Bahston......

I really enjoy Boston, but Boston with Christmas decorations and very few tourists is really nice. I got to my cousin Kate's house in Boston on Saturday evening and her and her boyfriend Ryan (as seen below below, haha) took me out to a wonderful flat bread pizza dinner. It was really nice though to just have a glass of red wine and catch up on the last year. We stayed up late chatting but were pretty tired when we finally crashed. The next day, Sunday, the three of us drove out to Concord, MA to Walden Pond (as seen just below) and some of the other sites.

The pond was really beautiful complete with fallen leaves everywhere and we did the brief walk all the way around the pond. I had picked up a brochure on Henry David Thoreau (who of course wrote, "On Walden Pond") and his time there at the pond in his two years of "living deliberately and simplistically." The more I learned about him, the less credible I found him to be when he discussed his views and perspectives on nature and the ways of the wilderness. The man lived a mile from town where he often spent evenings at the pub or hosting people in his one room cabin. He also lived a half hours walk from his parents house which his mother walked regularly to bring him meals. It's quite silly, and based on all the evidence, in spite of how beautiful his writing can be at times, I do not find Thoreau to be an authority on living simplistically or on the ways of nature. O.k. there's my rant, I think I covered everything Thoreauly... hahaha!

After Walden Pond we went to Sleepy Hollow cemetery, not the one with Ichabod Crane, but the one in Concord, MA. The cemetery was very large but really beautiful, built on these hills at the edge of town. On one of these hills which they call "ridges" was author's ridge. Here we saw the graves of Louisa May Alcott, author of "Little Women," Ralph Waldo Emmerson, Henry David Thoreau and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Below is a picture of Hawthorne's grave in his family's plot. It really is a beautiful area. There were a lot of other prominent people buried there, but we were kind of in a hurry. There was one family, the Hoar family who were once part of the "royal" family of Concord, including one unfortunate gentleman who's name was George Frisbie Hoar. After our cemetery excursion, we drove through the Minuteman Historical Park where the battle of Lexington and Concord occurred during the revolution.

After we got back to Somerville, which is where Kate lives and is one of the Boston suburbs, her and I drove into Boston where we went to Mike's pastry shop, apparently a famous pastry shop. On the way we passed through Fanueil Hall Marketplace and they already had their tree up. It was SO exciting because I love Christmas, especially the commercialization and decoration of it. The tree was gorgeous, as you can see below!

The walk into the north end to little Italy was beautiful and offered some phenomenal views of the Boston skyline. It was really pretty. Unfortunately that day in Boston had a high of 38 degrees, so at this point it was pretty cold. We finally got into Mike's and there was surprisingly no line and here, I purchased my first canolli. It was a pistachio-cream one, as modeled in the below photograph. It was really good, but also really rich. I could only eat half of it in one sitting.

The next day, I took the T (their subway system) into Boston and decided to head back to Little Italy, as I didn't get to see very much of it the last time I was there. I stopped into one of the Italian restaurants and had real Italian food complete with Italian wine of course. It was a really great meal, after which, I headed to the Old North Church. The last time I was in Boston, I got to do the whole freedom trail which shows you all the historical sites. I didn't however go into many of the places because that was summer and the lines were so long. There was no one in line for the church this time and for the most part I was alone inside. It was really interesting to see their pews in particular as they were little cubicles separating each family from the rest. It was strange, but apparently the old meeting house is the same way.

Onwards, I pointed myself towards the Boston Harbah and walked along it quite a ways. My map said that there was a marker showing where the Boston Tea Party had occurred. Unfortunately I never found it, although the harbor itself was very pretty. Since the landscape of the harbor has changed so much, and where the tea party happened was really where there is now land, I got myself a little lost looking for the marker. (Don't worry, I found myself again quite quickly).

Finally as the sun was setting, I mosied back to Fanuiel Hall to wait for Kate to get off work. Here I sat and watched the Christmas tree as well as wandered through shops and enjoyed listening to the holiday music. I wanted to be somewhere that there were a lot of people when it was dark and not in a part of town I didn't know at all, so I of course pointed myself in the direction of the area that was most heavily decorated for Christmas.

The below picture is another picture of Fanueil Hall. The whole place was really pretty and festive. There was one shop called Boston Christmas, that was two floors and probably six rooms in size, all full of Christmas ornaments. Every ornament you could imagine, they had. They were organized well too. You had the food ornaments, the pop-culture ornaments, the destination ornaments, the santa-in-different-outfits ornaments, the Irish themed ornaments, and that maybe covers one wall in one room. It was fun, but I don't know what people do with all the ornaments.

Around six, I met Kate around the corner at an Irish pub named Mr. Dooley's for a couple pints of Guinness and some true New England clam chowder. It was a really good finish to another great trip to Boston, and thanks so much to my cousin for being a good hostess. I definitely recommend Boston at at least Summer, Fall and Winter, we shall see about Spring on another visit!

My arrival on the east coast!

I drove away from Michigan, with some color to spare in the fall season. The view above is of Bill and Em's neighborhood up in Michigan. I decided due to the wonderfulness of the weather to drive across Ontario after leaving Michigan and visit Niagara Falls, somewhere I had never been. It was amazing, and I'm very glad Emily recommended the view from the Canadian side as it was absolutely amazing. I got there kind of late, so I got to watch the sun go down and the lights come on over the falls. They have it set up so various colors light up the falls.

It was really nice driving across Ontario as everything seemed much closer to get to as it was in Kilometers. So, when the sign said 100 kilometers, it was really like 60 miles, it was cool, but gas is expensive! They sell it by the liter at about $1 something which definitely adds up! After seeing Niagara Falls, I drove south through/past Buffalo into southern New York. He I stayed in a bizarre town called Falconer before heading through PA the next day.

I started out cutting across the northern part of PA through the Allegheny wilderness area. The picture below is of the Allegheny reservoir or something like that. It was really beautiful and the whole area was surprising. It was very rural and there were a lot of leaves still in the trees as well as lots of rivers or streams. After that I crossed into the Susquehannock (or something like that) wilderness area and drove through more of rural north PA. Again it was beautiful and it followed a river most of the way. There was no one else on the road for the most part as it twisted and turned along the river as well as in what I guess are called mountains here in Pennsylvania. If I weren't so spoiled with our mountains in Oregon, maybe I would have noticed the ones here more. Even though this route probably took a little longer, I was glad not to be on interstates. I'm not such a fan of those. You miss so much and it's tiring to throw on the cruise control and sit and do nothing for hours.

I arrived in Emmaus, PA that evening to visit my aunt Maryann, my mom's older sister. She has the cutest house. She cooked me London broil for dinner, which I'm not sure I've ever had before, but I was definitely happy with my first remembered experience of it. It was a really nice visit talking of politics, sharing some brews and talking about future travels. It has been really nice to see family along the way, especially because I never get to see them, me being a west-coaster and all. Maryann has traveled a lot all over the U.S. and gave me some great suggestions for New Orleans as well as New Mexico and Arizona. She also makes phenomenal
pickles, which I was fortunate enough to get a jar of, and most of you probably know how much I LOVE pickles.

After my visit with my aunt, I headed further east, but first I swung through the small town of Limeport, which for lack of closer town, this was my mom's hometown. It has about 100 people in it. This is also where my grandparents are buried. It was kind of misting and raining when I got to Limeport and wandered around searching for the headstone and finally found it. Without realizing it, this was my first visit back there in almost exactly four years. It was slightly surreal, but very nice to be there and more-so, very nice to be in the area where I have so many wonderful memories of them.

After getting slightly, o.k., really lost in the Limeport area, I finally found myself and headed to Brick, NJ. Here I visited my great uncle Bill, my grandfather's brother. It is always an interesting visit with him because he has stories! He served in World War II in Ireland, England, North Africa and was finally wounded in Italy. Always enjoy his stories. He also told me a lot about growing up in the Haggerty family and about his siblings and their parents. He's 91 and I swear he's a good 20 years younger than he says he is. He looked so good.

My next stop on my sojourn was still in New Jersey and this state is laughably small, so I made a slight detour to the Jersey Shore, Point Pleasant to be specific. I headed for the boardwalk and it was a total ghost-town, very horror-movie-esque. But the shore as always was beautiful and almost completely empty (something one never associates with the Jersey Shore). The beaches are almost always packed, in the summer anyways.

After this I headed to my aunt (whose really my second cousin, but she's an aunt to me) Debbie's house in Edison, NJ. Her house is almost impossible to find, I'm unsure of how I did it! It was so nice to see her and be in her home which I have so many fond memories of as well. I also got to really meet Ceara, her newest Collie addition to the family. Debbie took me out to the shore again to a place called Sandy Hook. You can see it in the picture below. It was absolutely a gorgeous day and if you look closely you can see the Manhatten skyline in the distance. This place used to be an old army barracks or bunker or fort or some such thing. It still has all of the buildings and everything too at the end of the peninsula. It was very interesting to see.

Again, it was a good visit and very nice to catch up with her and see how she's been doing since she has been retired, which has been less than a year I believe. I hadn't seen any of these people (including Bill and Em) except for briefly four years ago, since I was 15 really. So being older and partially a grown up really made the visits unique for me, but also a lot of fun, because I wasn't just the kid playing in the background anymore. It was a lot of fun, but none of the visits were long enough. I think that's always the case though. I'm just glad I got to make it out to visit at all.

Michiganders or Michiguineans..... whichever one prefers!

I've had a wonderful stay in Michigan, much better than the first time that was spent largely hugging my Aunt Emily and Uncle Bill's downstairs toilet. This time, there was no throwing up. I arrived on Tuesday after what seemed like only a brief five to six hours of driving and was greeted with wonderful company and a great dinner of spaghetti (I've been eating a lot of sandwiches up to this point). My uncle also made a wonderful batch of what he calls New Jersey Clam Chowder. This is much like Manhattan in the sense that it is red. He also thought he'd be funny and take all the clams, oh the torture my poor mother must have endured growing up. Although, knowing my mother, I'm sure she dished it back in some way.

The next day, Wednesday, they took me into Lansing to see the Michigan History Museum, which was actually pretty cool. The exhibits were very well done and there was a ton of interactive pieces to the museum including an entire section on the 60s and 70s complete with Motown! One of the really cool things about the museum is that it was free, as part of the library or connected to the library. I have never seen such a nice museum that was in fact free. We only got to see the 1900s on though, as there was a ham that needed to be cooked back home. It's o.k. that's my favorite century. The second floor apparently included pre-history up to the 1900s.

The nest day, Thursday, we drove over to Burcham hills, which is the retirement community where my grandfather lived briefly. It was a very pretty facility and it a seemingly more rural part of East Lansing. That's one thing I found very pretty about their town and the parts of Michigan I have seen in general, they seem to really value trees and wild places and therefore have a lot of park and a lot of open space, which was surprising for a city. Anyways, the below picture is of the putting green that they built at Burcham Hills largely in response to the lobbying of my grandfather. It was pretty cool. There's also a commemorative brick with his name on it, which was kind of nice to see.

Later that day we drove through a town called Grand Ledge to Grand Ledges park. It was really pretty with most of the leaves having fallen off the trees and coating the ground in a perfect crunchy landscape. My aunt and I both enjoy kicking and sliding through them as we walked along the river path. Apparently my grandpa really enjoyed this spot as well.

There was a rusty railroad bridge a little ways down into the park which looked amazing against the orange fall landscape and in the distance you could see the token town water-tower. I was telling my aunt and uncle how we don't really have water-towers like that in Oregon. You can see them in a few places, but they aren't part of the skyline on every single town you come across. I thought this was a really interesting subtle difference that I noticed as I traveled my first legs across country.

Below, Emily and I are mermaids on our rock, which turned out to be a sewer entrance. We're really classy mermaids who apparently have little regard to the sanitary conditions found in sewers. It was still fun though.

They took me out to dinner to a pizza place and although they served caprese salad, which is one of my all time favorite dishes, I ordered my first deep-dish Chicago style pizza. I figured being this close to Chicago, it still counted as local food. It was really good, although it truly reminded me of what a real pizza-pir would look like. I was really glad to have the opportunity to not only try something new, but also to try something that was more traditional to the area. It's funny how a lot of times we don't assume differences in US food until we go to these places and get the real thing. It was even good as leftovers.

It was really nice to kind of land in a place for a few days after over 2,000 miles put in on the trip, and my aunt and uncle were phenomenal hosts. They fed me and showed me the sights and even gave me a bed to sleep in. It was a lot of fun. My Uncle Bill didn't even play too many jokes on me... No mom, he did not lock me in the basement, although whenever I was down there, i went when he wasn't looking, just to protect myself. Haha. Below is a picture of Emily with their dog Hailey. She was very well trained. A lot of times she just hung out in the very large and nicely manicured back yard. She never jumped on me or licked me without permission either. She's such a cutie.

Last night we went to see a play called "Greater Tuna" in a very quaint and unique theater in some random town I have forgotten the name to. The play only had two actors, which was surprising, I had never heard of such a small cast. They played all of the parts so well though. It was really entertaining and really quite funny. I love going out to the theatre and it was really interesting to go with Bill and Em, in that they are theatre-regulars and they themselves have both studied and been part of multiple productions. In that regard, it was cool to hear their thoughts versus those of myself who does not in fact know as much as I'd like to about theatre.

Unfortunately I leave in the morning. I'm very excited to continue my road trip, but a visit never seems long enough. I had so much fun and the road trip has been such a success thus far. I can't believe that I have only been traveling for nine days or so. It seems like so much longer. Thank you so much for your generosity and hospitality Bill and Em, I hope there are many more visits in the future.

The Road Trip Begins... Utah to Michigan

So I have officially started my 6-weekish long road trip across the United States and back to Oregon in time for Christmas. I began my journey by heading north to Provo, Utah again to visit my dearest Kensie. It was a good visit. She's one of those people that I can do absolutely nothing with and feel like I had the best visit, I adore her. After leaving Bryce on Wednesday, I stayed with her until Friday. From there I headed north through the Wasatch Wilderness area and was so stoked to see snow. It was amazing!

The drive this way probably added a little bit to the excursion, but it was well worth it. The views alone were stunning. Fortunately there was no snow on the road which made it very easy traveling. I've had weather in the 60s and mostly 70s since I began my trip, which is very strange but wonderful for November, especially since I got some snow in there.

After entering Wyoming, I cut straight across to Laramie then headed northeast to South Dakota. I really wanted to see my brother who was in Denver, but unfortunately they encountered some delays and we never were able to cross paths. I always miss my big brother and I would have got a kick out of seeing him and Kaleigh (his girlfriend) with Tinkerbell (the dog) cruising around with my mom's trailer. Anyways, the first day I drove all the way to South Dakota. It was my longest day so far, and I drove over 800 miles in around 11.5 hours. I pulled into Wind Cave National Park and pitched my tent after dark. I was one of two campers in the campground that night, and the only one brave enough to sleep in a tent. It was beautiful and complete with my down jacket (that is molting and leaves feathers everywhere), I was warm.

In the morning I did a cave tour in Wind Cave. There were only five of us including the guide which was kind of nice. The cave is famous for it's "boxwork" that you can kind of see in the picture above, but my camera takes really poor cave pictures. The tour was only about an hour and then I ventured north through the park and saw some of the other above ground scenery including buffalo meandering down the road. I was kind of afraid they'd freak out when I passed them and slam into my car, but fortunately it didn't happen, otherwise there'd be a picture of my damaged car on here.

There was a short one-mile hike that I did here to this old look out tower. It gave great views of the park, however, you can no longer climb the lookout tower which was kind of a bummer. The park was beautiful though and there weren't many people which was really nice. I've decided if it's not snowing, this is a beautiful time to travel.

Wind Cave National Park leads directly into Custer State Park, which ultimately leads you straight to Mt. Rushmore. There's multiple scenic drives in the area that head north to mt. rushmore, but I chose a superb one. It's called the Iron Mountain Highway and there are built in tunnels that frame rushmore as you drive and it also leads you to many overlooks of not only the monument, but also the amazing wilderness area that surrounds it.

The monument seemed much smaller in real life than it appears on screen or in other forms of media, but it was still really cool. They really did a good job of discussing the artist and the history behind the artist's process and thoughts during construction. They didn't do as good of job discussing the history of the presidents. There was a display on each president along the presidential walk, and under presidential highlights, for Roosevelt, they didn't even include the National Parks system or his conservation efforts. I found that strange. But aside from these historical shortcomings, the monument was incredible. I can't imagine the effort, skill and time that went into such a carving endeavor. I would have been the worker who accidentally tripped over a chisel and knocked Washington's nose off or something. Maybe it would have been Jefferson's; his nose was huge.

I was really impressed by all the trees and the surrounding wilderness. A lot of depictions of the monument don't show how scenic or forested the surrounding area is.

There's a town called keystone or something like that, just next to mt. rushmore. It reminded me of Sisters, OR in that it was western themed, but it was like Sisters on steroids. The whole place was over the top western. It was bizarre and a bit overkill if you ask me. After Mt. Rushmore, I rushed to the badlands. By that I mean I drove my usual 5 mph above the speed limit, but I felt rushed. I made it just in time to pitch my tent and set up my lantern before dark. This all happened in the midst of me taking an excessive amount of sunset pictures as well.

The coyotes were howling like crazy that night, packs and packs of them in all different directions. Before Halloween, some friends and I watched the b-rate horror movie called the craving. The premise was that there was this creature and it howled at night and during sunset as it was coming to kill you and such. I have to say, I was a little unnverved lying in my tent hearing all of this howling all around me. It continued to wake me up through the night too. It was really cool to hear them all though, especially since they never came for me.

In the morning I began my exploration of the badlands. Every trail there, including short walks to viewpoints had "Beware of Rattlesnakes" signs. I'm so glad it was November and too cold for them! I HATE SNAKES! Anyways, I started my tour with a brief 1.5 mile hike to what is called the notch. This took me to a canyon overlook which was right at the eastern-most end of the park. It was something you can't see on the drive through the park. It was nice to get out and walk too, as the 26-mile drive through the park took me about two hours. There were way too many amazing views that I had to stop for, as you can see.

So next I did the driving tour and it was so stunning. Each new bend offered something different. Initially there were more mountainous looking formations, but later in the park, more rolling hill-like formations were incorporated. The further you ventured into the park, however, the more colors you saw in the hills, from browns, reds, yellows to blues and some green tones. It was so phemonenally beautiful and the drive on either side was just so flat. I'm not exactly sure where this amazing place even came from when I was driving up to it.

Towards the end of the park, (I opted not to do the whole loop as 25 miles of it were gravel), on the way back I got to see some big-horned-sheep, for the second time in my life. The other time was in Glacier and it took me two months to get to see some there. They were so gorgeous and looked at me when I got out of my car, analyzed me and decided eating their grass was much more important. Unfortunately my camera doesn't have that great of zoom.

Finally I headed off down the road towards Iowa. That night I again made it to the campground just before sunset. I stayed right on the eastern shore of the Missouri River, and since I was one of three in the campground (again the only one in a tent) I got the most perfect campsite, right on the cliff overlooking the water. I decided at one point to try to get some pictures of the river, that and I have a thing about touching the water of various places, kind of a milestone or something for me. Needless to say, I needed to touch the Missouri. I didn't realize that the ground was really muddy in the last two feet up to the river, so I sank in and when I tried to pull my foot out, I tossed my flip-flop into the river. As it's starting to float away, I lunged for it and sunk into the mud with my other foot. I was covered in mud, at least my feet, but I saved the shoes and fortunately they had showers there.... AWESOME!

The next day I headed very straightly into Iowa and then continued straight on across Iowa. The first part of Iowa smelled like one giant feedlot, but the towns seemed more well developed or established than in South Dakota. I counted along the way and there were eight dead skunks
along the road as well as eight anti-abortion signs in the first 3 hours of that days driving. If you included all road kill and signs that suggested I seek God in order to save my soul, the numbers tied at 14. One really cool thing across Iowa, is that a lot of the barns had quilt patterns painted on the sides of them, and they were all different. This provided some intrigue as I traveled.

I stayed on the border of Iowa and Illinois that night as the campground I originally planned to stay at wasa little questionable, so I got myself a hotel room. It was nice to have a shower, but funnily enough the water pressure was turned up super high and the shower head was missing so the water came out in one forceful and violent stream. It was a quick shower. The next day, I drove hwy 80 to Chicago area and around the southern tip of Lake Michigan, through Illinois and finally into Michigan. It was a shorter day and was very nice to finally arrive at my Aunt Emily's and my Uncle Bill's. The drive to Michigan was relatively unexciting because I chose to do it all on interstate. Fortunately I had some great tunage and my focus on some good visiting. The trip has gone really well so far, and I've barely begun. Only 2,200ish miles down... soooo many to come!

Goodbye Bryce Canyon!

So, I've officially left Bryce Canyon, but not before we got at least one snow! It made the day go by so quickly, until of course it started to melt, but there were still patches a week later! I love the snow! The above is the only picture I ever took of the lodge, and I LOVE SNOW, so it seemed to work out. The below picture, however gross, is a result of my grand canyon backpacking trip. That picture was taken about a week ago too, it's gotten blacker since then! Gross I know, but what a battle wound!

Anyways, I said many goodbyes in my last week, including Mary Kay, the woman seen without a vest in the below picture. She is from Texas and was in the Navy for 20-some years. She is a very feisty southern dame. I don't much care for the long drawn-out goodbyes. Rather I prefer the hug and the subtle unsaid idea that we might cross paths again in the future, whether planned or un-planned. Either way, seeing every person, hugging them, saying goodbye, then repeating is far sadder than departure really is. In my opinion we're all off to the next wonderful adventure and I can't wait to hear about them all. You don't see a group of individuals like those found at adult summer camp and expect an adventureless future.

Sunday, October 31st, aka. Halloween, was my last day of work and also the day of the Survivor/Halloween party. Below is a picture of my two supervisors and I singing the rap that he wrote about Bryce Canyon. I learned through this experience that I am really not a good rapper and in fact, should never attempt to take Karaoke seriously! haha. It was a lot of fun and yes I am the Zebra creature that you see. I found a cardigan today in Zebra print, but I thought that might be a little over the top. Thoughts?

Below are Nick and Becky with myself. One of the greatest aspects of working seasonal employment, especially in National Parks is that you meet awesome people from all over. They are definitely a couple of the many that I am going to miss! Thank goodness for Facebook! haha

On my last two days in the park, I packed up and moved out of my room as well as went back to a few of my favorite places in the park, and finally took a picture with the Bryce Canyon sign. It was also in the high sixties the last two days, absolutely perfect weather.

This is one final shot from Inspiration Point (my favorite view point in the entire park) looking into Bryce Amphitheater. I have to say, even after three months, climbing up to the upper view point still kills me. I just hiked the grand canyon and I'm suffering from an inability to breath climbing up a short hill to a viewpoint. I'm not sure if I understand.

The picture below is from a viewpoint called Paria View. Surprisingly I saved this one for my very last full day in the park. I was kind of glad I did, as I got to see something I had never seen before and as I told Kensie yesterday, right now, I really want to be where I've never been before right now. It was beautiful and a wonderful conclusion to an amazing three months of my life.

So now I have left. I am in Provo and leaving tomorrow to hopefully make it all the way to South Dakota. I think Utah is absolutely beautiful, but I'm ready for something else, and as beautiful as it is, it's also completely bizarre in a lot of ways. If you want to discuss it at some point let me know and I will pull out my notes. So first stop South Dakota, then on to Michigan to visit my wonderful aunt and uncle. Don't worry, there will be a plethora of stories created along the way. I'm so excited!