I'm afraid I don't have a whole lot to say about South Dakota that hasn't been said before. It really is flat, it's freaking boring to drive through, and goddamnit, the Corn Palace is not even made entirely of corn!! Okay, maybe that last one is just me.
So I left my hotel around 9ish, which was a big deal for me because I like to sleep way in when I'm in a hotel room. At least on this trip. But Mpls to Badlands is quite a long drive and I didn't want to be setting up my tent in the dark, so I got up "early". Actually, okay, to be entirely truthful at that point I was thinking about getting a hotel room near Badlands and not camping at all. I was getting soft, see. My delicate sensibilities wanted a bed. Anyway, I got on the road relatively early and drove and drove and drove...
And drove and drove and drove...
Thank god for audiobooks...seriously.
And drove and drove and drove...
Finally I got to my first fantastic stop, the world famous Corn Palace! The tagline on their website brands it as The World's Only Corn Palace! To which I have to say...um...maybe there aren't corn palaces all over the world because building a "palace" (not even entirely) out of corn is kind of a dumb idea. But you know, I forfeited my right to be an authority on palaces of corn when I decided not to get out of my car in Mitchell, SD. I just couldn't bring myself to get that excited about the corn, especially with the rest of a day's drive ahead of me. So I did a drive by. Maybe I missed something fantastic, I don't know. And I really never, never will. I'm okay with that.
Corn Palace experienced (sort of), I got back on the road. There honestly aren't any highlights to mention or I would...driving, driving, driving...
Eventually I got to the Badlands area and had a decision to make...I was still thinking about staying in a hotel but I could save myself $60 by just camping as I had planned, plus I'd get to see Badlands NP. Okay, that's an easy choice. I turned into the road leading to Badlands, paid my fee, and proceeded into the park. The experience of driving through Badlands was very similar to Joshua Tree. It's a windy, twisty road surrounded by gorgeous scenery and all I wanted to do is get out and take a picture but you're not supposed to stop. Finally I came to a viewpoint and got a few shots. The sun was setting so I headed for the campground and got set up.
The campground at Badlands was one of the most unimpressive, nondescript campgrounds I have seen on the entire trip. You can't have a campfire there because of the dry brush, so campgrounds are just vague areas in a big field with picnic tables next to them. No bushes, no trees (because of the climate, of course...I didn't see any bushes or trees in the whole park, not that I can remember anyway), just you and all of your camping neighbors. It was a good thing I already had some camping experience under my belt and was able to just ignore everybody else...if this was my first camping trip I would have been freaked out, feeling like everyone was watching me. Paranoia, you know.
So the night at Badlands was fairly uneventful. The stars were beautiful, of course. I read a bit of my book and made some dinner, then turned in early. Sometime in the middle of the night it started to rain a little bit. Sometime later, it started to rain a lot. By the time I woke up and was ready to leave, everything was pretty well soaked. I had left the folding camp chair and a towel out in my campground and of course both were soaked, not to mention my rainfly and tarp. Inside my tent was completely dry though, even with the little tears in the rainfly from rolling around in Joshua Tree. So go tent! I didn't know how long it would keep raining and I was so ready to go, so I just sucked it up and got wet while I was packing up the tent and stuff. Naturally, three minutes after I packed the last item in the car, the rain stopped. I sat on the edge of my trunk and enjoyed some honey nut cheerios, then it was time to get going again.
I drove through the park and got some more lovely shots of Badlands. Just gorgeous. The park loop road spat out right next to the famed Wall Drug and I had seen signs for it the whole drive through SD, so I figured I'd better check it out. I would like to take this moment and give Wall Drug the finger. I was expecting some giant, incredible, over-the-top campy experience and all I got was the same lame ass crap you can get at just about any truck stop on the road. In WD's defense, I didn't scour the whole place, so maybe I just missed the delightfully campy section. If you ask me though, they should put that part front and center.
I was open to the idea of maybe getting a souvenir there (which of course is how they getcha), plus I wanted to get something to thank my boss for approving my five weeks off. I took a little time and looked through the t-shirts but I couldn't find one that said "I rolled my eyes at Wall Drug" so I didn't buy. The next room was full of more touristy crap, including a giant selection of shot glasses with the Wall Drug logo on them. I carefully selected a shot glass with a plastic jackalope on the inside for my boss and, with a quick look over the rest of the hideousness, I took my leave. In Wall Drug I saw the following: dreamcatchers, jewelry boxes with wolves on them, silkscreened wooden plaques, shot glasses, magnets galore, an animatronic country band, coon skin caps, cowboy hats, socks with prairie dogs on them, kitten sculptures made from rabbit fur, a giant wall of porcelain dolls, garden gnomes of every flavor, and more jerky than I've ever seen in one place. And yes, that was still not enough for me. Clearly I've seen too much of the world to be so jaded at such a collection of atrocities.
Anyway, I was done with WD and I needed to make it to the middle of Wyoming that night, so I took off. The rest of South Dakota was a tapestry of driving and more driving, which I will not waste your time with. Next stop, Prune Creek, Wyoming and the worst night's sleep evar!
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Minnesota
One thing I never expected was how hard I was going to fall in love with southwestern Wisconsin on this trip. The morning after I left Paul and Jeani's was sunny and warm, a welcome change from the drizzly grayness that greeted me when I reached Chicago the day before. As I drove through Darien, Whitewater, and Fort Atkinson, WI, I couldn't help but entertain the notion of leaving everything behind and settling there, maybe finishing school and becoming a teacher in some rural Wisconsin town where they would wholeheartedly embrace my wacky big city ways. I didn't say it was a realistic notion... Maybe it's because I was born in that state, but something about Wisconsin just felt like home. It was the same feeling I got when I visited Portland for the first time...something just felt right about it.
But Wisconsin wasn't my destination. I was on my way to Rochester, Minnesota, to camp at Whitewater State Park. This was the first camping I had done since Kansas, approximately 8 states ago, so I was excited to get back in the swing. Something about spending all that time in other people's houses had thrown me off a little...as gracious as every one of my hosts was, and as comfortable as I felt, it was still nice to have a night with no socializing, no worrying about being in someone's way, no internet. Hard to disconnect from that internet, you know. So I was looking forward to camping in Whitewater SP.
You would think I would have learned my lesson in Lafayette when my phone sent me to the wrong house, but I clearly hadn't. I punched in 'Whitewater State Park' and was given a set of directions that I followed to the letter until I realized that I was (literally) on a lonely dirt road in the middle of a cornfield with no state park in sight. Oh dear. So I backtracked...a LOT...and started following the road signs for Whitewater instead.
It turns out the road signs are perhaps a tad more accurate, because I actually reached the park by following them. Whitewater's camping rates were expensive (over $30 per night) and I'm still not entirely sure why. The site itself reminded me of my first site back at Honeyman SP. Just some grass, a fire ring, a picnic table, and a parking pad. The end. Not that sites at any of the other parks had been like luxury hotels or anything, but $30+ is a lot for a campsite. Anyway.
I was draaaaagggging by the time I got to my site, but it was still plenty light out and nobody else was there to care how quickly I was moving, so I took my sweet time getting my tent set up. I had bought a bundle of wood at the ranger station so I started a nice fire in the ring and settled down with my book (The Soul of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman...a good read if you're into cooking at all). Whitewater seemed to be a good park for birdwatching, as I saw at least five or six interesting species of bird in the trees near my site.
This next part I'm not all that proud of....it turned out my site at Whitewater had an electrical hookup. I just happened to have a 15 foot extension cord and a whole slew of episodes of House I had missed in the last season on my laptop sooo....let's just say maybe I didn't commune with nature quite as much as one would hope when camping. I even unstaked my tent and moved it closer to the power source so I could watch from inside the tent and avoid the bugs that were attracted to the light given off by my laptop screen. Some time later I fell asleep to the the soft blue glow of the charging light...:)
The next morning I packed up and got out of there. I think one of my favorite parts of any of the camping legs was the packing up the tent and leaving thing. There was something so satisfying about knowing I had everything I unpacked back in the car in the right place (but not obsessively so :P) and I could be on my way.
The route for the day was kind of up in the air. I had attempted to change my reservation at Big Sioux, my intended destination for that night, but they had been booked solid for that day so when I left Rochester my first thought was to just grab a hotel somewhere between there and Badlands National Park whenever I felt ready to stop driving. I had a bit of an idea to take a few hours' detour up to Minneapolis to have lunch at this restaurant Paul and Peter were raving about, Hell's Kitchen. On this trip, a bit of an idea is all you need, so of course I went.
Rochester is a little over an hour outside of Mpls and I got the impression while driving between the two cities that a lot of people probably live in Rochester and work in the twin cities area. It was kind of a depressing commute...it reminded me of when I lived in Athens and worked in Atlanta. Now I live around 2 miles from my job and I couldn't be happier about it. It's a pretty dreadful feeling to know that even if there is no traffic whatsoever it's still going to take you an hour to get home.
So. Minneapolis. I had approximately zero expectations of Minneapolis. I can't say that I've ever spent all that much time thinking about it, honestly. As I drove into the city, headed for Hell's Kitchen, I saw a billboard advertising an exhibit of Titanic artifacts at the Science Museum of Minnesota. At that moment I started to get an inkling that maybe I would like to stay the night in Minneapolis and really see the city. I pulled into a parking garage around the corner from HK and looked at my budget on the laptop. Everything looked good, in fact everything looked more than good. I was starting to get a little worried...things couldn't possibly be going this well at this point, could they? I closed everything after booking my hotel room and took the elevator down to the street, feeling bouyed by my abundant funds with a nagging little doubt in the back of my mind.
I had made my way to HK, been shown to a table, and was perusing the menu before it finally occurred to me. See, I do my budgeting on this spreadsheet. I put my current balance at the top and then on the left I list all of my upcoming bills and expenses and the column to the right shows what the balance will be after these expenses are removed from the account. Well I'm reading over the description for the steak and eggs when I felt a stabbing of fear and anxiety down my back. I had forgotten to update the current balance!!! So no wonder my budget thought I had all this extra money...the current balance was the same as it was a few weeks ago, very early into the trip. Oh. Crap. I did my best to enjoy the lunch I had come all the way to Mpls for and put my money woes out of my mind until I could verify my mistake.
After lunch I headed back to the parking deck but in the elevator I was struck with another alarming realization: I hadn't bothered to notice where I parked before I left the deck. Sigh... So I tried guessing, then I tried looking at each floor. In the end I had to go to about five different floors before I finally found the car. All I could do was roll my eyes and laugh at myself at that point...there were more important things to mentally flog myself about.
So yes, I booted up the laptop and pulled up my budget and alas...I was not wrong about the mistake I had made. My steak and eggs churned in my stomach as I tried to figure out what the hell I was going to do. Suddenly the clouds parted as a generous benefactor who shall remain nameless (my mom) had at that moment sent me an email asking if I needed a little extra cash to get home. I gritted my teeth against the voices in my head screaming about how much I had fucked up and accepted her gracious offer of assistance. So, emotional upheaval notwithstanding, on paper the problem was solved. Time for the Titanic.
The Science Museum of Minnesota is located in St. Paul. Paul and Peter had been kind of meh about St. Paul but I really liked it. The architecture had a nice, quaint, smaller town feel to it and I found myself again thinking about how I might like to live there. It was nice :)
So I went to the Titanic exhibit in the SMM which is normally right up my alley, but I think at this point I've maybe seen so much Titanic stuff that it's not all that special to me anymore. I did like seeing all of the artifacts though and I really enjoyed the mock-ups of the first and third class staterooms (also how expensive they were...a one way trip in first class was upwards of forty grand!!) and another room where they had a giant chunk of ice that you could touch to get an idea of how cold that iceberg must have been. It was a neat idea. There was also a room with a projection of a lifeboat plan on the floor so you could see how big they actually were. One of the reasons the lifeboats weren't full is that people felt more secure on the big ship than in the (comparatively smaller of course) lifeboats, so I can only imagine how gigantic the ship must have felt, to be sinking and still seem safer than these giant lifeboats. Another nice touch: when you enter the exhibit you're given a card with some information about a particular passenger on board and at the end you can look at the lists of survivors and those who perished for your passenger's name. Mine survived, and I was very glad of it because she was a young pregnant girl. All of the survivors are dead now too, of course, but I like to think that she and her baby had some happy years to enjoy after the disaster.
I had purchased a ticket to the Titanic-related IMAX movie playing at the museum, so after the exhibit I made my way down to the theater. I typically tend to avoid IMAX theaters because they don't ever have moveable armrests, but I had been to three theaters without moveable armrests so far on the trip (Joshua Tree, Sudekum Planetarium, and Lafayette) and everything had gone fine, so I figured what the hell. I was still a little nervous about being comfortable, but it turns out my anxieties were unfounded. I fit just fine and though it was a little squeezy, it wasn't enough to disrupt my enjoyment of the film. Yay for pushing boundaries!
I was of the mind that no trip to the Minneapolis area would be complete without a visit to the Mall of America, so I didn't spent much more time in the SMM before heading for the parking garage (and yes, this time I remembered to make a note that I was in the green dinosaur section :D).
You may not believe this, but the Mall of America is just like a big mall. With a theme park inside. The parking garage there was big enough to fit a regular sized mall into, I think. And boy, was it crowded!! I'm not really a mall fan in general, but the number of people who wanted to cram themselves into MoA was just insane! I didn't have any particular goal when I got to MoA, I just wanted to see it. So I walked around a little bit, then found a MoA gift shop where I got William the cheesiest keychain in the world (it flashes his name and says mall of america on the back. Fantastic!). I was getting a little hungry and after the morning's money freakout I was all about eating on the cheap, so I took the escalator two floors up to the food court and had some bland and questionable chicken(?) teriyaki. Good to know that's the same everywhere. I took my tray over to the balcony that overlooks the theme park and watched all of the kids on the roller coasters for a while. It reminded me of how much I used to love roller coasters and how humiliating it was, as an older teenager, when I became too hippy to ride them. Bah. Anyway, the MoA is a giant spectacle, but it's also just a mall. I wandered around a bit more before I was sooo ready to go. I drove down the road a little ways to my hotel (a really nice one!) and settled in for a nice, relaxing evening.
But Wisconsin wasn't my destination. I was on my way to Rochester, Minnesota, to camp at Whitewater State Park. This was the first camping I had done since Kansas, approximately 8 states ago, so I was excited to get back in the swing. Something about spending all that time in other people's houses had thrown me off a little...as gracious as every one of my hosts was, and as comfortable as I felt, it was still nice to have a night with no socializing, no worrying about being in someone's way, no internet. Hard to disconnect from that internet, you know. So I was looking forward to camping in Whitewater SP.
You would think I would have learned my lesson in Lafayette when my phone sent me to the wrong house, but I clearly hadn't. I punched in 'Whitewater State Park' and was given a set of directions that I followed to the letter until I realized that I was (literally) on a lonely dirt road in the middle of a cornfield with no state park in sight. Oh dear. So I backtracked...a LOT...and started following the road signs for Whitewater instead.
It turns out the road signs are perhaps a tad more accurate, because I actually reached the park by following them. Whitewater's camping rates were expensive (over $30 per night) and I'm still not entirely sure why. The site itself reminded me of my first site back at Honeyman SP. Just some grass, a fire ring, a picnic table, and a parking pad. The end. Not that sites at any of the other parks had been like luxury hotels or anything, but $30+ is a lot for a campsite. Anyway.
I was draaaaagggging by the time I got to my site, but it was still plenty light out and nobody else was there to care how quickly I was moving, so I took my sweet time getting my tent set up. I had bought a bundle of wood at the ranger station so I started a nice fire in the ring and settled down with my book (The Soul of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman...a good read if you're into cooking at all). Whitewater seemed to be a good park for birdwatching, as I saw at least five or six interesting species of bird in the trees near my site.
This next part I'm not all that proud of....it turned out my site at Whitewater had an electrical hookup. I just happened to have a 15 foot extension cord and a whole slew of episodes of House I had missed in the last season on my laptop sooo....let's just say maybe I didn't commune with nature quite as much as one would hope when camping. I even unstaked my tent and moved it closer to the power source so I could watch from inside the tent and avoid the bugs that were attracted to the light given off by my laptop screen. Some time later I fell asleep to the the soft blue glow of the charging light...:)
The next morning I packed up and got out of there. I think one of my favorite parts of any of the camping legs was the packing up the tent and leaving thing. There was something so satisfying about knowing I had everything I unpacked back in the car in the right place (but not obsessively so :P) and I could be on my way.
The route for the day was kind of up in the air. I had attempted to change my reservation at Big Sioux, my intended destination for that night, but they had been booked solid for that day so when I left Rochester my first thought was to just grab a hotel somewhere between there and Badlands National Park whenever I felt ready to stop driving. I had a bit of an idea to take a few hours' detour up to Minneapolis to have lunch at this restaurant Paul and Peter were raving about, Hell's Kitchen. On this trip, a bit of an idea is all you need, so of course I went.
Rochester is a little over an hour outside of Mpls and I got the impression while driving between the two cities that a lot of people probably live in Rochester and work in the twin cities area. It was kind of a depressing commute...it reminded me of when I lived in Athens and worked in Atlanta. Now I live around 2 miles from my job and I couldn't be happier about it. It's a pretty dreadful feeling to know that even if there is no traffic whatsoever it's still going to take you an hour to get home.
So. Minneapolis. I had approximately zero expectations of Minneapolis. I can't say that I've ever spent all that much time thinking about it, honestly. As I drove into the city, headed for Hell's Kitchen, I saw a billboard advertising an exhibit of Titanic artifacts at the Science Museum of Minnesota. At that moment I started to get an inkling that maybe I would like to stay the night in Minneapolis and really see the city. I pulled into a parking garage around the corner from HK and looked at my budget on the laptop. Everything looked good, in fact everything looked more than good. I was starting to get a little worried...things couldn't possibly be going this well at this point, could they? I closed everything after booking my hotel room and took the elevator down to the street, feeling bouyed by my abundant funds with a nagging little doubt in the back of my mind.
I had made my way to HK, been shown to a table, and was perusing the menu before it finally occurred to me. See, I do my budgeting on this spreadsheet. I put my current balance at the top and then on the left I list all of my upcoming bills and expenses and the column to the right shows what the balance will be after these expenses are removed from the account. Well I'm reading over the description for the steak and eggs when I felt a stabbing of fear and anxiety down my back. I had forgotten to update the current balance!!! So no wonder my budget thought I had all this extra money...the current balance was the same as it was a few weeks ago, very early into the trip. Oh. Crap. I did my best to enjoy the lunch I had come all the way to Mpls for and put my money woes out of my mind until I could verify my mistake.
After lunch I headed back to the parking deck but in the elevator I was struck with another alarming realization: I hadn't bothered to notice where I parked before I left the deck. Sigh... So I tried guessing, then I tried looking at each floor. In the end I had to go to about five different floors before I finally found the car. All I could do was roll my eyes and laugh at myself at that point...there were more important things to mentally flog myself about.
So yes, I booted up the laptop and pulled up my budget and alas...I was not wrong about the mistake I had made. My steak and eggs churned in my stomach as I tried to figure out what the hell I was going to do. Suddenly the clouds parted as a generous benefactor who shall remain nameless (my mom) had at that moment sent me an email asking if I needed a little extra cash to get home. I gritted my teeth against the voices in my head screaming about how much I had fucked up and accepted her gracious offer of assistance. So, emotional upheaval notwithstanding, on paper the problem was solved. Time for the Titanic.
The Science Museum of Minnesota is located in St. Paul. Paul and Peter had been kind of meh about St. Paul but I really liked it. The architecture had a nice, quaint, smaller town feel to it and I found myself again thinking about how I might like to live there. It was nice :)
So I went to the Titanic exhibit in the SMM which is normally right up my alley, but I think at this point I've maybe seen so much Titanic stuff that it's not all that special to me anymore. I did like seeing all of the artifacts though and I really enjoyed the mock-ups of the first and third class staterooms (also how expensive they were...a one way trip in first class was upwards of forty grand!!) and another room where they had a giant chunk of ice that you could touch to get an idea of how cold that iceberg must have been. It was a neat idea. There was also a room with a projection of a lifeboat plan on the floor so you could see how big they actually were. One of the reasons the lifeboats weren't full is that people felt more secure on the big ship than in the (comparatively smaller of course) lifeboats, so I can only imagine how gigantic the ship must have felt, to be sinking and still seem safer than these giant lifeboats. Another nice touch: when you enter the exhibit you're given a card with some information about a particular passenger on board and at the end you can look at the lists of survivors and those who perished for your passenger's name. Mine survived, and I was very glad of it because she was a young pregnant girl. All of the survivors are dead now too, of course, but I like to think that she and her baby had some happy years to enjoy after the disaster.
I had purchased a ticket to the Titanic-related IMAX movie playing at the museum, so after the exhibit I made my way down to the theater. I typically tend to avoid IMAX theaters because they don't ever have moveable armrests, but I had been to three theaters without moveable armrests so far on the trip (Joshua Tree, Sudekum Planetarium, and Lafayette) and everything had gone fine, so I figured what the hell. I was still a little nervous about being comfortable, but it turns out my anxieties were unfounded. I fit just fine and though it was a little squeezy, it wasn't enough to disrupt my enjoyment of the film. Yay for pushing boundaries!
I was of the mind that no trip to the Minneapolis area would be complete without a visit to the Mall of America, so I didn't spent much more time in the SMM before heading for the parking garage (and yes, this time I remembered to make a note that I was in the green dinosaur section :D).
You may not believe this, but the Mall of America is just like a big mall. With a theme park inside. The parking garage there was big enough to fit a regular sized mall into, I think. And boy, was it crowded!! I'm not really a mall fan in general, but the number of people who wanted to cram themselves into MoA was just insane! I didn't have any particular goal when I got to MoA, I just wanted to see it. So I walked around a little bit, then found a MoA gift shop where I got William the cheesiest keychain in the world (it flashes his name and says mall of america on the back. Fantastic!). I was getting a little hungry and after the morning's money freakout I was all about eating on the cheap, so I took the escalator two floors up to the food court and had some bland and questionable chicken(?) teriyaki. Good to know that's the same everywhere. I took my tray over to the balcony that overlooks the theme park and watched all of the kids on the roller coasters for a while. It reminded me of how much I used to love roller coasters and how humiliating it was, as an older teenager, when I became too hippy to ride them. Bah. Anyway, the MoA is a giant spectacle, but it's also just a mall. I wandered around a bit more before I was sooo ready to go. I drove down the road a little ways to my hotel (a really nice one!) and settled in for a nice, relaxing evening.
Cary, IL
The drive through Chicago was a little trafficky, but as I like to say, we don't have traffic in Portland so when I run into it it's more of a novelty than anything else. Paul and Jeani live a ways outside the city, in a lovely suburban town called Cary. It was drizzling slightly when I pulled up to the house and noticed a note from Jeani on the front door that she had gone to get their dog and she would be right back. There were no cars in the driveway, so I parked out front and waited...
Sometime later I woke up in my car and decided to give Jeani a call to see when she might be back. Of course, as I'm sure you saw coming, she had been in the house the whole time! The note was from earlier and she had forgotten to take it down. I felt somehow silly for having paid attention to the note instead of calling right away, but the nap I had in the car was so refreshing that I just chalked it up to a happy accident.
Jeani and Paul's dog Wally is incredibly cute, by the way. Sadly I have no pictures of him...you'll have to take my word for it.
So Jeani and I had a good chat while Paul was at work. It was one of those interesting experiences where you know someone as part of a couple but not much about them personally...I finally got to know Jeani a little bit this trip which made me simultaneously happy and bummed that I don't live closer so we could be actual friends instead of once-a-year buddies. Oh well...maybe someday.
Paul and Jeani's friends (and mine) Liz and Peter live in the same neighborhood, so Jeani had invited them over for an impromptu barbecue. I was very excited to see everybody...the last time we had all been in a room together was the last COFRA think tank, almost a year before. Conversation was easy and jokey, as if we had all been friends for years and years. I love moments like that. After dinner (I had my first official bratwurst!) we talked for a while and then played Apples to Apples, possibly my new favorite game. Paul had to go to bed early for work, but Jeani, Liz, Peter and I stayed up a little later, chatting and finishing the game. It was a super fun time but eventually we ran out of steam and the party broke up.
The next morning, Jeani had to put up with my awkward goodbye and I was on my way to Minnesota.
Sometime later I woke up in my car and decided to give Jeani a call to see when she might be back. Of course, as I'm sure you saw coming, she had been in the house the whole time! The note was from earlier and she had forgotten to take it down. I felt somehow silly for having paid attention to the note instead of calling right away, but the nap I had in the car was so refreshing that I just chalked it up to a happy accident.
Jeani and Paul's dog Wally is incredibly cute, by the way. Sadly I have no pictures of him...you'll have to take my word for it.
So Jeani and I had a good chat while Paul was at work. It was one of those interesting experiences where you know someone as part of a couple but not much about them personally...I finally got to know Jeani a little bit this trip which made me simultaneously happy and bummed that I don't live closer so we could be actual friends instead of once-a-year buddies. Oh well...maybe someday.
Paul and Jeani's friends (and mine) Liz and Peter live in the same neighborhood, so Jeani had invited them over for an impromptu barbecue. I was very excited to see everybody...the last time we had all been in a room together was the last COFRA think tank, almost a year before. Conversation was easy and jokey, as if we had all been friends for years and years. I love moments like that. After dinner (I had my first official bratwurst!) we talked for a while and then played Apples to Apples, possibly my new favorite game. Paul had to go to bed early for work, but Jeani, Liz, Peter and I stayed up a little later, chatting and finishing the game. It was a super fun time but eventually we ran out of steam and the party broke up.
The next morning, Jeani had to put up with my awkward goodbye and I was on my way to Minnesota.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Lafayette, IN
I had been looking forward to Lafayette the whole trip because Mychii lives there. She and I have been internet friends since we met at my first COFRA think tank a year and a half ago. I just love her...she's so fricking smart and opinionated and fat positive and...I don't know...just a badass. I'm a fan. So anyway, I was excited to hang out with her, though still riding the wave of funk from Atlanta so I hoped she and Chris wouldn't be bummed if I was all mopey and low-key.
I was following the GPS directions on my phone to get to her house, but apparently my phone had decided that she lived in the house across the street so I went over there first. Their neighbor was not pleased. Finally I got straightened out and knocked on the right door. We hugged, she introduced me to Chris, and everything was cool. Turns out they're pretty low-key themselves, so with my mood I fit right in. We went out to a Mexican place for dinner (can't get enough of that cheese dip!) and talked about all sorts of things, including the future of the fat rights movement and what TFRC should do next. I had a lot of fun hanging out with them...everything was comfortable, like we were old friends.
The next day Chris went to work, leaving Mychii and me to our own devices. We had talked about maybe checking out the local art museum but at that point I was in much more of a mood to just hang out and do nothing touristy, so we watched the Michael Jackson memorial instead and then went to the movies. It was an excellent day.
A quick aside: I have realized, after thinking about all of the visiting of friends that I did on this trip, that I am a total goober when it comes to saying goodbye. In every case, the day I was leaving, I would get up, pack up the car, and then just say see ya and get out of there as quickly as I could. I want to apologize to everyone I stayed with. It's not you...I love you...it's me. I'm awkward.
So that next morning, I got up, packed the car, said my awkward goodbye to Mychii and Chris and hit the road, bound for the Chicago area.
I was following the GPS directions on my phone to get to her house, but apparently my phone had decided that she lived in the house across the street so I went over there first. Their neighbor was not pleased. Finally I got straightened out and knocked on the right door. We hugged, she introduced me to Chris, and everything was cool. Turns out they're pretty low-key themselves, so with my mood I fit right in. We went out to a Mexican place for dinner (can't get enough of that cheese dip!) and talked about all sorts of things, including the future of the fat rights movement and what TFRC should do next. I had a lot of fun hanging out with them...everything was comfortable, like we were old friends.
The next day Chris went to work, leaving Mychii and me to our own devices. We had talked about maybe checking out the local art museum but at that point I was in much more of a mood to just hang out and do nothing touristy, so we watched the Michael Jackson memorial instead and then went to the movies. It was an excellent day.
A quick aside: I have realized, after thinking about all of the visiting of friends that I did on this trip, that I am a total goober when it comes to saying goodbye. In every case, the day I was leaving, I would get up, pack up the car, and then just say see ya and get out of there as quickly as I could. I want to apologize to everyone I stayed with. It's not you...I love you...it's me. I'm awkward.
So that next morning, I got up, packed the car, said my awkward goodbye to Mychii and Chris and hit the road, bound for the Chicago area.
Nashville and Kentucky
I left Atlanta in kind of a funk, emotionally exhausted and a little tired of traveling. That morning, I had stopped at a gas station to check out the status of the items in my cooler and found them, not surprisingly, all spoiled and floating in about a foot of lukewarm water. See, you can't ignore your cooler for 6 days and expect everything in there to still be good. I have learned. I was having such a shitty day and feeling so overwhelmed and exhausted that morning that I didn't even throw everything away, I just drained the cooler and bought some more ice to keep the spoiled food from being even more gross when I was ready to deal with it. Tasty!
So I got a late start, was feeling crappy, and had a cooler full of nasty food in the trunk. All I really wanted to do was find a bed, crawl under the covers, and wait for the day to be over. Luckily the drive from Atlanta to Nashville soothed my rankled nerves and put me in a much better mood, as did the fact that I was going to get to see my friend Drew, who I know from my college days and haven't seen much since then (he works at the Sudekum Planetarium in Nashville which I think sounds like the coolest damn job). I pulled up to his place, we did the awkward haven't seen you in 14 years thing, and, due to the fact that neither of us had a game plan, ended up just hanging out on his sofa watching Firefly. It was perfect...exactly what I needed.
A little later on we headed out to a nearby Mexican restaurant so I could have cheese dip (they don't have it on the west coast, you know), then we proceeded to the Science Adventure Center where he works to watch the giant 25th anniversary Nashville fourth of July fireworks extravaganza. We had just settled on the lawn in front of the museum when it started to rain. Sadly, it showed no signs of stopping, so we ran to the museum and stood under the overhang for a while, still watching the fireworks. Eventually the rain got so heavy that it drove us inside. Then the fog rolled in, and we couldn't see the fireworks anymore anyway. I couldn't help but laugh...weather-wise we were probably at worst case scenario but at least we weren't downtown with no available shelter. Anyway, after the fireworks Drew showed me around the astronomy portion of the museum, which I enjoyed immensely. I always feel like a little kid in those places...everything is so exciting and interesting! I'm sure I looked like a giant goober with the grin on my face :)
After the tour we took in the patriotic laser show in the planetarium (folks in nashville really love their patriotism, as demonstrated by the loud cheering and whistling every time the laser show hit a high point. It was a singular experience) and then headed back to Drew's so I could drop him off. I'm so glad I got a chance to see him again.
That night I slept in a motel in Glasgow, KY, fairly close to Mammoth Cave. The idea was that my friend Joel (also from a million years ago) was going to drive down from Louisville to catch up and see the cave with me. He did drive down and we did catch up, but we never did make it to the cave. It's my fault mostly...I was still a little down from Atlanta and wasn't feeling particularly cavey. So we just hung out, which was fun too. The next day I met him in L'ville for lunch and continued on my way to Lafayette, IN to see my friend Mychii.
So I got a late start, was feeling crappy, and had a cooler full of nasty food in the trunk. All I really wanted to do was find a bed, crawl under the covers, and wait for the day to be over. Luckily the drive from Atlanta to Nashville soothed my rankled nerves and put me in a much better mood, as did the fact that I was going to get to see my friend Drew, who I know from my college days and haven't seen much since then (he works at the Sudekum Planetarium in Nashville which I think sounds like the coolest damn job). I pulled up to his place, we did the awkward haven't seen you in 14 years thing, and, due to the fact that neither of us had a game plan, ended up just hanging out on his sofa watching Firefly. It was perfect...exactly what I needed.
A little later on we headed out to a nearby Mexican restaurant so I could have cheese dip (they don't have it on the west coast, you know), then we proceeded to the Science Adventure Center where he works to watch the giant 25th anniversary Nashville fourth of July fireworks extravaganza. We had just settled on the lawn in front of the museum when it started to rain. Sadly, it showed no signs of stopping, so we ran to the museum and stood under the overhang for a while, still watching the fireworks. Eventually the rain got so heavy that it drove us inside. Then the fog rolled in, and we couldn't see the fireworks anymore anyway. I couldn't help but laugh...weather-wise we were probably at worst case scenario but at least we weren't downtown with no available shelter. Anyway, after the fireworks Drew showed me around the astronomy portion of the museum, which I enjoyed immensely. I always feel like a little kid in those places...everything is so exciting and interesting! I'm sure I looked like a giant goober with the grin on my face :)
After the tour we took in the patriotic laser show in the planetarium (folks in nashville really love their patriotism, as demonstrated by the loud cheering and whistling every time the laser show hit a high point. It was a singular experience) and then headed back to Drew's so I could drop him off. I'm so glad I got a chance to see him again.
That night I slept in a motel in Glasgow, KY, fairly close to Mammoth Cave. The idea was that my friend Joel (also from a million years ago) was going to drive down from Louisville to catch up and see the cave with me. He did drive down and we did catch up, but we never did make it to the cave. It's my fault mostly...I was still a little down from Atlanta and wasn't feeling particularly cavey. So we just hung out, which was fun too. The next day I met him in L'ville for lunch and continued on my way to Lafayette, IN to see my friend Mychii.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Atlanta
Atlanta was simultaneously better and worse than I expected it to be. This was my first trip back there since moving to Portland and since T and I broke up, so I had the sweet nostalgic moments of "oh look, that's the road I used to turn on to go home every day" plus the hellish judgment of "oh look, that's where T and I had dinner sometimes! But that life is over and is never coming back. Awesome."
One of T's and my old best friends offered to let me stay in her guest room (which was fantastically nice of her and she was an incredibly gracious hostess). It seemed like a good idea at the time, but in hindsight probably caused more awkwardness and stress than I expected. More on that later.
So I got to M's in the early evening, she introduced me to her new puppy and her new (to me) girlfriend, then we all (minus the dog) went to dinner at their favorite pizza joint. There was a pretty hardcore bingo game going on which made it a little hard to talk but we managed okay. After dinner we stopped at the Target T and I used to shop at, and that was a little gut-twisting. We used to spend a whole lot of time in Target.
The next morning my one plan was to head down to Turner to see some old work folks. I was nervous but excited to see everyone again. I had no idea how I would be received or if anyone would even care all that much that I had come to visit. I really really didn't want to be that old coworker that comes back and makes a fuss and everybody is just waiting for them to go away. Luckily, things didn't go that way at all. It was surreal to be driving into the Turner parking garage like I had so many times before. I ran into a former boss of mine (Ed) and a former coworker (Justin) in the parking garage on my way up and we did the awkward 'are we going to hug?' thing. I decided that yes, we were going to hug.
I went to the front desk to check in and they took my photo for my visitor's badge, but the quality was so horrible I ended up looking quite a bit like Snuffleuffagus. Close enough. They called my host, an old friend of mine from way back (Steve), and he and another friend of mine (Scott) came out to get me and got hugs as well. They took me back into the cubicle farm and I went around and said hello to everyone and got pictures with them. Scott then gave me a tour of the campus as there had been many changes and improvements made to it. I even got to see the view from the roof! Not bad at all :)
We headed back to the tech area and ran into Lisa, another of my old coworkers who was now working in another department. She told me about a going away party for one of my old coworkers from CNN, so we decided to go to that. I was a little anxious about heading over to CNN since I had maybe one or two enemies who would likely be at the going away thing, but eh..life's too short to worry about that crap for too long. I'm so glad I went because I got to say hello to a bunch of people I would never have connected with and some of them were old bosses that were really important to me, so it was a nice moment. To my great relief I ended up not having to talk to either of my arch-nemeses.
After the going away party, I headed out to Steve's house for a poker game he was hosting. This was something we did a couple of times before T and I moved away, so it was nice to get the chance to play again. I didn't win, sadly, but I did get to deal which was a lot of fun, plus I had a really nice time talking to Steve and his wife after the game. It's a shame we don't live closer to each other...we could totally be friends.
Poker ran late and I didn't end up getting back to M's until around 3AM, so the next day I elected to lounge around all day and not do much of anything. M and A went out and left me to my own devices and I had a lovely day of watching movies and relaxing. That evening, A had invited one of her work friends over for dinner so I came downstairs to help them get ready. M let me make the icing and frost the cupcakes which, as you can imagine, thrilled me to no end :)
Things got weird when the friend got there though, not because of her..she was very cool. The weirdness came from the history that T and I have with coming over to M's house for dinner. We used to be great friends with M and her ex and would frequently come over for dinner and cards. This evening, either M or I (probably me) made the mistake of suggesting that we play a card game that T and I and M and her ex used to play all the time. Bad, bad idea. First of all, it's kind of a convoluted game and I think A was aware that we used to play it with M's ex so she was not all that excited about learning how to play. There was a moment where we were going around the table placing bids and it just occurred to me how wrong it felt for M and me to be sitting there playing cards with people who were not T and M's ex. I actually had to get up from the table and go sit in the bathroom and cry for a little while, just to get the sadness out of my system. Horrible how you can't go back, isn't it?
M and I talked a little later about it and she mentioned that she had felt weird too, so at least it wasn't just me. But that's the way life works. Things change and move forward and there's nothing anybody can do about it.
The next day, I packed up the car, said my goodbyes and headed out. I drove to the neighborhood T and I were living in right before we moved to Portland. It was freaky to look around that neighborhood...it was completely the wrong type of place for us, or maybe just for me. But that's what I thought I wanted then. That's what everyone in Atlanta seems to be striving for. Kind of hard to realize that you don't want that thing you're supposed to want once you've finally got it.
After that I got the hell out of there. Too many memories. I definitely want to go back again someday to see my friends and maybe play some more poker, but I think I'm going to try to avoid the old neighborhoods this time.
One of T's and my old best friends offered to let me stay in her guest room (which was fantastically nice of her and she was an incredibly gracious hostess). It seemed like a good idea at the time, but in hindsight probably caused more awkwardness and stress than I expected. More on that later.
So I got to M's in the early evening, she introduced me to her new puppy and her new (to me) girlfriend, then we all (minus the dog) went to dinner at their favorite pizza joint. There was a pretty hardcore bingo game going on which made it a little hard to talk but we managed okay. After dinner we stopped at the Target T and I used to shop at, and that was a little gut-twisting. We used to spend a whole lot of time in Target.
The next morning my one plan was to head down to Turner to see some old work folks. I was nervous but excited to see everyone again. I had no idea how I would be received or if anyone would even care all that much that I had come to visit. I really really didn't want to be that old coworker that comes back and makes a fuss and everybody is just waiting for them to go away. Luckily, things didn't go that way at all. It was surreal to be driving into the Turner parking garage like I had so many times before. I ran into a former boss of mine (Ed) and a former coworker (Justin) in the parking garage on my way up and we did the awkward 'are we going to hug?' thing. I decided that yes, we were going to hug.
I went to the front desk to check in and they took my photo for my visitor's badge, but the quality was so horrible I ended up looking quite a bit like Snuffleuffagus. Close enough. They called my host, an old friend of mine from way back (Steve), and he and another friend of mine (Scott) came out to get me and got hugs as well. They took me back into the cubicle farm and I went around and said hello to everyone and got pictures with them. Scott then gave me a tour of the campus as there had been many changes and improvements made to it. I even got to see the view from the roof! Not bad at all :)
We headed back to the tech area and ran into Lisa, another of my old coworkers who was now working in another department. She told me about a going away party for one of my old coworkers from CNN, so we decided to go to that. I was a little anxious about heading over to CNN since I had maybe one or two enemies who would likely be at the going away thing, but eh..life's too short to worry about that crap for too long. I'm so glad I went because I got to say hello to a bunch of people I would never have connected with and some of them were old bosses that were really important to me, so it was a nice moment. To my great relief I ended up not having to talk to either of my arch-nemeses.
After the going away party, I headed out to Steve's house for a poker game he was hosting. This was something we did a couple of times before T and I moved away, so it was nice to get the chance to play again. I didn't win, sadly, but I did get to deal which was a lot of fun, plus I had a really nice time talking to Steve and his wife after the game. It's a shame we don't live closer to each other...we could totally be friends.
Poker ran late and I didn't end up getting back to M's until around 3AM, so the next day I elected to lounge around all day and not do much of anything. M and A went out and left me to my own devices and I had a lovely day of watching movies and relaxing. That evening, A had invited one of her work friends over for dinner so I came downstairs to help them get ready. M let me make the icing and frost the cupcakes which, as you can imagine, thrilled me to no end :)
Things got weird when the friend got there though, not because of her..she was very cool. The weirdness came from the history that T and I have with coming over to M's house for dinner. We used to be great friends with M and her ex and would frequently come over for dinner and cards. This evening, either M or I (probably me) made the mistake of suggesting that we play a card game that T and I and M and her ex used to play all the time. Bad, bad idea. First of all, it's kind of a convoluted game and I think A was aware that we used to play it with M's ex so she was not all that excited about learning how to play. There was a moment where we were going around the table placing bids and it just occurred to me how wrong it felt for M and me to be sitting there playing cards with people who were not T and M's ex. I actually had to get up from the table and go sit in the bathroom and cry for a little while, just to get the sadness out of my system. Horrible how you can't go back, isn't it?
M and I talked a little later about it and she mentioned that she had felt weird too, so at least it wasn't just me. But that's the way life works. Things change and move forward and there's nothing anybody can do about it.
The next day, I packed up the car, said my goodbyes and headed out. I drove to the neighborhood T and I were living in right before we moved to Portland. It was freaky to look around that neighborhood...it was completely the wrong type of place for us, or maybe just for me. But that's what I thought I wanted then. That's what everyone in Atlanta seems to be striving for. Kind of hard to realize that you don't want that thing you're supposed to want once you've finally got it.
After that I got the hell out of there. Too many memories. I definitely want to go back again someday to see my friends and maybe play some more poker, but I think I'm going to try to avoid the old neighborhoods this time.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Memphis
I actually didn't do a whole hell of a lot in Memphis, but I had a fantastic time there anyway. My first stop when I got into town was the local Kroger. All I had left of the food I bought in Portland on my way out of town was some stale bagels and freaking goldfish crackers. I should have known the goldfish would stick around. It always seems like a good idea to get them but I get bored with them almost instantly. Anyway, I was ready for a new taste sensation at that point.
Kroger was a hell of an experience because the population that shopped at the particular Kroger I visited was mostly African American. This was such a change from Portland and really from anywhere I had been so far on the trip. So I was one of maybe three white people in the whole store, which I found fascinating from a sociological perspective. Here I had the unique opportunity to feel, at least the tiniest bit, what it might feel like to be part of a minority population. Even the short experience of getting my groceries at a store where I was the minority was intensely eye-opening. I felt completely out of place and on edge, as if at any moment one of the other shoppers would decide that I didn't belong there and throw me out. Of course that didn't happen and everyone was just as friendly as they would be in any other grocery store.
I had found Pilgrim House hostel online during the giant rejiggering of the itinerary in Tucson. Initially I had had reservations about staying there because it is affiliated with a church. In fact, the hostel is actually in the rear of the church. I was almost expecting the same reception as I did in the grocery store...they would take one look at me and realize I was a total heathen and eject me from the hostel immediately. I am all about the irrational thoughts sometimes. So of course I get there and the people running the hostel are entirely lovely people and there is no bible-thumping and no sideways glances at the blue in my hair or the nose piercing and everything is just fine. With no drama whatsoever, I paid my money, was handed my linens and shown to my bed.
At that moment, the only thing in the world I wanted was to wash the Oklahoma City off of me, so I grabbed my shower things and headed for the bathrooms. One of the great things about this hostel is that instead of one big community bathroom they had a row of individual bathrooms. Lots of nice privacy there. Anyway, I had an excellent shower and then spent the rest of the evening futzing around on the internet and eavesdropping on the other hostelees.
When I woke up the next day I had one simple goal in mind: find a laundromat. So I turned my phone on, did a quick search, and found Washtown.
Washtown was everything I wanted it to be, in that it had washing machines and dryers that seemed to work. The rest, like the Ms. Pac Man machine, the vending machine that stocked Tahitian Treat (right??) and the incredible people watching were just gravy. As I waited for my clothes to wash, I attempted to finish the rest of Northanger Abbey. A young(ish) gentleman walked by and said, "Oh you like books, huh? Well I've got some books at the house...want to come check them out?"
I assured him I was all stocked up on books :)
Laundry finally done, I set about finding something interesting to do in Memphis. At that point I was still planning to go to Graceland the next day. I found some information about the National Civil Rights Museum and it sounded interesting so I went to check it out. It was a fascinating experience that I highly recommend for anyone who is going to be anywhere near Memphis. Get the audio tour and definitely watch the movie they show in the theater every hour about the assassination of MLK. It was just incredible how much black people had to fight for all of the freedoms that I have always taken for granted. I mean, sure, I knew a little bit about the civil rights struggles from school but the way the museum presented the history of the movement just made such an indelible impression on me. At the end of the museum's progression there's a balcony where you can look out over the entire exhibit and see each of the individual struggles as part of this enormous whole...it was just incredible to see it all laid out like that.
After the civil rights museum I headed over to Beale Street to check it out. Even in the middle of the day there was a live blues band playing in a courtyard on Beale. Very festive. None of the bars were really open but I did happen upon a bbq joint called Pig on Beale that looked like it was doing some business, so I went inside. Oh my god that was some incredible barbecue! I got a half rack of ribs, barbecue beans and potato salad. Sweet tea to drink (of course). When they brought my plate out I knew I was in for a treat because of how simple the plating was. Nothing fancy, just good-ass barbecue. They had peanut butter pie on the dessert menu and I just couldn't resist that. It was all fantastic. So so so good.
I was a little worn out from my time at the museum (it took me a good two hours to see everything in there) so I headed back to the hostel to relax for a while. Later that evening I headed out in search of dinner and ended up at Lou's, a pizza joint in walking distance to the hostel. I had an incredible piece of pepperoni pizza and a not-so-great caesar salad, plus a giant bottle of Fat Tire beer. I was the only one in the place but luckily I had brought Northanger Abbey again. I finished the book and my dinner and walked back to the hostel with a nice buzz on.
The next morning, after much internal debate, I decided to skip Graceland. I was tempted to just lie in my bed all day and do absolutely nothing but I decided instead to take advantage of the hostel kitchen and bake something. I had been on Joy the Baker's site the day before and had seen a recipe for chocolate cookies that looked just heavenly, so I went back to the Kroger and bought the ingredients I'd need, then commandeered the hostel kitchen so I could bake my cookies. At first it felt highly awkward to be baking in someone else's kitchen, especially because people were constantly walking through and looking at me a little funny. Eventually I finished all of the cookie batches and piled them high on two plates and set them on the counter. They turned out pretty well, I think. The other hostelees seemed to enjoy them and I got a few kudos, though I still felt awkward about calling attention to myself. The rest of the day was nice and relaxing. I watched Sense and Sensibility which was much more fun after having read the book because I could tell where they had rearranged the plot or plain left out characters or any number of other horrible things filmmakers do to books. It had been a good day, if a little uneventful.
The next day I packed up my things, left the hostel after doing my final chore (they give you a new chore each day. Mine was always sweeping something...not bad at all), and headed for Atlanta with much trepidation.
Kroger was a hell of an experience because the population that shopped at the particular Kroger I visited was mostly African American. This was such a change from Portland and really from anywhere I had been so far on the trip. So I was one of maybe three white people in the whole store, which I found fascinating from a sociological perspective. Here I had the unique opportunity to feel, at least the tiniest bit, what it might feel like to be part of a minority population. Even the short experience of getting my groceries at a store where I was the minority was intensely eye-opening. I felt completely out of place and on edge, as if at any moment one of the other shoppers would decide that I didn't belong there and throw me out. Of course that didn't happen and everyone was just as friendly as they would be in any other grocery store.
I had found Pilgrim House hostel online during the giant rejiggering of the itinerary in Tucson. Initially I had had reservations about staying there because it is affiliated with a church. In fact, the hostel is actually in the rear of the church. I was almost expecting the same reception as I did in the grocery store...they would take one look at me and realize I was a total heathen and eject me from the hostel immediately. I am all about the irrational thoughts sometimes. So of course I get there and the people running the hostel are entirely lovely people and there is no bible-thumping and no sideways glances at the blue in my hair or the nose piercing and everything is just fine. With no drama whatsoever, I paid my money, was handed my linens and shown to my bed.
At that moment, the only thing in the world I wanted was to wash the Oklahoma City off of me, so I grabbed my shower things and headed for the bathrooms. One of the great things about this hostel is that instead of one big community bathroom they had a row of individual bathrooms. Lots of nice privacy there. Anyway, I had an excellent shower and then spent the rest of the evening futzing around on the internet and eavesdropping on the other hostelees.
When I woke up the next day I had one simple goal in mind: find a laundromat. So I turned my phone on, did a quick search, and found Washtown.
Washtown was everything I wanted it to be, in that it had washing machines and dryers that seemed to work. The rest, like the Ms. Pac Man machine, the vending machine that stocked Tahitian Treat (right??) and the incredible people watching were just gravy. As I waited for my clothes to wash, I attempted to finish the rest of Northanger Abbey. A young(ish) gentleman walked by and said, "Oh you like books, huh? Well I've got some books at the house...want to come check them out?"
I assured him I was all stocked up on books :)
Laundry finally done, I set about finding something interesting to do in Memphis. At that point I was still planning to go to Graceland the next day. I found some information about the National Civil Rights Museum and it sounded interesting so I went to check it out. It was a fascinating experience that I highly recommend for anyone who is going to be anywhere near Memphis. Get the audio tour and definitely watch the movie they show in the theater every hour about the assassination of MLK. It was just incredible how much black people had to fight for all of the freedoms that I have always taken for granted. I mean, sure, I knew a little bit about the civil rights struggles from school but the way the museum presented the history of the movement just made such an indelible impression on me. At the end of the museum's progression there's a balcony where you can look out over the entire exhibit and see each of the individual struggles as part of this enormous whole...it was just incredible to see it all laid out like that.
After the civil rights museum I headed over to Beale Street to check it out. Even in the middle of the day there was a live blues band playing in a courtyard on Beale. Very festive. None of the bars were really open but I did happen upon a bbq joint called Pig on Beale that looked like it was doing some business, so I went inside. Oh my god that was some incredible barbecue! I got a half rack of ribs, barbecue beans and potato salad. Sweet tea to drink (of course). When they brought my plate out I knew I was in for a treat because of how simple the plating was. Nothing fancy, just good-ass barbecue. They had peanut butter pie on the dessert menu and I just couldn't resist that. It was all fantastic. So so so good.
I was a little worn out from my time at the museum (it took me a good two hours to see everything in there) so I headed back to the hostel to relax for a while. Later that evening I headed out in search of dinner and ended up at Lou's, a pizza joint in walking distance to the hostel. I had an incredible piece of pepperoni pizza and a not-so-great caesar salad, plus a giant bottle of Fat Tire beer. I was the only one in the place but luckily I had brought Northanger Abbey again. I finished the book and my dinner and walked back to the hostel with a nice buzz on.
The next morning, after much internal debate, I decided to skip Graceland. I was tempted to just lie in my bed all day and do absolutely nothing but I decided instead to take advantage of the hostel kitchen and bake something. I had been on Joy the Baker's site the day before and had seen a recipe for chocolate cookies that looked just heavenly, so I went back to the Kroger and bought the ingredients I'd need, then commandeered the hostel kitchen so I could bake my cookies. At first it felt highly awkward to be baking in someone else's kitchen, especially because people were constantly walking through and looking at me a little funny. Eventually I finished all of the cookie batches and piled them high on two plates and set them on the counter. They turned out pretty well, I think. The other hostelees seemed to enjoy them and I got a few kudos, though I still felt awkward about calling attention to myself. The rest of the day was nice and relaxing. I watched Sense and Sensibility which was much more fun after having read the book because I could tell where they had rearranged the plot or plain left out characters or any number of other horrible things filmmakers do to books. It had been a good day, if a little uneventful.
The next day I packed up my things, left the hostel after doing my final chore (they give you a new chore each day. Mine was always sweeping something...not bad at all), and headed for Atlanta with much trepidation.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Some stuff about feelings
I'd like to interrupt your regularly scheduled travelogue with a few paragraphs about my feelings. Brace yourself.
Sigh...I'm sitting in the hostel dining room in Memphis with a gnawing ache in my stomach. I just ate, I've gotten plenty of sleep, and I'm not sick, so what's the deal, you might ask? The deal is, my next destination is Atlanta and I'm totally nervous about going back there. I can't exactly put my finger on why, but I have several theories. For one, I don't really know many folks back there anymore. Theresa and I were pretty private people when we were together and we hardly ever went out or did anything, so my experience of Atlanta pretty much happened entirely in our own house and at my workplace.
But, you know, I'd never seen much of Memphis until I got here, so I can counteract that feeling by visiting Atlanta like a tourist, despite the many years I spent there.
Another thing that might be causing me anxiety about Atlanta is that I grew up there. I was at my most vulnerable in every way in that city. There are landmarks all over the place that bring to mind moments of weakness, hurt, sorrow, and disappointment (and that's just my teen years! ba dum bum!) and I'm not so much looking forward to reliving all of that crap.
But, you know, I'm all old now with experience in life and everything, so I should be able to revisit those places without freaking out, right?
I actually don't have a third thing. I thought I did, I enjoy presenting ideas in threes, but I only have the two ideas. But they both seem manageable, see, so I don't know what I'm all twisted up about. I still am though. That is all.
Sigh...I'm sitting in the hostel dining room in Memphis with a gnawing ache in my stomach. I just ate, I've gotten plenty of sleep, and I'm not sick, so what's the deal, you might ask? The deal is, my next destination is Atlanta and I'm totally nervous about going back there. I can't exactly put my finger on why, but I have several theories. For one, I don't really know many folks back there anymore. Theresa and I were pretty private people when we were together and we hardly ever went out or did anything, so my experience of Atlanta pretty much happened entirely in our own house and at my workplace.
But, you know, I'd never seen much of Memphis until I got here, so I can counteract that feeling by visiting Atlanta like a tourist, despite the many years I spent there.
Another thing that might be causing me anxiety about Atlanta is that I grew up there. I was at my most vulnerable in every way in that city. There are landmarks all over the place that bring to mind moments of weakness, hurt, sorrow, and disappointment (and that's just my teen years! ba dum bum!) and I'm not so much looking forward to reliving all of that crap.
But, you know, I'm all old now with experience in life and everything, so I should be able to revisit those places without freaking out, right?
I actually don't have a third thing. I thought I did, I enjoy presenting ideas in threes, but I only have the two ideas. But they both seem manageable, see, so I don't know what I'm all twisted up about. I still am though. That is all.
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