the other other big regional airport...

I can now say I've driven to all of the major regional airports!

You've recently heard about my adventure to JFK. I've also written about Philadelphia and plenty about Newark. Well, this week I was asked to pick up some people from LaGuardia! Camp's previous program director was flying in from the midwest with his sons to spend a week with us at Johnsonburg. I was happy to make the trip because
1. I never mind going for a drive,
2. I enjoyed working with Brian a number of years ago and was looking forward to catching up,
3. I wasn't planning on doing anything else last night besides eventually sleeping
4. Now I can say I've driven to all of the major airports in the area!

The debacle that ensued is probably entirely my fault; as I was leaving around 3PM, I grabbed a book at the last minute, just in case they were running later than the expected 5PM landing. Plus, it should only take an hour and a half to get there... ha ha. I'm not sure who was having more fun until I arrived at the terminal at 6.30, Brian and his two boys at LaGuardia, or me stuck on the interstate. Oh man. But, as soon as I got past the toll plaza on the George Washington Bridge, it was smooth sailing and really lovely views down Harlem River Drive and across the Triboro Bridge, and a very easy drive back to camp with a stop at a diner on the way (because his sons needed to experience New Jersey properly).

Good job, I-80 East.

Add a caption

A good friend is someone who convinces you to impulse-buy a ukulele. However, that same good friend might also completely annihilate you at a contest to see who can find the more absurdly unattractive outfit in the thrift store. (Never go first at that game!) Please note: the purple thing is ONE PIECE.

What I enjoyed most about the drive back was probably listening to Brian pointing out various things about New Jersey to his sons. I'm usually the NJ tour guide, so it amused me to hear what someone else would notice and remember. Brian grew up at Johnsonburg and worked there for many years, so had a lot of great anecdotes to share about camp is well. Aside from the traffic heading into the city, it was a pleasant enough way to spend my evening off, and we're all glad to have Frick back with us for a week.

And now I know how to get to LaGuardia too, just in case anyone else ever needs picking up there!

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.

To live your life, you've got to lose it

I'm pretty exhausted as I write this, both physically and emotionally. I just got back from a week of youth home repair mission work in the cornbelt of the eastern shore of Maryland, which was really awesome, but definitely lacked in the sleep department after an intense week prior. Some of the highlights:

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

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

Corn. So much corn. I drove down separately from my youth group-- they left from Toms River after church; I worked breakfast and lunch at Johnsonburg. My route took me through the western part of New Jersey, which is pretty much all cornfields alternating with forests and cute little old towns. I spent a little bit of time in traffic on I-95 going around Philadelphia, a little bit of time navigating busy state roads around Wilmington, and spent the rest of my trip on various county and state roads through cornfields galore (well, with some soybeans sprinkled in). I basically spent the entire week in the cornbelt of the Eastern Shore. So much corn. Very relaxing.

My youth. I cannot begin to share how great my youth group is. This year we had 24 kids (and 10 adults... the ratio is not normally so absurd, but I think this may be a piece of the reason everything went so well), mostly going into 8th grade but a few going into 7th and 9th. I love this age group. They are just starting to become interesting people who you can actually have a conversation with if you're willing to overlook how obnoxious they can be. And I totally can, because underneath the snide remarks and occasional silent treatment are some really cool and good kids.

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

My crew. I was on a crew with another adult (a cop from North Jersey), two girls going into their freshman year, and two guys going into their junior year. Late in the week we were joined by a crew who finished early (a young pastor from New York who reminded me a lot of my older brother, a kid with ADD who would just appear everywhere you looked doing random things like taping his eyes shut, and one of my own youth boys, among others). Together we finished painting basically the entire interior of the house, and built a porch for the back door (in about a day's work, with my supervision!?). We were really excited to finish, albeit late Friday afternoon, and our resident was really excited about our work.

My youth. (Didn't she already mention this? Has she gone all crazysauce on us?) No, I mean my own personal youthful age. In real life, I'm an adult. I'm a leader for our youth group. According to Group Workcamps, I'm an adult (over 21!). However, it took some convincing to get others to acknowledge this. My youth group clearly knows it. My work crew all knew it. It took my resident about a day to figure it out (when I mentioned that I taught a college class). The site coach? Not so much. Despite the fact that I was the only one with experience building things, and was clearly acting as air traffic control on the porch process, I'd ask a question about something like the angle of the railing and he'd just kind of smile and then continue the conversation with any adult man in the area. Group Workcamps Staff? Handed me a youth camp evaluation form, and questioned me for requesting an adult leader form. I know there are some ways women can dress to appear older in the professional world, but how does one appear over the age of 16 when wearing paint-splattered t-shirts and jeans? Suggestions are MORE than welcome. I know I'll be thankful for this when I'm 40, but right now I'd just really like to look like I'm of legal age.

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

Ukuleles. So I bought a ukulele two weeks ago, because my friend Katie told me to. I do not regret the impulse buy even in the slightest; it's a really fun instrument and much easier than the guitar for my poor gimpy left hand to work. Katie also owned one, so we formed a sort of "band" with our friend Bailey (appropriately called Bailey and the Ukuleles by our youth) to lead youth group devotions each night. It was well received by our youth group, however, here's a curveball NO ONE SAW COMING: a youth group from HAWAII was at this work camp in Worton, Maryland! Seriously! In all my six Group Workcamps, NEVER have I met anyone from Hawaii! And so I gained my status as the 4th best ukulele player in Kent County.

Life: Past, Present, Future. Because I drove myself down solo last Sunday, I also had to drive myself back solo this morning. First of all, I thought back to my days in youth group on these trips and realize how awful it must have been for my leaders to drive back after a week of hard labor and the late nights of youth group shenanigans. At least they usually doubled up leaders to vans so they could switch off; I was pretty exhausted and this trip was way closer than any of the ones I went on as a youth. Second, my route back (which took more like 3 and a half hours) took me over the Delaware Memorial Bridge, which is how I always drove back and forth to college. Whenever I cross the bridge and see the cooling tower in Salem, NJ, I think about one particular journey to Mary Washington when my dad told me that he almost took a job with PSE&G down there (as opposed to where he has been for more than my entire life, with them in Newark, NJ). That really gets me thinking-- how different would my life be if I had grown up in Salem (or somewhere down closer to Philly or Delaware) instead of Toms River? Would I have gotten involved in a youth program like the one at PCTR? Or music? Would have I have gone to the same college, chosen the same major, gone on this awesome trip to Maryland? It's kind of strange/neat to have things in that perspective, especially as the current chapter of my life (grad school and all that has brought) is quickly drawing to a close. It seems though, that everything is working out just as it should.

Tree of the week: American Sycamore. There was a nice big one in the front yard of my worksite with a really excellent crown, meaning awesome shade for lunch and devotions every day. We had beautiful weather all week, but it was nice to sit in the shade across the street from a hay field and just relax a bit. It was also enough shade to welcome a crew from a few houses down to share devotions with us on Thursday and Friday (which the ukulele was also present for).

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

There's probably a million more things I could say. There's a reason I keep going on these trips (6th Group Workcamp, 9th? 10th? something like that overall mission trip). I'll stop there with the writing, but I plan to continue with my awesome adventures.

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.

the other big regional airport

Yesterday my good friend Katie arrived in the US from her home in London. Being as Katie was the one to welcome me to England a few years ago, I called dibs on picking her up from the airport when she arrived for another summer at Johnsonburg.

And then I thought to ask which airport she was flying into.

And it wasn't Newark.

Let's just say, my adoration for Katie Marnham runs deep! I've been to Newark, Philly, Atlantic City and LaGuardia all before, but JFK is out there and quite an adventure to get to. I left camp about 2.30 and arrived at the airport just in time to hear the announcement that her flight had landed, about 4.40. It then took her an hour and 20 minutes to get through immigration, and then took just over another two hours to get back to camp, although we stopped at a diner on the way for a much-needed break.

Driving in and around the city is definitely not on my list of top ten favorite things to do. I love visiting New York, don't get me wrong, but I definitely prefer mass transit. It's really fun to pick people up at airports though, and it's so great to have Katie back in the US!

While sitting in traffic by myself en route to JFK, I was thinking about the end of the summer. My father has offered to drive me all the way to the airport when I head to Malawi. This is incredible to me because:
1. He has always said he would never drive me to the airport if my destination was in Africa
2. Driving to JFK is not particularly enjoyable

(Dad, I'll still think you're a good guy if you change your mind and send me on public transportation! But if you don't take this out, I'm pretty good at getting to JFK now!)

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?

geography adventures

Adventures inherently involve geography-- that's kind of the point of this blog. However, I spent the last week in the Washington, D.C. metro area attending the American Association of Geographers annual meeting. I did quite a bit of couch surfing (thanks to Paul, Scott, Alison and Scott) and quite a lot more catching up with good people.

I drove down on Wednesday morning with a few friends from the Rutgers Geography department. We checked into the conference, which was up in lovely Adams Morgan in the city. We wandered around the National Mall a bit after registering.

The rest of the week was a mix of catching up with excellent people-- a bunch of my friends from college came into D.C. on Friday night to go out with another friend from college who was at the conference and me. I got to catch up with old professors as well, which is always awesome.

On Monday, I visited my dear alma mater, Mary Washington, in Fredericksburg. My friend Hilary had just gotten back to Virginia from Utah late the night before, and joined me to wander around campus and town. It's amazing how much changes in such a short time! Renovations everywhere, new developments across the highway from the original campus block, the geography department is in "diaspora" mode following the movement out of their home building into trailers, and their movement from those trailers upon them partially collapsing under all the snow this winter into other random offices and buildings. It was lovely to see town.

I had a really nice visit to my favorite commonwealth! It's always good to see old friends and enjoy the lovely region. I'll be returning twice more in the next month: once for the Muddy Buddy during the first weekend of May, and again a week and a half later to see two friends coming into Richmond from much further away than I'll be coming.

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!

Snow, don'tcha know.

Ok, I haven't actually heard anyone here in Minnesota say "don'tcha know" but they do totally have exactly the accent I thought they would. I dig it.

So what am I doing in Minnesota, with a week left of classes and plenty of work to be done?

My friend Timmy attends St. Olaf College in Northfield, just a little south of Minneapolis. They have a super major Christmas music festival every year. He was able to score an extra pair of tickets and kindly gave them to our now retired choir director and myself. So I'm out here listening to incredible music left and right and generally hanging out for a few days.

Don't get me wrong, every time he has a rehearsal or something, I've been grading papers galore. I did a lot of work leading up to this trip, and am actually in far better shape than I thought upon my return to finish up the semester just fine. I opted to leave my laptop home (am currently borrowing Tim's while he sings in night 3 of Christmasfest, which his parents are attending) and have enjoyed the change of pace. St. Olaf is out in the middle of nowhere-- time seems to go a little slower (it also helps that my body just never adjusts to time change, even an hour difference).

Also, St. Olaf is such a great school. It's a small liberal arts school run by the Lutherans (Norwegian ones, to be specific). They have an outstanding music program (though much to my dismay there is no geography). It's got great campus dining. AND MY FAVORITE PART, CLEARLY: so environmentally friendly. Everyone seems very concious of turning off lights and recycling stuff. The sandwich place on campus serves everything on real plates, with real silverware. Their building renovations include a lot of local, renewable resources and/or recycled supplies. The bathrooms have those magic flush toilets that you have a short flush/long flush option (use your brain, you can figure out why). Also, all of the toilet paper, paper towels and napkins are made completely from recycled fibers. And finally, there is a very lovely wind turbine at the edge of the campus that apparently generates 1/3 of the energy for the campus (which makes me wonder why they don't just build 2 more, but at least they're trying!).

Other things about Northfield: it snowed the first two days I got here and the temperature hasn't been above freezing. The town motto is "Cows, Colleges, Contentment" even though there's way more corn than cows. Northfield is also home to the Malt O Meal factory. It smells like Cocoa Puffs here constantly!

Beer of the trip: Summit Extra Pale Ale. I'm not usually crazy about extra pale beers, but Summit is a Minnesota brew that my uncle had at Thanksgiving (in NJ) and it was fine then, so it was ok now too.

I fly home tomorrow morning to Newark Airport. My home church has its Christmas concert tomorrow night. I'll be up there in the alto 2 section singing Handel's Messiah and other carols, twice in a row. Intense. I have just enough time to get home, shower, and make it to warm up, assuming my flight isn't delayed. All along though, my choir director has joked that surely there wouldn't be a problem in Minnesota's end; if it snows, they know what to do. It's Newark that would fail under any sort of weather pressure. So Newark, listen up. I'm counting on you.

Despite going from 60 degree weather in NJ (yes, unseasonably warm) to 20 degree weather in MN, I am really enjoying this trip and it's allowing me to relax a little before the absolute final stretch of the semester. After all, after this I only have one semester left... it'll be a pretty busy spring semester so I'm not sure when I'll travel next!

a more crystal clear image of NOVA

Live, from Northern Virginia!

I'm in Virginia for the weekend for a wedding (Alison and Scott, Mary Washington Geography 2007). They are lovely people and super wonderful together, and I couldn't be happier for them!

But it was also a great excuse to visit Virginia again. I love New Jersey. I love New Jersey a lot. But there will always be a special place in my heart for Virginia.

ANYWAY. My good friend Paul was kind enough to put me up for tonight here in Alexandria, VA. In fact, he took a half day so we could hang out in Washington this afternoon. We walked to the Metro from his apartment and didn't do much in D.C., just took a long walk around the mall and up to The George Washington University before taking the Metro back to NOVA to meet another friend of ours, Jill, in Crystal City for happy hour. Beer of the day: Backdraft Brown Ale. Really, really good. And Crystal City Sports Pub is really nice. Beautiful ADD inducing setup for games. Good food. And most importantly, decent selection of drafts.

ANYWAY. I've always had this rather negative perception of NOVA. In fact, I frequently say that if I end up in Washington after I graduate, I would live in Washington if at all possible rather than northern VA. The traffic is terrible. There's too many people. It's too expensive. Too suburby. I hated driving through northern Virginia to get to Mary Washington, and that was cutting through as quickly and quietly as possible. Well, shame on me. I'm always the one telling other people to avoid the interstate, and here I am, delightfully surprised by Paul's neighborhood.

He lives just a few minutes away from the interstate, between the really hoity toity area and the really opposite of that area. His digs are nice and his rent is reasonable for what he's got. There are food establishments within walking distance. Very awesomely, he is only a block away from the Metro, which means easy access to lots of other really wonderful places in the D.C. Metro area. I still view the overwhelming majority of NOVA to be really overwhelmingly crowded and expensive (weird, since I come from Jersey), but am happy to discover a more walkable, quiet area hiding in the midst of it all. Maybe I could handle something like this someday? But in the meantime, I'm grateful to my friend and his couch.