hide in a corner. Ridiculous.

I took her to the beach for a little while a few nights ago. It was a warm night and no one was around. It's not a long car ride, but we both needed the sea air to settle our stomachs as we walked a few blocks in the sand. Know what though? I wouldn't have her any other way. Someone needs to sympathize with me about carsickness. Luckily our relationship was about more than that. It was about eating cheese and walking on the beach and keeping my feet warm at night and petting her on the nose and playing outside and just being good buds.

I'm going to miss her.

You know how I roll...

...on four wheels, for many, many miles.

I did another one of those quick trips to Virginia. Actually, like I wrote last time, I did two. The first was for the Muddy Buddy 10K in Richmond the first weekend of this month. That was a really good time! I joined forces with a good friend and last year's partner, Brian, who thankfully is not super competitive, thus allowing my slow self to have a good time and not worry too much. It was excellent catching up with him and his family, but I did a lot of driving that weekend, since I was in the midst of finals. I ended up staying with my older brother and his wife outside of Philly for the two nights following the race in hopes that the few hours less driving I was doing would be put to good use on my final paper. Regardless of how said final paper turned out, it was nice to hang out with them for a few days before heading back to Rutgers to administer final exams to my students.

If the circle I drove it that weekend wasn't large enough, how about this past weekend? This is my new personal record for solo distance driving in a day, due to my poor planning. The former record was my trip to Northern Virginia and back in a night; this time I went to Richmond, then further north in New Jersey than I started, then back to Toms River over the course of the weekend-- just over 800 miles total, but just over 550 of them were between Friday morning and the wee hours of Saturday. I had a choir concert, a retreat at camp, and these two friends coming into Richmond from Mali and Montana all in the same 72 hour period. It had to be done.

After choir rehearsal on Thursday night (which ended about 9.45), I drove to my friend Amanda's place in northern Maryland and spent the night, to knock a couple of hours off the Friday travels. Thank goodness for her! On Friday morning, I drove to Richmond to meet up with Jeremy and Brendan, who I haven't seen since November 2008.

Jeremy, myself, Brendan

Our friend Taylor was also in town for the occasion, as well as Brendan's girlfriend Paige. The five of us went out for lunch and wandered around the city of Richmond for several hours while other people were at work. There was the Virginia Art Museum, frisbee in the park, and finally people got off work and congregated at our friend Justin's apartment in The Fan. A few other people I knew in college were there, so it was a lot of fun to see people, but especially the two who moved so far away.

About 11PM, I headed out, destined for camp. My dear friend Cheryl was leading the Jr. High retreat this weekend, and I really needed to be there for it. I arrived at about 5.30AM and crashed on the couch in my soon to be home for the summer before going to breakfast at 8 and helping work the retreat for the rest of the day. (I napped at every opportunity, but definitely slept like a champion the following night!) The retreat went really well. Cheryl is amazing, the weather was beautiful, and it was really nice to see everyone at Johnsonburg.

I drove home late Sunday morning for my choir concert in the afternoon, which went well. We sang Faure's Requiem among other awesome pieces. I'm glad I could be part of all of these things, though I definitely felt it the next day and will not be attempting any other completely insane trips like this any time soon. When I got home, my dad was singing that Johnny Cash song "I've Been Everywhere" to me. He said we need to rewrite the words for me. He may have a point.

Now, did you catch the part where I said soon to be home for the summer? It's true. I'm about to start packing, and will leave for camp in the morning. After a lot of thinking, I decided to work in the kitchen there this summer while finishing my Master's thesis. I'll be living in a little cabin called Lakeside... obviously by the lake... with my good friend Lauren and a pair of crazy cats. I am sure this will result in a lot of adventures, and think this blog may transition into just a general life adventures blog, not exclusive to travelling hundreds of miles in order to make an entry. This is in part because I'll be staying still for a while (which I guess is relative in the grand scheme of things when it comes to me-- I'm going to Worton, Maryland on a mission trip at the end of June with my home church's Jr. High youth group). At the end of a not-really-that-long-while, I'll actually be heading to Malawi (sort of southeast-central Africa) to do a bit of mission work for a few weeks. This will be at the end of August. I'm pretty excited, and have already had all of my shots. My life is getting to be one big adventure these days! Stay tuned, won't you?

failing to plan is planning to... have an excellent adventure!

I really don't do this every weekend, just last weekend, and this weekend... and some other times... everything turned out rather nicely considering I didn't really plan anything past arriving in Virginia around noon on New Year's Day...

I spent New Year's Eve with my older brother and his wife and some friends just outside of Philadelphia (a mile from where I went last week!). They're pretty fun, although they don't exactly encourage a good night's sleep... we watched the Jersey Shore "marathon" (3 episodes does not a marathon make, especially when I knew the Twilight Zone marathon was on...), which could be an entire post in here about how it's not actually about us here at the shore, just the crazies who come visit in the summer... arghrghhh.... but anyway. Lovely time in Willow Grove!

The good night of sleep would have been useful the next morning, when I drove to northern Virginia, but I made it safely to Alexandria where my friends Alison and Scott live. (Last time I saw them was their wedding weekend! Hooray!) We went down to Fredericksburg together to enjoy lunch at my favorite Chinese food place (where the waiter still remembers me and wanted to know where all of my music department friends were, and what I was doing there...) and eventually meet up with our friend JT, who is home for his short winter break from his grad program in Nottingham, England. We snacked at the new University Cafe because all the awesome places I love were closed on New Year's Day, but eventually Capitol Ale House opened, where we had dinner and a drink. Beer of the day: Terrapin's SunRay Wheat.

After a good visit, I spent the night at Scott and Alison's and headed into D.C. for the following day. None of my friends were awake/functioning when I first headed in, so I went to the Smithsonian African Art museum by myself and wandered around for hours, really taken by the current exhibit of Yinka Shonibare's work. He does a lot of interesting things with headless mannequins, Dutch wax printed cotton, and political statements of sorts. My favorite was called Scramble For Africa. It's a dozen of said headless mannequins (representing the mass beheadings of the French Revolution and/or various rulers not using their heads and brains) dressed in late Victorian clothing made from said Dutch wax print cotton, arguing around a table with a map of the African continent on it. It was pretty cool.

Also, I found a random weird tree near the Smithsonian Castle. The Wollemi Pine. It's considered a living fossil, and scientists thought it was extinct until the mid-90s! Tree of the trip. It was about 20 degrees with wind chill of single digits in D.C. due to gusts above 40mph, so it's not like a whole lot else was green and identifiable during this trip (though this tree had a little sign next to it, explaining its significance, truthfully).

Eventually, people woke up. I met with a few other former Mary Washington Geographers and associates, Taylor, Scott Z. and Tim. We went to the National Building Museum and went through two exhibits: one about the history of the parking garage, and one about the development of the city of Washington, D.C. It was pretty cool, but we were mostly baffled as to why such a small set of exhibits was in such a huuuuuge building-- turns out it's the former Pension Department, which we still question as to why it was located in such a huuuuuge building. Interesting, though mostly being utilized as an indoor park in the chilly weather. Kids everywhere playing with blocks and toys.

We took the Metro to the Court House stop and had an early dinner at a sweet place called Earl's. I am liking Northern Virginia more and more all the time. I had the Mona Lisa, which is eggplant with mushrooms, peppers, provalone and pesto mayo on fresh bread. So good. I metro'd back to my car and drove back to New Jersey, total mileage around 550 if you include Scott and Alison driving me to Fredericksburg and back from Alexandria... this entry could be subtitled "the 500 more". Good weekend!

and I would drive 500 miles, and I would drive 500 more...

About a year ago, I made a whirlwind roadtrip to Williamsburg, Virginia and back, prompting my friend Paul to make a comment about how of course I'd travel 20 mph in my sleep, in response to me telling him I'd driven about 750 miles in 36 hours (see the subtitle of this blog!). The tradition continues.

From the time I got my driver's license, I have apparently been known as the girl who would drive a few hours to see someone for a little while. I didn't realize I'd been typecasted this way till this weekend, but apparently it's super true. Some of my earliest roadtrips were to meet up with some of my friends who I used to go to summer camp with (Dan, Greg, Sarah and Alice). The last time we all saw each other was New Year's Day 2004. Greg and I currently live closer than ever, and he recently challenged me to meet up with him before New Year's 2010. I accepted, and raised him one-- we get the band back together! (No, we didn't actually have a band, but that would have been awesome.) We tried our best, but the stars didn't quite align, mostly because Dan can't read a calendar, but we like him anyway and as a result, hung out with him.

I drove out to Abington, PA to meet Dan and Greg for lunch on the 26th. It was great to catch up! The weather was cold, rainy and overall miserable, and if the stereotype about me is that I drive a lot, the stereotype about Dan is that he's never dressed for the weather. That photo from 2004 is us pretending to be Mummers on Mummers Day. Please note, Dan is wearing a blanket that I often keep in my car, because on chilly New Year's Day, he did not have a sweatshirt or jacket. He met Greg and me for lunch and a beer and had a scarf, but no coat or umbrella, so we stayed at the restaurant for about 3 hours. Good visit!

Straight after that visit, I headed south to Fairfax, Virginia, to celebrate my college roommate Brittany's engagement to her longtime boyfriend Adam. Hooray! I ended up driving back to Toms River that night, total mileage for the day was just shy of 500 miles. The trip was planned poorly-- I expected to be meeting Dan on the 27th but he was flying out of Philly that day; I thought the party was in the afternoon on the 26th, so I didn't think it was totally ludicrous to drive back that night... ah well. I got home alive at 3.30AM. Poorly planned, but well enjoyed!

The next day, the rest of the stars aligned and I saw the rest of my old camp friends. I drove to the Rumson-Fairhaven area to pick up Sarah. This was a trip I made many times in high school-- Alice is from the same town. This, and me telling Sarah of the previous day's adventures, prompted her to inform me that yes, driving everyone and staying in touch with everyone is kind of my M.O. That's not the worst character trait ever, I think?

Sarah and I took NJ Transit from my apartment by Rutgers, and successfully got on the same train as Greg, who was coming from the Hamilton station. We met up with Alice when she got off work and headed down to the Village to a place called The Blind Tiger, where we enjoyed a few rounds. Small and loud, but good beer selection and great company!

Beers of the travels found here. Mostly wheat beers, which I really like!

Then I stayed still and caught up on sleep for a day.

Then was the annual Johnsonburg reunion. I did a little bit of volunteering this summer, and probably wouldn't have gone up, but I drove my friend Tim, who worked there the full summer and knew way more of the current summer staff than I do and also had an interview (same Timmy I visited in Minnesota). It was nice to spend some time with him since he has a short winter break. And I got to visit with a few other people who live at camp who I've missed. All in all, another good day.

Total mileage since Christmas: about 850. So not quite 500 miles plus 500 more, but definitely have not been sitting still. I'm heading out to my brother and sister-in-law's in Abington for New Year's and will be spending a couple of days in Virginia after that, so more travels on the way!