Keeping Track of Beth

August Break!

2011-12-26T10:00:00.000-08:00

It's funny to write this post about August knowing that it'll go live right after Christmas. Hopefully I'll never fall this far behind on the updating ever again!

Immediately after our first August event in Pensacola, we had a bit of a break. L, D and I were allowed to head back to Seattle for three glorious days off before our New Orleans event. It was the first time I took home my "big" suitcase since I first flew out in June to Tampa! Normally, for the brief trips back to Seattle I just left it downrange in the trailer, but this would be my big chance to take it home and sort it out for the final August runs that were to come!

The funny thing is, as the only girl on the trip, I actually had the least amount of "luggage"! I was the only one who had a suitcase that was qualified as a carry-on; everyone else had the big full-size bags. Plus we all had our backpacks, of course, for the day-to-day hauling and road trips and quick flights back to the West Coast, but still, I was pretty amused that I was the one with the least amount of baggage!

(I do believe I was also the only one without cowboy boots, but that's another story...)

So I traveled all summer with a backpack (well, one died halfway through summer so I replaced it with a Jansport in Charlotte) and a roller-bag of carryon size. Hurrah for packing cubes and rolling clothing and only two pairs of shoes all summer. I have glorious tan lines from them, by the way - sandal lines from my Chacos and a nice ankle tan from my work shoes (black sneakers). Oh well.

My glorious tan lines...

Back in Seattle I had enough time for laundry, playing with the kitties, going on a date or two with Matt, and even sneaking some Christmas shopping in there because it was a perfect gift that I couldn't pass up. Plus, I got to use my kitchen for the first time in ages and cook myself a meal! You don't miss home-cooked meals until you can't get them...

Oswald is not amused by tan lines.

One thing I did manage to do while I was home was to check something off of my "Summer Ideas" list. You see, back when this job first started I wasn't sure how much time I'd be at home compared to on the road - I thought I'd have lots of days in Seattle between events. (Ha. Ahahahahaha.) So I compiled a list of things to do over the summer that would keep me occupied without spending much money - a poor girl's guide to not being bored all summer long, basically. The list ran the range of activities, from video games I wanted to replay to books I wanted to read to places in Seattle that I wanted to visit.

One of the items on the list was to have a picnic at the Anti-Aircraft Park on Cougar Mountain, which is actually just a few miles up the mountain from where my school is. We'd done a day of service there with the students last May, and I thought it'd be fun to have a picnic there. So when I went up to visit school and say hi to everyone while I was in town, I took some food along with me and managed to have a little picnic in the middle of the day. Not too bad, even if I was pressed for time and couldn't really hike any of the trails!

Go past my school about three miles, and the road turns into this. Keep going another mile, and you're there!

But three days goes quickly, and pretty soon it was time to pack my backpack for a quick jaunt to our next event, New Orleans. Luckily it was a short event, as you'll see, so I'd be coming back into Seattle again afterwards - no need for the carryon roller!
-Beth

Trip 16: Pensacola, Florida

2011-12-24T10:00:00.000-08:00

It was another long driving day from Memphis to Pensacola, but we managed to get there in a single day. J and L took the truck and trailer ahead the same night as our Memphis event to be able to do some set-up earlier, but R, D and I followed in the Tahoe the next day. It was a fun drive down, but a quieter one than usual - normally, we're all fairly social in the car and chat the whole drive down, but for this drive, we were doing work on our laptops for a good deal of it and reading backlogs of papers.

We stopped for lunch in Mississippi at a little family-run gas station and I bought homemade fried chicken and cornbread for lunch, which was amazingly southern and tasty and far better than the Jolly Rancher flavored sodas that we decided to try with them. Also, did you know that there is a camouflaged themed energy drink brand? Me neither. Welcome to the South!

I finished catching up on world news somewhere around Mobile, Alabama, right about when the freeway turned into a huge long freeway bridge over water which took us into Florida.

It was seriously miles long, and actually pretty cool to drive across. It was fairly obvious when we reached Pensacola:

Airplanes and fighter jets everywhere! It's very much a military town; we saw a lot of personnel at the hotel where we stayed, coming in or leaving on orders. We were about five miles down the road from the Air Force Base (and almost accidentally found ourselves on base when we tried to take the Tahoe to get a car wash!).

Once we arrived in town and threw all our things at the hotel, we went over to the site for the upcoming event. It was held at a high school proud to be the home of Emmitt Smith, so of course we got out our football again and played some catch before we started what set up we could in the dark.

There's currently some debate over whether Springfield or Pensacola was our hottest event of the year - I personally vote for Springfield, but I'm in the minority as the others seem to think Pensacola was worse. It was certainly muggier! But by now, we were at least smart when it came to the heat and kept out of it as much as we could in the tent shade and by dumping ice onto each other. I was smart and kept plenty hydrated - no making the same mistake as New York!

I was also cheerful because right after the event ended, I'd get to head to the airport and fly back to Seattle for three whole days before our next event in New Orleans. So I didn't mind resetting all our alligator dummies in the heat when I knew home was coming up soon!

After the event, it was back to the hotel for quick showers in the rooms of those who were staying, and then D, L and I were ferried to the airport for our flight back to Seattle. It was the end of our longest trip downrange: we were back working in Seattle for just under 24 hours around July 11th, but other than that we were downrange July 5th to August 3rd. It was our longest trip out, and all of us were glad for the three upcoming days we'd have off at home before our next round started!

-Beth

July Trip Recap!

2011-12-22T10:00:00.000-08:00

Time for a recap of July, now that I've (finally!) finished recounting my many adventures!

States visited in July: 21!
(some of these were visited more than once, but each only counts the first time!)

Washington
Virginia
Maryland
New York
New Jersey
Delaware
Pennsylvania
North Carolina
Tennessee
Kentucky
Indiana
Illinois
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Iowa
Nebraska
Missouri
Arkansas
Mississippi
Alabama
Florida

Miles driven in July (estimate!): 3,387 miles.

Roanoke to Baltimore, 278 miles.
Islandia, NY to Charlotte, 678 miles.
Charlotte to Indianapolis, 584 miles.
Indianapolis to Springfield, 208 miles.
Springfield to Minneapolis, 531 miles.
Minneapolis to Omaha, 378 miles.
Omaha to Memphis, 730 miles (lots of flooding detours).

Miles flown in July: 7,547 miles.

Seattle to Roanoke via Philadelphia, 2,681 miles.
Baltimore to Seattle via Minneapolis, 2,323 miles.
Seattle to NYC via Cincinnati, 2,543 miles.

Total miles traveled in July: 10,934 miles. (Just barely beat out June!)

Nights spent in hotels: 27.

Nights spent at home: 2.

Nights spent in the air: 2. (Baltimore to Seattle and Seattle to NYC)

Wow... for such a busy month, I expected a lot more miles in July! Still, it just barely beat out June and I'm a little disappointed, especially since I doubt August will match it. Oh well... Still, bragging rights!

-Beth

Trip 15: Memphis, Tennessee

2011-12-20T10:00:00.000-08:00

The drive from Nebraska to Tennessee was slated to take us two days, and we decided to put as much time behind us the first day as we could. After doing a bit of vehicular repair on the Tahoe (where I was once again the one with smallest hands holding fiddly bits inside tight spaces), we all loaded up the cars and headed southeast.

We passed an awful lot of Civil War heritage sites and listened to an awful lot of country music, but the truth is, it was a really long drive. I was with L in the truck and trailer for the whole of it - we basically turned on the radio and left it there the whole way to keep us sane through flooding detours. It was a little exciting, but in a sad way - we had to take quite a few detours because the Missouri River had flooded so badly. So instead of driving along the highways staring at corn, we drove along country roads and stared at corn! The main highway was closed for over fifty miles, so it was a long detour.

We left the hotel at 10:30 in the morning - a really late start, for us - and drove as long as our log hours would let us. We stopped somewhere in Missouri for the night; my journal doesn't even have the city name because we weren't really sure where we were!

We found a hotel at 9:45 that night, pulled in, walked across the street to Denny's for dinner, and basically collapsed. The detours meant we were further behind than expected (again!), so we left early the next morning to finish out the drive. We reached Memphis around 4 in the afternoon - and wow, we were back in the heat again! It was the last day of July and really felt like those sultry southern days you always hear about in songs.... oppressively hot the instant you step outside.

Of course, being the bright girl I am, I decided to go for a walk and explore the mall near our hotel to do some grocery resupplying at Target and the dollar store there. I may have splurged on a slushie for the walk back, but I assure you it was for a good cause! I talked with a security guard in the parking lot on the way back - an older gentleman who seemed a bit bored and told me all about the printing company he ran back in the seventies and eighties "before computers and printers wrecked the business". Very southern, very friendly!

D, L and I found a Japanese buffet just across the parking lot for our hotel, and I have to say, it was the highlight of Memphis. Sushi and hot food and dessert and we went back there for I think every dinner we spent in town. Mmm, tasty!

We had one day off in Memphis - the first of August - and then it was event time! All of us used the day for laundry and lounging around; I did a lot of reading and catching up on emails. So we were somewhat rested for work. It was a later event for us - 5am - but by the time we reached the site it was already ridiculously hot (are you sensing a theme?). It wasn't as bad as Springfield, but it was definitely the second-hottest event we'd run, so we were really feeling it.

If there were any doubt that I'd end the summer with a spectacular farmer's tan it was dispelled!

Still, it was a great event - the local police came out with their anti-drunk-driving example car, and gave a great talk at the end of the event, and we managed to get everything packed up without collapsing. Then it was back to the hotel for packing up - the next day would be off to Pensacola, Florida, our last event of this run and our first event in August!

-Beth

Trip 14: Omaha, Nebraska

2011-12-18T10:00:00.000-08:00

We left Minnesota on July 27, and thus ended our nice midsummer rest period. From there, it was on to our next event in Omaha, Nebraska - but to get there we had to drive straight through Iowa. Not to be unkind to Iowa, but it was not our most exciting trip ever!

L made me drive after a while, as he was really sick of seeing corn! He napped, and every time he napped he would wake up, see more corn, be unhappy about not being out of it yet, and go back to sleep.

I thought I had some pictures, but searching my files, it looks like not. Sorry!

Still, as drives go, it wasn't bad at all. We reached Nebraska about two hours later than planned due to all our detours, checked into our hotel, and lazed about for the rest of the night in recovery. Our hotel was right across the street from where the event would be, which was really nice - we were able to run all our errands the next day, do some minor vehicle cleaning and repairs, and still have enough time to explore the city and do some shopping (I was on the lookout for Underarmor shirts based off D's recommendations, and found two in Omaha - I was not disappointed!).

The free day before the event also gave the city time to recover from the huge storm that had rolled in the night before - there were lots of trees down and a few power outages. It gave us a bit of a relief from the heat and humidity... and all the bugs! There were lots, and I bought a bug-off clip for my belt at a sports store. It worked fairly well and I was impressed by it!

It was another early morning media event (3:30am out of the hotel!), but the event went great and thanks to my new bug-off clip, I remained bug-bite free. Hurrah! For once I wasn't eaten alive! R, D, L and I celebrated a successful day by meeting up at Red Lobster for dinner, which was great fun. Lots of stories, laughter, and biscuits. I tried lobster for the first time ever and discovered that it is quite tasty... though of course I'm sure the butter helped!

The next day saw the beginning of our two-day drive to Memphis, Tennessee...

-Beth

Home Again Home Again....

2011-12-16T10:00:00.000-08:00

So several people have asked recently why I seemingly abandoned the blog halfway through August. There are two reasons, really: firstly, a request from higher-ups that I found eminently reasonable, and secondly, things got really, really busy!

Now that the summer is truly one for the books (and then some... it's been months!), I'm okay to go back and finish out my August recaps and hopefully restart the blog a bit. While there are no upcoming trips in my future, I don't think you'll mind too much if I chat more about what I'm up to here in Seattle, will you?

So stay tuned for a July recap (six months after the fact!), my last month of on-the-road, and an August recap as well. I might even add in what's been happening since I returned to town before I kick off my regular life again! Suffice to say that the really, really busy is hopefully a thing of the past. Hurrah! Free time again!

So until I get proper posts up again, here's a picture to tide you over: my view from school in the morning. In other words, why I've been really busy lately!

-Beth

Trip 13: Minneapolis, Minnesota

2011-08-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

After a fantastic drive through Wisconsin, we arrived for our long stay in Minneapolis - we arrived on July 22, and we didn't leave until July 27... our longest stay anywhere, and it wound up being Minnesota! I was originally scheduled to fly home and have a bit of a break, but due to various circumstances, the company decided it would be better to keep me downrange. I missed not going home, of course, but they were very good about trying to give me as much time off as possible in Minnesota.

We jumped hotels almost every night in Minneapolis - I guess there were lots of events going on that weekend, and so finding a place to stay proved a little more difficult than anticipated.

We visited the Mall of America on our first day in town. It's absolutely huge! Seriously, I think it has more parking than Disneyland, and the entire center of the mall is filled with rides and rollercoasters. We wandered the mall for a few hours and were just overwhelmed by all of it - hundreds of people, and three levels filled with more shops than I had ever heard of. I did take advantage of it and bought myself jeans that fit, though, so I guess I can say I've officially shopped at America's largest mall! (And second-largest, back in Philadelphia's King of Prussia Mall, where I bought sunscreen and chapstick.)

Other than visiting the Mall, the only other activity I did in Minneapolis was to begin being trained on driving the truck and trailer. This meant that I did some class time, some hitch training, and some behind-the-wheel training, as well as training on how to log my hours in compliance with all the trucker laws. Sounds fun, doesn't it?

We had the full weekend off before the event, and none of us really realized how tired we had been until the event rolled around and everything just went insanely smoothly. Three am wake-up calls don't seem so bad when you're full up on sleep! We could all really notice the difference in how we felt at the end of the event since we had so much time to recover before it, and it was really nice to have that break in Minnesota to sleep in for a few days without any work or stress to interrupt it.

Our site at 4 am.

At 4:30 am, it's nice to be alert enough to appreciate the sunrise!

For all the bouncing hotels, the truck and trailer training, and the fact that we did have an event to run, it almost felt like Minnesota was "time off". The usual trifecta of laundry, letters, and grocery shopping was achieved without feeling rushed for time. Plus, I got a call from friends in Spokane announcing their engagement, so despite the crazy freeway systems in Minneapolis, I really enjoyed Minnesota!

Also, we stayed in Minnetonka, a suburb of Minneapolis, in Minnesota, near Minnehaha Creek. If, like me, you were curious about what on earth that minne in all those words means, the answer is: water. It's an old Dakota word. And it makes sense, as Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes (with 12 in Minneapolis alone!).

After how restful Minneapolis was, it was a bit hard to leave. Still, we left the day after the event to drive south to the furthest west we've been all tour: Omaha, Nebraska. Of course, we had to drive through Iowa to get there, and as L lamented, it was about 380 straight miles of corn...

-Beth

Trip 12: Springfield, Illinois

2011-08-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

The day after our Indianapolis football debut, we were on the road again like all good teams. We were off to Springfield, Illinois!

I will admit to sleeping through most of this drive, even though it wasn't too long - after a while the tired just catches up to you!

When we arrived, the heat index was at 127 degrees, and it stayed that way for the entire time we were in town. Despite being the land of Lincoln, I was tired enough that I decided to take the city off - we'd had some recovery time in Charlotte, but at this point I was just off of my medication and wanted to take things a bit easy. Unfortunately, that meant I missed out on seeing the old downtown Springfield, which is by all accounts amazing and a great tribute to the era of Lincoln.

On the other hand, it meant that I spent a lazy first afternoon in town doing laundry (exciting, I know), and hung out with D and L all the next day. We went to Lake Springfield, where we'd planned on renting Wave Runners for the afternoon, but they turned out to be so expensive that the guys only rented them for a half hour, and I only paid to tag along with one of them, not for my own rental.

Still, that half hour out on the water was an absolute blast. Not only was it a great way to see the lake - tons of fish jumping, and really wild shorelines with just trees right down to the water, no beaches, and lots of birds and waterfowl along the shore - but it was really a ton of fun. I rode behind D and almost fell off a few times, but we caught air and splashed at L and in general loved every second of it. It's like motorcycles on water; seriously, I need to do this again!

Because we couldn't spend the whole afternoon out on the lake like planned, we decided we'd go to the water park just down the road from our hotel since it was still 90-some degrees in the shade (heat index of 126, today). We arrived at about 4 pm, and the guys got a little sidetracked by the other offerings of the park, so we went first to the driving range, where D showed us all up and I attempted real, non-mini-golf for the first time (results were so-so).

L's awesome skillz.

Then we went to the batting cages, where I was a failure but still won by not getting smacked by the slightly-off-track pitches like L did. We decided then to head into the water park - only to find out that they'd be closing in an hour. Seriously? It's 100 degrees out, and the sun stays out til 9 pm - why would a water park close at 6 pm? I still don't get it.

The sun at 8:30 pm.

But it was probably for the best - we went back to the hotel in time for our pre-event meeting and did some set up at the site before coming back and crashing.

The event then next day was hot. Really, really hot - our hottest yet. Don't get me wrong, it was still very successful - but it was so hot that even the media decided it was too hot to have an event. Luckily the on-site agents agreed, and it was a short event, but it still took us nearly an hour longer to set up, and probably twice that to tear everything down.

What can I say, the water guns were an excellent purchasing decision.

The next day saw the drive up to Minneapolis, Minnesota, for our next event, which took us through one of my new favorite states, Wisconsin. Why is it one of my new favorites? Well, aside from the beautiful scenery and geography, you can buy fresh cheese curls at the gas stations. Also, the Amish set up bake sales at the gas stations, and they have really good cookies.

Like I said before, I've got my priorities straight!

-Beth

Trip 11: Indianapolis, Indiana

2011-08-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

Our first day in Indianapolis was another rest day - not a reset day for our driving hours, but an extra day built into the schedule in case it took longer for us to drive north than expected. We had a meeting in the morning, and then spent the afternoon lazing about before doing dinner with the local event agents.

The next day we went out to our event site - one of the parking lots for Lucas Oil Stadium, where the Indianapolis Colts play. I have to say, it was probably the coolest site we've been at so far!

D and I before the event started, in our oh-so-lovely uniforms!

It was hot, but we managed to stay cool and hydrated. I was off of my "happy pills", so I was allowed to drive and help out more again... so I very considerately made sure that everyone else was keeping hydrated as well, by judicious use of my newly-acquired squirt guns. Water guns + cooler ice water + coworkers = glory.

After the event, though, came the best part - a private tour of Lucas Oil Stadium! The lady who gave us the tour really loved taking us around. We visited the private boxes, the press boxes, and a lot of the behind-the-scenes rooms like the press rooms and the interview rooms. The stadium is only a few years old, and it looks really great since they're getting it ready for the upcoming Super Bowl.

We got to go into the locker rooms... guess who's locker this is?

...And out onto the field itself! That was clearly the best part of the tour. D had bought a football in Charlotte, and we brought it with us to play some catch down on the fake grass. We had a blast running around - even though it was still ridiculously hot out and all of us were pretty tired from the event!

J2, J, D, R, me, and L. We will mess you up (even if J is penalized for a false start).

All the guys kicked field goals, but since I was wearing sandals (I wouldn't have changed if I'd known field goals were in the works!) I contented myself with doing front handsprings on the 50 yard line. There's my bragging rights for the summer!

me, D, L, R, J2 (hiding) and J. J2 was just out for this event; otherwise, that's the summer team!

We just had an absolute blast playing around in that stadium - really, one of the funnest afternoons of the trip so far. And it turned out to be L's birthday, as well, so we wound up going out to dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe in celebration that night! Not a bad way to say farewell to Indy...

-Beth

Trip 10: Charlotte, North Carolina

2011-08-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

Charlotte's event was the morning after we arrived late into town because I had to stop to see a doctor in Virginia. Basically, I didn't drink enough water in New York and that caused some problems! I was put on light duty for four days, which luckily only translated to the Charlotte event and some driving days, but it meant that I couldn't lift more than 15 pounds and wasn't allowed to drive because of my medication. So I took the Charlotte event fairly easy - I ran the scoreboard instead of running around out in the heat.

Still, the event went well, and my coworkers were all really understanding. After a while, they got tired of me apologizing and told me all the stories of what else had happened on these trips in years past, and proved that me finding a doctor was small change compared to some of their stories!

After the event, we actually had enough time to stay in Charlotte and recharge. Every so often, we need to stay still for 34 hours to reset our driving hours, and Charlotte wound up being the place to do it for this time around. We didn't do too much - I walked to the Staples nearby to pick up a converter for my iPod to listen to it in the car, and D, L and I went to a restaurant called Upscale for some of the best food we've had all tour. L had been raving about this place from last year, and it did in fact live up to expectations. I tried fried okra, which was really pretty good (though weird)! Other than that, it was just a day to relax. I did some laundry, wrote some letters, and in general took things easy!

The next day, our hours reset, we started the long drive up to Indianapolis, Indiana. I still wasn't allowed to drive (everyone was calling my medication my "happy pills"... apparently my first few hours on them were fairly entertaining for L on the drive into Charlotte), so I acted as passenger and navigator again. I was a bit bummed, though - not how I wanted to spend Matt's birthday, hundreds of miles away from him!

Most importantly, though, on the way into Indianapolis I bought water guns. These would prove important later, oh yes...

-Beth

(Sorry no pictures... my camera batteries both died early in July, and my cell phone pictures didn't always turn out!)

Trip 09: Long Island, New York... and travel!

2011-08-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

So if you remember right, we flew to Seattle on a crazy long Friday, ran an event on Sunday, and flew out of Seattle on that Sunday on a red-eye flight to New York. As you can imagine, the three of us were utterly exhausted! We left Seattle just before midnight on Sunday, and arrived in New York's La Guardia Airport right around 11:30 am on Monday. Then we took a car to our hotel on Long Island, which meant it was nearly 1:00 pm before we were able to collapse in our hotel rooms!

As you can imagine, I slept as much as possible. I remember next to nothing about either the flight into Cincinnati or the one from there to New York, and the car ride to the hotel is just a long, hot blur. There was much collapsing to be had at our hotel! We woke up that evening to go out to look at our event site for the next day and to have a meeting to prep for the event, which wound up going until 11:30 that night. Luckily, our wakeup call was at 6 the next morning - if it had been another 3 am wake-up call, I don't think we would have managed it!

The event went very well, but it was really hot again. I was stupid and didn't drink enough water, and on top of my lack of sleep, this would come back to bite me later! But we ran a great event, everyone had a good time, and once we packed everything up, it was L, D, and I leaving directly from the event to start the drive to Charlotte, North Carolina.

The only picture I have of Long Island - our hotel's parking lot. Who would have expected so much green in Long Island?

We left straight from the event, with the goal to get as far as possible before we ran out of hours for the day (we have to follow the same rules as truckers regarding our hours spent driving in a day or week). This meant we were headed towards (dun dun dun) New York City. At rush hour. With a truck towing a sixteen-foot trailer.

L, being amazing, was driving the truck, and I was along with him as navigator and general extra pair of eyes for getting the truck and trailer through New York City. At first, it wasn't too bad of a drive - the closer we got to the city, of course, the more traffic, but all in all not too bad.

We started to recognize the skyline as we got closer and closer - L really loves NYC's skyline, but I have to admit, while impressive, I'd rather look at mountains or natural scenery instead. So we bickered about that for a while as we approached the tunnel into Manhattan...

Then disaster struck. We were pulled over to be inspected before the tunnel - the inspection was fine and half-expected, so it didn't take us more than five minutes before the security guys let us go. The problem was, the lane they had us enter for the inspection? Wound up putting us into the wrong lane to enter the tunnel. Which wound up putting us into the wrong lane to exit the tunnel.

Which put us in Manhattan.

In the truck and trailer.

In rush hour.

Seriously, it was awful. I can now say I've driven past Times Square (who knew there's a GameSpot right next to it) and right past the Empire State Building, Parson's School of Design, and who knows how many other famous NYC landmarks. I can't say I noticed much - I was too busy being terrified. Seriously, no one knows how to drive in NYC. And if you think the drivers are bad, the pedestrians are even worse - everyone in the city crosses streets like they're immortal and don't even need to look for cars.

Oh, and did I mention that some streets are autos only, no trailers? And that you only find this out right before you try to turn into them, rendering most forms of navigation very unreliable?

Eeesh, things I never want to do again - that's definitely on the list. L was a god of driving to safely navigate us through the city to the Lincoln Tunnel out of that hellhole. I never thought that I would sing the praises of arriving in New Jersey, but good grief, I was so glad to put NYC behind us!

We drove along the New Jersey Turnpike for about another hour before we had to stop for the night, and I have to say, the roads there were definitely more my style:

After a quick overnight stop, we woke early the next morning to keep driving to Charlotte. I was majorly impressed with the NJ turnpike - and we even listened to Simon and Garfunkel's "America" while we were on it!

However, just after lunch, the exhaustion and lack of hydration in Long Island caught up with me, and a muscle in my neck spasmed badly enough that we had to pull over and seek medical attention somewhere in Virginia. Luckily, being my favorite state on the tour, Viriginia's doctors knew what was wrong, gave me some medication for my neck, fixed my electrolytes, and put me on light duty before sending me right back on my way with orders to keep myself hydrated! D and L were really good to me throughout the whole thing, and when L and I arrived fairly late into Charlotte, the others let us sleep in as much as possible!

-Beth

Trip 08: Baltimore, Maryland

2011-08-05T08:00:00.000-07:00

After our stormy stay in Virginia, it was time to head northeast to Baltimore, Maryland. I drove for most of the way, so I wasn't able to record as many sights in my "to investigate later" list, but I did have two points that I remembered long enough to jot down in my journal later: Why is the National D-Day Memorial in the middle of inland Virginia? Also, Carl's Jrs. are called Hardee's here, but otherwise appear identical. (I still don't know the answer to that first one yet, and Hardee's are clearly inferior to Carl's Jrs. as they do not have Western Bacon Cheeseburgers. No contest.)

I loved Virginia - it remains so far my favorite state to have visited this summer (Tennessee and Wisconsin currently round up my top three, as of the end of July). It was so green, with all the rolling hills and mountains and rivers that you'd expect of John Denver country. We did, in fact, listen to "Take Me Home, Country Roads" in Virginia, and it was awfully cool to drive past signs pointing out various locations in the song: Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River...

But it was onto Baltimore for the next event. We arrived and settled into a hotel that was far too downtown for my liking - I do not like downtowns; I have had this point hammered home many times this trip! I maintain I'm a country girl... or at least, a suburban girl! - but the plus side of the very downtown-ness was that we were just a few blocks from the harbor.

Aside from the Constellation, which was at dock, we weren't amazingly impressed with the harbor, though seeing a submarine docked by the aquarium was pretty cool. But we decided to do dinner together for J's birthday at a sushi place overlooking the water, and had an added bonus when we sat outside on the balcony.

There are two important things to note in this photo: first, those dark and very threatening clouds overhead. I'll get back to those! Second, see that obviously-man-made fortification directly across the bay? That would be Fort McHenry. For those not completely obsessed with history like me, think the War of 1812 and Francis Scott Key - when the British failed to bomb out the fort, the flag flying from the fort's flagpole inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner". Not bad for a dinner overlook!

We had some really tasty sushi out on the restaurant's balcony, the only people brave enough to sit outside in the face of those nasty clouds. We were treated to another spectacular lightning storm over dinner, complete with another torrential downpour! We just cracked a lot of jokes about being from Seattle and thus used to rain and stayed right where we were (thankfully under a canopy!).

It was a great show with dinner. We could watch the rain as it came towards us over the water, and see lightning striking all around. We even had a rainbow come out over the submarine by the aquarium, and we timed our dash back to the hotel for when the rain let up slightly. Still, it was a crazy storm - the tv and radio played warnings to "take shelter within sturdy buildings". I was slightly amused at the "sturdy" part of that warning... shouldn't it be understood? We wound up losing the tv signal because of all the interference back at the hotel from the storm.

I went to bed fairly early, but woke up to add to my journal: It is incredibly freaky to see lightning out your window - like an actual line of lightning, not just the flash - when you know darn well you can't even see the sky out that window, just the many-storied building across the street. It was an intense storm!

Still, storm or no storm, we had an event the next day. The rain actually held off until about a half-hour before the event ended, but we were set up in the stadium lot in Baltimore and were able to put everyone under a freeway overpass (which actually had a waterfall going for a while, it was raining so hard!). Luckily, the rain only lasted about forty minutes - once everyone left and we started cleaning up, the rain stopped and so we were able to remain relatively dry. Which was definitely a blessing, since L, D and I went straight from the event back to shower at the hotel and run to the airport for a flight back to Seattle for another event!

Ah, but this was our very long Friday! We left the hotel for the event at 4:30 am. We left the hotel for our flight at about 3 pm. After a bit of a worry in the airport because of weather (that same storm shut down the airport for about an hour, and there were lots of canceled flights), we were able to board our flight back to Seattle, where we arrived at about 12:30 am on Saturday. But because of the time change, it was really 3:30 am to the rest of us... a 23 hour day!

Luckily, we had that Saturday off, but then we ran a full day event in Seattle on Sunday. No time to really do much afterwards - we were on a red-eye flight to Long Island Sunday night for our next event!

-Beth

Trip 06: Roanoke, VA

2011-08-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

We flew into Roanoke on July 5, the first of our long mid-summer trip. It was hot and humid when we arrived, and we went straight from the airport to our event site (seeing the world, one parking lot at a time!). We were able to block everything off early, and reached our hotel at 10:30 that night.

Sunset was gorgeous, but should have warned us what we were in for...

I will quote from my journal to describe how the event day started:

3:00 am. Alarm goes off. Thunder and lightning occasionally. No rain.

3:02 am. Matt texts me from Seattle to say he just arrived home from game night.

3:28 am. Leave hotel to go to site.

3:31 am. Start site set-up. Watch lightning move closer.

4:30 am. Finish set-up. Media arrives. Prep for media.

4:50 am. Lightning storm directly overhead.

4:55 am. Media on hold due to lightning - they can't put up their broadcast tower.

5:00 am. Rain starts. Set up rain flies on tent. Media is supposed to be starting now; still on hold.

5:30 am. Media cannot broadcast in lightning. Media leaves site. We leave site.

5:45 am. Reach hotel bed. Sleep.

7:00 am. Wake up. Round 2.

7:15 am. Leave hotel to go to site. Rain's stopped.

7:30 am. Team meeting, minor course corrections.

8:00 am. Break out journal, chips, and pop. Wait for...

9:00 am. Event start.

I would like to say that this is a typical schedule, except usually we don't get to go back to the hotel for sleep because of thunderstorms. Still, we hadn't seen anything yet. The event ran just fine, and ended around noon. Just as we started to take everything down, the skies just about split and rain just poured down. I really don't think I've ever seen it rain that hard before in my life. We were soaked through in seconds - and it takes us about two hours to strike our course, usually, so imagine how wet we were at the end!

Oh, and the lightning came back too, just as we were taking down our 10'x10' tents - you know, the ones with the huge metal support poles and metal struts. I've never been so close to lightning before. The hair on our arms was standing up, and we could hear the crackle in the air before we saw the bolt hit. One struck so close that the four of us standing outside the trailer working on the tent all jumped about ten feet, ducking and moving away from the tent as we did. First time I've heard a few of my coworkers swear, right there! We realized we basically had two options: 1) run like little girls, or 2) finish tearing down the tent so we could run like little girls in vehicles. We chose option 2!

The vehicle seats were still soaking wet the next day when we got ready for our drive, and it was barely five minutes from the site back to our hotel room.

Of course, by that evening the storm had spent itself out, and our whole crew rented a taxi to head toward the old market. It was J's birthday the next day, so we went out for barbecue together. I finally found my hush puppies, something I'd been looking for the whole time we'd been in the South in June! They were ridiculously tasty and worth the search.

I know, I have my priorities straight while traveling!

-Beth

Fourth of July Break!

2011-08-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

Luckily enough, we were all allowed to go home for the Fourth of July. Can I say how great it was to be at home with no plans to move for a while? We didn't even have too much planned for the Fourth itself - just hanging out with friends and family, a really low-key day. I didn't even stay up to see the fireworks, I was so focused on catching up on my sleep!

There was a lot of catch-up in other areas, too: I made cookies, paid bills in advance so I wouldn't have to worry about them on the road, ate all the junk food and real cooking that I can't get out on the road, resupplied my Kindle with books (not that I'd have a chance to read them, more on that later...), and hung out as much as possible with all my Seattle people.

Guilty pleasure: eating pizza while making sure my mini laptop is updated. Love my tablecloth, but not so much the classy folding kitchen table...

Time was also spent hanging out with Matt and the kitties, who I'm sure have practically forgotten my existence by now, as I've been gone for so long!

It was great weather while I was in town, too - I moved to Seattle last August, but then promptly went back to Spokane to work at GU for another three weeks, so I have yet to truly experience a Seattle summer. And I'm definitely not getting the chance this summer! Still, it was the perfect temperature and sunny out - I wanted to plan a few picnics, but we didn't really have enough time.

Instead, the day after the Fourth of July, the July trips began... the Trip to End All Trips!

-Beth

June Trip Recap!

2011-07-31T08:00:00.000-07:00

Even though it's July as I write this (and August, probably, until it goes up!) I've finally finished my June trip posts and wanted to show off a bit of a June by the numbers!

States Visited in June: 8

Washington (obviously!)
Florida
Georgia
South Carolina
North Carolina
Virginia
Maryland
Pennsylvania

Miles driven in June (estimate): 904 miles.

Atlanta to Philadelphia, 798 miles.
Philadelphia to Harrisburg, 106 miles.

Miles flown in June (estimate): 9,945 miles.

Seattle to Tampa via Chicago, 2,727 miles.
Tampa to Seattle via Atlanta, 2,586 miles.
Seattle to Atlanta, 2,180 miles.
Harrisburg to Seattle via Philadelphia, 2,452 miles.

Total miles traveled in June: 10,849.

Nights spent in hotels: 12.

Nights spent at home: 18.

Eep! That's a lot of travel, especially considering that all of these trips started halfway through June. Just wait for July's recap to put this to shame... driving miles, at least!

-Beth

Trip 05: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

2011-07-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

The very first day we were in Harrisburg, PA, we went exploring - we didn't have too much time, and we wanted to try to see as much as we could!

Harrisburg is Civil War territory, which is probably why the National Civil War Museum is there. We went out the same afternoon we arrived in town and managed to make it into the museum before it closed.

It was a fantastic museum, with lots of great exhibits, and there were some reenactors out back who showed off troop formation and rifle drills. We had a ton of fun exploring it.

We talked about waking up early the next morning to go to Gettysburg, which was only about a forty minute drive out of town. Unfortunately, our event the next morning was too early for us to be able to make it back on time, so we didn't get out to see the National Park. Sad day! So close and yet so far...

But we had an event, which went off beautifully, and then it was off to the airport for our first break from everything! We flew back home for the 4th of July, and got almost a full week back in Seattle to rest and recuperate and prepare for the long haul... which I'm still in as I prepare this blog post! We don't have internet access too often, so I'm trying to write posts as best I can.

Our June trips, looking back on them now, were fairly calm and pretty well spaced out. Our July trips... well, let's just say things were busier! More on that to come...

-Beth

Philly Day Trip: Valley Forge

2011-07-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

On our last day in Philadelphia, we packed everything up and drove all of five minutes down the very road our hotel was on to visit Valley Forge National Park, where George Washington and the Continental Army spent the winter of 1777-1778. I was really excited to see the park - the eighth graders had watched a DVD on it during this past school year, and I've read a few books set in that time period. I thought it would be a lot of fun to see it all first-hand.

The park is basically a valley (hence the name) surrounded by what folks back east like to call "mountains" but the lot of us Westerners call "hills". Two ridges connect behind the valley, with a river on the other corner, and the troops built up fortifications around the remaining side (which has a great view of Philadelphia). The Park Service has a road that runs all around the edge of this valley, with a bit of a joiner road between right down the middle, and you can drive your car through the ten to twelve miles or so and stop at all the exhibit points.

Part of the Valley... with a cannon and dirt fortification from an old watch point.

So how did we decide to tour the park?

Mine's the one up front!

By bike! We pulled up to the park and saw that you could rent bicycles, so we decided that would be the best way to see as much of the land as we could. While Valley Forge is, contrary to what one would expect from a valley, definitely not flat, it was an amazing way to see the whole park. I really got a great feel from the land and the way the terrain spread out. In a car, I don't think I would have realized the sheer expansive domain of the place - but on a bike, every half mile or so I'd pass a sign that would commemorate which company camped in that particular location of the valley, and I'd realize just how large that winter encampment must have been. In a car, it takes barely a half hour to go around the park and you don't really understand what it must have been like before cars - on bikes, we spent four or five hours just to traverse the valley, and it definitely gave us a better feel for the terrain and what it must have been like to be a soldier trudging around on foot (or even an officer on a horse!).

Standing by a reconstructed cabin.

We stopped everywhere we could, in part because we were all so curious about everything and in part because I, at least, hadn't been on a bike in a few years! The reconstructed cabins were small, but not as bad as I'd expected - they'd be crowded with six soldiers in them, but not unbearably so, and they looked like they wouldn't been too bad to weather a winter inside.

Valley Forge today is very grassy, with just bits and pieces of woodlands scattered throughout it. Apparently it wasn't that way when the Army arrived - within the first few weeks, anything that could be used for building or firewood was torn down and put to use, and the valley was apparently a mud pit for months afterwards. It's incredible to think that parts of it still haven't recovered after more than two hundred years.

See those nice clouds? They neglected to rain on us, drat them.

It was of course a very hot day - somewhere in the eighties, with the humidity about as high. We all were hoping for the threatened rain, but it held off and we simply suffered in the heat. We stopped at a huge archway erected in honor of the soldiers from that winter, which had all of the generals listed on it - it was fun to later look at my pictures and match the generals to the people I'd read about in my books!

We also stopped at the Washington Chapel, a church inside the valley itself. It had some beautiful stained glass artwork (which of course photographed horribly) and had a different window dedicated to each of the states. More importantly, it was holding a flea market outside and we were able to buy water, hot dogs, and ice cream - we hadn't planned on biking through the park (and thus through lunchtime) and we were by then famished!

Still, the highlight of the whole tour definitely had to be visiting Washington's headquarters at the far end of Valley Forge. We passed what had once been the muster grounds, where the Army learned drills from the Prussians, and went another three or four miles into the valley, where we found the house George Washington rented out during the winter. Keep in mind, rented - that's important, when part of what the patriots were fighting for was the right not to have to billet soldiers in their personal homes! (Remember the Third Amendment, anyone?)

They were actually excavating in the backyard, archaeological grids and all...

It was a gorgeous three-story brick house about 200 feet away from the creek, with a barn to the right of it. The whole downstairs was converted into central command, except for that little part jutting out to the left of the house - that's actually the detached kitchen, connected by a covered passageway, so the oven and hearth wouldn't overheat the house in the summer! All the rooms were restored and furnished with antiques that would have been used back then, and it was an absolute blast to walk through the house and see how things would have looked (social historian that I am, I loved it).

By then, we were tired, hungry, thirsty, and had spent far more time than we'd planned exploring the park. So we headed back to the Visitor's Center to return our bikes!

Not before multitasking and photographing while biking...

It was an absolutely perfect way to visit Valley Forge. Despite my aching legs, it really gave me a better sense of the land and what it might have looked like back in 1777 - and of course, the park itself is simply gorgeous, regardless of the historical events surrounding it! We saw more than a dozen deer as we were going through, and being just away enough from the main road and the cars, we weren't too troubled by huge crowds of people at any point (bugs, on the other hand...).

Coworker D and one of the rare shady spots on the path!

Still, we were famished, so we weren't too sad to leave Valley Forge. We returned our bikes, hitched up the trailer, and headed out on the open road for an afternoon drive to Harrisburg, PA... where we'd skip forward in time from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War!

You can tell I'm a history person when I keep track of where I've been by what happened there long before I ever arrived...

-Beth

Philly Day Trip: The Old City

2011-07-05T08:00:00.000-07:00

Our first free day in Philadelphia was Friday - and it was my third full day off in the month of June, so you bet I was ready to do no work at all! We walked to the mall, took a bus to the train station, and took the train into downtown Philadelphia, where we walked to what everyone calls "the Old City"... revolutionary Philly! The funniest part of the trip in was at the train station, where D bought the newspaper after we realized that J's picture was on the front page from our event yesterday... I was on the cover, too, but he earned a spot above the fold, so there was much hilarity at his expense!

Our goals for the trip to the Old City were simple: see Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. Other than that, we didn't really have any plans. So we stopped in at the Visitor's Center as soon as we arrived to grab our free tickets for the Independence Hall tour - the tickets are free, but you have to have one to enter the building and they "sell" out quickly. We arrived about 10:30, and our tickets were for 3:30 that afternoon, leaving us hours to explore the historic district before it was time for the tour.

There's a whole "historic district" that makes up the Old City, and most of it is actually part of a National Park (Independence National Park, I think, or something like that). It was a bit funny to be seeing Park Rangers in the middle of a city!

We picked a direction and were off, with no real plans as to what we'd find. We wound up seeing an old Quaker meeting house, one of the first fire stations in America (complete with a Ben Franklin statue), the Betsy Ross house, and Elfreth Alley (apparently the oldest residential street in America).

The Quaker meeting house.

But the real highlights were Christ Church Cemetery, and a few blocks later, the actual Christ Church itself. Benjamin Franklin and five other signers of the Declaration of Independence are buried in the cemetery, including Dr. Rush. It was a fantastic place to visit, and well worth the $2 admission fee - the graveyard was beautiful, surrounded by an old brick wall to keep it separate from the more modern city beyond it.

The main pathway in the cemetary.

There are over 4,400 people buried in this tiny cemetery, but only 1,300 or so markers remain. Most of the markers are made of slate, and the etchings on them are in various stages of legibility due to the passing of time (and acid rain, I was told). The oldest legible stone dates from 1723.

Most markers were about as worn as this one, of a husband and wife. Some had little plaques put up to show what the inscription had been before they wore away - the man in charge of the cemetery in the 1840s copied down as many inscriptions as he could before they vanished.

There were several signers of the Declaration of Independence buried in Christ Church Cemetery, and for the most part people had put little American flags next to their graves to identify them. But at least one of them was buried in an unmarked or unfound grave, and of course the most famous occupant of the graveyard is Benjamin Franklin, who is buried right by the fence (at his request, actually, so people don't actually have to enter the cemetery to see the gravestone!). People throw their pennies onto his slab... I guess they didn't pay too much attention to that whole "a penny saved" thing!

We really enjoyed exploring the cemetery - it was very pretty and peaceful, in an elegant old type of way. Because we liked it so much, we decided to carry on down the street to go to the actual church it belonged to: Christ Church, where a number of the founding fathers had attended services.

The bell tower at Christ Church.

The church was impressive, though fairly plain - such an old brick building. We were all really impressed by how skilled brickworkers back then had been! The grounds around the church were very pretty, with more tombs and slabs in honor of Philadelphia's older citizenry, including a few more signers of the Declaration.

I wound up buying a book about the signers in the church's book shop: . It's a look at all the different signers of the Declaration of Independence, and what their lives were like leading them up to 1776 and what happened to them afterwards. I read it on the plane back from Harrisburg, and really enjoyed it. I'm going to be using bits and pieces of it with the 8th graders next year, I think, as it's exactly the right tone for them: a survey rather than a huge comprehensive study, full of odd little memorable facts and tidbits that make life then very real, and with just enough humor that they shouldn't be too bored. I know I liked it!

From Christ Church, we decided to work our way back towards Independence Hall. We stopped in at a used bookshop at J's recommendation, and I found a reprinting of the old Primers used in schools through the 1910s, grades 1 through 6. I'm going to keep it on my desk at school for the kids to flip through when they don't have work to do... the level 6 primer contains readings I didn't do until college, so I'd love to see what the kids make of their "below my grade level" books!

We stopped by Elfreth's Alley (and doesn't that sound like something out of Harry Potter?) to see what residential streets of the 1700s looked like. The answer? Narrow!

Elfreth Alley, typical house width: nine to sixteen feet.

By then, it was well past lunch time, so we stopped for a classic Philly cheese steak before continuing on. We passed Locksley Alley, which looked just as old and narrow as Elfreth:

We still had about an hour before our tour of Independence Hall, so we decided to stop by a few of the other buildings in the area. We went through a security check to enter the U.S. Mint, and poked around the Constitution Center but didn't enter the exhibit (we weren't willing to pay $12 to stare at displays for the half-hour we had before our tour!).

Instead, we went back to the Visitor's Center so I could pick up another book: . I read this on the plane back from Harrisburg, too (what can I say, I devour books and it was almost five hours of flying!). I really enjoyed it, and got through the military history all right, but the best part was really looking at the Battle of Boston and seeing the differences between the British Redcoats and the American Continental Army. I wish it had continued on past 1776 - it stopped right after the Battle of Trenton, and I would have loved to see it take on the Southern Campaign and the Battle of Yorktown. But then, I'm a history nerd!

And as a history nerd, I was of course thrilled when we were able to head into Independence Hall for our tour. We had the loudest ranger ever as our tour guide, but he did a great job telling the story of the building, both as the Pennsylvania government building and as Independence Hall.

The room where the Declaration was signed, and later the Constitution. The chair in the center in the back is George Washington's chair, with the "rising sun" of the Constitution!

It was really, really neat to see firsthand the room where everything took place. Afterwards, we went out into the courtyard behind the building, and reenactors recited most of the Declaration of Independence (they left out the List of Grievances, otherwise it would have been very long!). It was honestly amazing - the first time a reading of a political document has given me chills.

That seemed to be a great culminating point of the day, so from there we bought smoothies to fight the heat of the day (about 85 degrees, with a drop in humidity to only 90%) and went back to the train station for the trip back to the hotel, where I promptly began reading my book about the signers. I'm predictable!

Oh, and we did see the Liberty Bell, too, as it turned out - you could either wait in a really long line to enter the building it's housed in and file past the the bell, or you could sneak around the back to see it through a plexiglass wall. Guess which one we decided made more sense? Yup, we didn't bother to wait in line, and decided we were all good with seeing it through a glass wall. Maybe that's why I was a bit underwhelmed by it - yes, it's a cool bell, but honestly it didn't make that big of an impact on me!

Over dinner, we set our plans for the next day: we'd explore in the morning, and then after lunch we'd pack everything up and drive out to Harrisburg. Where would we explore?

Oh, just a little National Park about two miles down the road from our hotel called Valley Forge...

-Beth

Trip 04: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

2011-07-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

All things considered, I enjoyed Philadelphia far more than I expected to!

We arrived about noon, ending our multi-day trek north from Atlanta. Our hotel was right across the street from our event location: the King of Prussia Mall. It's apparently the largest retail mall in America (the Mall of America is the largest mall, but doesn't count as a retail mall because it has a rollercoaster... or something like that), and having seen roughly half of it, ohmygosh it's huge. We wound up using the mall for it's Rite Aid (in a mall!) and food court and air conditioning, but that place was pretty high class and absolutely huge. It was basically two different two-story indoor malls, both huge, connected to each other by a walkway crosswalk. Seriously, the mall had city streets running through the parking lots, it was that big.

Anyways, we arrived and settled in nicely, because our event was the very next day in the afternoon. We still went out early in the morning to set everything up, and finished in time to run into the mall for lunch and an air-conditioned reprieve from the 97% humidity of the day. Eek, is all I have to say to that!

The event ran fairly smoothly, though S had to leave to catch his flight back home halfway through things. We managed to do the take-down one man short, and then the on-site agents in Philadelphia offered to take us out to dinner. So we spent dinner having really great burgers and discussing all the different places we should see while we were in Philadelphia! It was great to have the local advice on everything, and we plotted out the next day and half to take advantage of everything we had available to us. R flew home that night, so it would be just D and J and I exploring the city!

We had an absolute blast - so much so that our day and half of exploring deserves two whole posts of their own! So stay tuned... more to come!

-Beth

Trip 03: Atlanta, Georgia... and travel!

2011-07-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

A cross-country flight early in the morning saw me arriving in Atlanta, Georgia by early evening their time, all ready for the start of my longest trip in June.

I have absolutely no idea what mountain this is - Rainer, maybe? It was early in the flight across the country.

I flew into town the day before our event, so it turned out that I didn't have a chance to see much of the city beyond the parking lot we had our event in. Still, you get just such a sense of history out there - we were chatting with our waiter at dinner that first night, and he told us about some of the houses in his neighborhood, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's father had preached, and stories of the Underground Railroad. I really regretted not being able to see more of the city, but it turned out that our event was in a pretty cool parking lot... Well, as cool as parking lots can get!

We were just across the street from Turner Field, where the Atlanta Braves play. The day before I flew in, my coworkers J and D actually went to the parking lot to scope out the site and decided to go to a Braves game on a whim... and tickets were only a dollar! We were marveling that to park right in front of the stadium in the very first lot only cost $12. Try getting that price in Seattle or San Diego anywhere within a mile of a major stadium! But alas, the rest of us missed out on baseball.

Turner Field.

The other neat thing that we could see from our parking lot was at the end of the street: the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Park. We were right by the archways leading into the park, and could see the old tower where the torch was displayed. I remembered seeing it on tv back in 1996, so it was pretty cool to see live!

If you squint, you can totally see the torch tower...

Atlanta wound up being even hotter than Tampa, and even more humid. We were in the parking lot for the morning, and had to be out by 2 in the afternoon as there was a baseball game that night. We'd decided that our goal would be to try to pack up everything after the event finished at noon in record speed, so that we'd have time to walk across the street to see the old baseball stadium (they had the old walls up, and markers where the bases had been) and down the street into the old Olympic Park. But media showed up late, so we didn't even get to start packing up until after 1pm... so much for that plan!

The sun came up at about 6am... and it started getting hot at about 6am! Coincidence?

This was the first event where we really noticed the effect of the heat and humidity. We had those little neckerchief things that you soak in water to help cool yourself down, and boy, did those feel good for five minutes! Still, at the end of the afternoon, the effects of the heat were really slowing us down. We were being good and downing water and trying to keep ourselves cool, but as we were finishing up, it was almost comical how slow we were all thinking. The entire trailer was loaded up except for a few last-minute things (coolers and inflatable pool toys, among others) which usually just get wedged in where there's room at the end of things. This time, we all kind of stared at them for a while before we remembered what we were supposed to do with them!

I wrote in my journal: News reports put it at 93 degrees, but the car read 101 degrees - it sure felt like it! I finished 5 bottles of water and a Gatorade by 10am, and just kept chugging the rest of the day.

How to tell it was really, really hot out... this is what I look like after packing up an event!
Such a glorious tan line from the neck of my uniform shirt...

Needless to say, we didn't have time to explore the area, which was a bit of a bummer. On the other hand, we were all really grateful for the air conditioned vehicles!

We left directly from the parking lot in Atlanta, heading north for our next event in Philadelphia. Because of laws about how long we could drive the trailer, we knew that we could only stay on the road for a few hours. We were hoping to make it to Charlotte, North Carolina, but between a stop at Starbucks (seriously, our crew is so obviously from Seattle: it seems like we can't go a day without finding a Starbucks for coffee!), a weigh station, and a gas stop, we only made it to Greenville, South Carolina. Each stop only made us more grateful for the AC in the cars... man, it was hot and humid! My coworker S's glasses actually fogged every time he stepped out of the air-conditioned Tahoe, it was so humid. In my journal I noted that each time you open the car door you just feel the heat like a brick to your face. It's impressive.

We got to stay at the Hilton in Greenville... living it large! Plus, because the company books so many rooms a year, our rooms were all bumped up to nicer rooms. This means I stayed overnight in a corner room with floor to ceiling windows on two walls and a king bed. Pretty swanky for a girl who'd never even had her own hotel room until that first Ephrata trip last month...

I am my father's daughter: I take pictures of my hotel rooms.

It was such a relief to be in an air-conditioned environment... and one with a shower! I'd sweated so much from the heat that there was actually dried salt on my skin. We met up after everyone had showered for a much-needed dinner - most of us rewarded ourselves with steak and potatoes after such a long, hard day of work and travel!

The next day we packed up and hoped to make it into Philadelphia. However, since we're traveling with a trailer, the trailer drivers are subject to all the laws commercial vehicles must obey, among them being one that restricts the people driving to just eleven hours of driving out of a fourteen hour day. Between the hour limit, some traffic in Baltimore, and the trailer not being allowed on the parkway, we didn't manage to reach Pennsylvania that day either - we wound up scrambling a bit for a hotel where we had to stop due to time, and spent the night in White Marsh just outside of Baltimore. It made for a long day, with a bit of stress trying to find a non-booked-full hotel at the end of the day when we realized we weren't going to make it to Philly. We had a late, exhausted dinner with everyone too tired to talk much, but the day was brightened (pun intended!) on the drive home. I got to see FIREFLIES!

I know, I know, but come on, we don't have those out West.

On the third day we did manage to finally make it into Philadelphia, making Pennsylvania the sixth state of this leg of the trip!

Entering the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel.

The drive was, overall, really not that bad despite the fact that it stretched longer than any of us had planned. I'm not yet qualified to drive the trailer, so I only took my rotation driving the Tahoe. I rode almost the whole trip with S and D in the Tahoe... and both of them are ex-cops, so I heard all sorts of stories and learned tons of new acronyms on the drive up! We also listened to XM radio, which I'd never experienced before. Both of my co-workers are about Dad's age, and they found a station that had all the music that I'm sure Dad would just love listening to and made me think of him the whole way up.

See? Green!

The drive was really pretty. It was a divided freeway almost the whole way up, two lanes on each side with a big grass median and a ton of trees and rolling hills as far as the eye can see on either side of the road. Going through as many states as we did, we noticed that North Carolina takes far better care of their roads than the other states - they had far less potholes and had really pretty yellow and orange flowers (that were hardy enough to survive the heat!) alongside almost every exit.

What really surprised me about the drive, though, was just how green and isolated everything was. The sides of the road are literally so tree-lined that you can't see through the treeline more than ten or twenty feet - all you can see is forest, and beyond that just rolling hills and more forest. I always assumed that everything "back East" would be settled land: old farms and towns, roads everywhere, cities sprawling out with all the people that had to move West to escape the crushing population and spreading industry. But there was a lot of completely unused land... literally just green hills as far as I could see in either direction, with exits few and far between and what was off of those exits fairly small and unassuming.

I always assumed that pretty much everything East of the Appalachians (or, well, the Mississippi) was all old, settled land, full of people and with every square mile claimed, and this was the real impetus for the push West in the 1800s. Not that I mind being proved wrong, mind you, it was just funny to see all my preconceived notions of the East vanish into hills and hills covered in trees!

I also kept a fairly impressive list of things we passed that I wanted to do more research on - mainly historical sites, but every now and then we would pass a place that I didn't know too much about, so it made it onto the list. Expect to see more about this later!

And with that, I will leave off with us arriving into Philadelphia, city of history, really big malls, cheese steaks, and 97% humidity (not kidding). More to come next time!

States Traveled To So Far: 8 (Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania) (We were across the river from New Jersey, but I wasn't actually in it, so I'm not counting just seeing the state in this list... just states I was actually in!)

-Beth

Trip 02: Seattle, Washington

2011-06-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

After our late night back to Seattle from Tampa (and adventures with sentient trash cans), I was back in Seattle for a whopping two days before my next flight out!

One of those days was spent setting up my new netbook, which I have to say is very shiny and makes taking a computer with me on these trips a whole lot easier, and double-checking what I was leaving behind versus what I was taking with me. The second day was spent at a work event - the reason I flew back to Seattle in the first place!

The two cool things about this event were that it allowed me entry onto a military base, and that I got to drive the company Mustang through the driving course. Oh, and get called "Officer Beth" by a bunch of kids who thought I was a police officer. Hey, I'll take what I can get!

As nice as it was to be back home, the quick turnaround from the East Coast to the West Coast and then back again was pretty rough.

But the kitties were super cute when I was home!

After just two days in Seattle (one of which was my second day off in June... it was a busy month, what can I say!), it was time to board a plane again and head off to my third event of the month: Atlanta, Georgia!

Trip 01: Tampa, Florida

2011-06-25T18:00:00.000-07:00

I'm in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where I have finally again achieved internet access! So without further waiting, I present to you Trip 01 Part 1: Tampa, Florida!

Tuesday morning, bright and early (well, so early it wasn't bright yet), Matt proved that he was an amazing boyfriend by dropping me off at the Seattle airport at 4:15am. E-A-R-L-Y. I met up with coworker R, made it through security, and boarded a 6am plane to Chicago, where I would make a transfer to a plane taking me to Tampa.

Trip 01 officially began!

I should interject a bit of background here, before I continue. I am not what one would call a seasoned traveler. I consider anything in the vicinity of Ohio to be "the East" (I've learned not to tack "Coast" onto that after several years of people pointing out that Ohio is, in fact, land-locked except for that whole Lake Erie thing). The last time I had to deal with time zones on a trip was in 1997. The longest flight I actually remember... is about two hours long, from Seattle to San Diego. While I know I've been on longer before, I don't recall them at all!

So, as I'm sure you have guessed, this summer is proving to be an interesting experience for me!

The flight to Chicago was about four and a half hours long... that's a long time to be in one seat! Still, flying into Chicago was a lot of fun. I had a window seat, so I was able to look out over Illinois as we approached Midway and I really enjoyed everything I saw. I wrote quite a bit in my journal, which I'll quote here:

Flying into Chicago was interesting - Illinois really is flat!

Yes, I am that observant. Still, for a San Diego/Spokane/Seattle girl, it was odd to see a place scraped even like that. I'm used to hills and mesas and mountains nowadays, not endless prairie!

Another thing I noticed was the green - and connected to that, the water. The river didn't seem that long - I don't even know if it was the Chicago - but there were dozens of little ponds and lakes just scattered everywhere. More trees than I expected, too: great lakes of woodland, and from the air I could watch the rivers of forested land trail off and split into little streams and rivulets that died out eventually into just farmland or suburbia. It's far more green land than I expected.

Also flat. Have I mentioned the flat? From the air I could see for miles, all the different towns with their water towers sticking up over them, names I couldn't read painted on their sides. I saw one town that was just a small curve where the two-lane road curved itself, and what looked like an old road still visible, heading west, through several fields.

It was surprisingly pretty. The further east I go, the more it seems like I can just see the years lying on the land. I looked out over the farmlands and thought about the pioneers that settled them, and wondered about the Native American tribes that originally called these lands home as we passed over the huge swatches of trees that separated towns. Even as we came into Chicago, the houses made me think of the past - they're different houses there, all narrow brick houses rising three stories or so high, and make me think of ladies in swooshy skirts with parasols and gentlemen in suspenders or top hats.

All in all, for a half-hour approach into the airport, I was definitely taken with Illinois. Still, we were just there for a little bit between planes, and then it was time to hop down to Florida. Our bumpy ride continued - I haven't mentioned the turbulence, but that was a theme of the air travel this week!

It was 91 degrees in Florida when we landed, and then I learned what humidity was. Whew! The first thing I did was put on shorts and sandals!

I'm in a hotel! Exciting, I know. In my defense, I don't have many pictures of Florida!

We met up with my other coworkers (who shall here be referred to as S, J, and D) and had dinner at the hotel cafe, but it was fairly late with the time change, and we didn't do much beyond dinner and settling in. I very much played the tourist, taking a look at Tampa while I could:

It's greener here than I expected, but a different type of green - kind of a brown and tan green compared to the dark forest green we flew over in Illinois. Lots of shrub-like trees, and three types of palm trees - the tall ones, the short stubby ones, and ones that remind me of cactus, with the prickly fan leaves from Palm Sunday's weaker processions. They grow in hug bushes alongside the freeway, bushes the size of living rooms made u of dozens if not hundreds of those fans.

There are [real] trees, too, but they all seem... languid. Most of them have branches that droop back down towards the ground, and even h few that reach upright for the sky have moss dripping down the branches like dried kelp. Spanish moss, I guess - I've never seen the real thing before, and it gives everything a bit of "haunted mansion" feel, desolate and old and forgotten. The ivy that climbs the tree trunks looks different, too - smaller, more fanciful leaves and an air of quite, despondent conquest as it both clings to and drapes off of the trees.

Everything's pretty, in a sultry kind of way. The sunset was hazy, all golden-red ball of fire in the sky, and I tried to take a picture but don't think I quite caught it.

It really looked much more awesome than this.

It's the furthest southeast I've ever been.

Our hotel rooms were very nice - each of us had our own little two-room suite, with a living room and a bedroom with a huge king bed. I felt kind of bad about it, actually, since I felt like I wasn't using it all!

Wednesday was a pretty low-key day. We did a bit of work, but had most of the day to settle in as we saw fit. D and S and I went to the grocery store to stock up on breakfast food and drinks. Then we had really good Japanese food for lunch and went back to the hotel. I, being ambitious, have decided that I am going to attempt to get in shape this summer, so I went to the hotel's exercise room for some running (half a mile in 5:30; ouch) and biking (a mile in 3:30, better). Hopefully those times and distances will increase greatly as the summer goes on!

I rewarded myself with some time hanging out in the pool with D afterwards, and we had dinner at the same cafe again before we met up with the rest of the crew for a meeting. After the meeting, we went to the parking lot for the event on Thursday - we were allowed to block it off and start set-up at 9:30pm. It was a great night going into it, about 85 degrees and with a huge orange full moon out, but before long, the moon started to become eclipsed by clouds...

Had our meeting at 8 and went out to the site at 9:30 - very warm and muggy. I got to drive the Tahoe - big car! We unloaded and sweated putting the tent up in the heat, watching a really nice full yellow moon slowly get covered by the clouds, with lightning flickering in the distance. Just as we were adding the weights [to stabilize the tents], the wind and lightning really picked up - we storm-lashed the tents as much as we could, and in the middle of everything there was a giant crash of lightning and all the lights in the parking lot died. Then the rain started - a giant torrential downpour of rain, big thick drops.

The aftermath, part 1!

Since there was a weather advisory because of the lightning, we stopped set-up and ran for home. We were only out in the rain for probably ten minutes, but we were dripping wet and soaked straight through - wetter than when I had gotten out of the pool that afternoon!

Picture chosen to show off crazy rain aftermath... and also awful farmer's tan from the work shirts!

Because we couldn't finish set-up that night, we woke up early Thursday to go back out and set-up before the event. Everything went very well, even though it was still ridiculously hot! We were chugging water like it was going out of style, and after the event, during tear-down, things got even crazier trying to stay hydrated and cool:

Towards the end of tear-down, we were resorting to desperate measures to keep even semi-cool: pouring a whole water bottle over our arms, dunking our hats in the cooler ice water [then putting them back on - heaven!], and sticking ice under our ball caps. All of these worked... for about five minutes!

The event itself went very well - it was my first even of this kind, and it's a bit different from the other ones I've been trained on. There were many more media at the event than I had expected - even national CNN came out!

I'm fairly sure my image or voice will be on tv at some point soon from all of this - CNN was here this morning, plus all the local stations... I had a microphone wired up to me for a while. It was kind of funny how unused to media I was - I turned around at one point right into a camera, said, "Sorry!", and tried to get out of the way only to be told, "It's okay, you're what I'm filming right now, you're not in the way."

Like you do.

(I did manage to get myself on tv; send me an email if you want the link to the news story.)

After the event, we rushed back to the hotel. S, R, and I had to go to the airport right away for a Saturday even in WA (J and D get to drive the trailer over to Atlanta in the meantime). We had lots of time in the airport - two hours in Tampa and two in Atlanta for our connection. It was a really late flight into Seattle (we landed at 12:30am Seattle time, which meant for us it was 3:30am!), and combine that with not getting too much sleep the night before due to aborted night set-up and early morning set-up, and I was pretty exhausted!

I will leave you with proof:

The trash cans in the Atlanta airport eat recycling. Like, you put in recycling and the trash can turns on and sorts and crunches it separately from the trash. I am untraveled enough to think this is quite possibly both the coolest trash can ever as well as the most disturbing.

Ah, the non-urbane observations of a sleep-deprived traveler...

-Beth

Where is home, anyways?

2011-06-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

So even though I'm off jetting (driving?) all over the country, I want to give you an idea of my home base!

I live in Seattle, WA, with my boyfriend Matt and our two adorable kitties.

See? Adorable.

Oswald is the older, bigger cat on the left - he's probably around two or three years old and he's absolutely huge. Not fat-huge, just big-huge. When we took him in to the vet, we asked about his weight since we were concerned he might be getting chubby as he was getting fed regularly again. (He was a stray, and from some behaviors we've observed, we think he was kicked out of a home at some point - who would want to get rid of such a handsome kitty?) The vet looked at him, and as she went to pick him up, started to say, "Well, he's overweight, so..." Then she picked him up, and felt how little of his weight is fat, and corrected herself: "No, he's just big!"

He's a very affectionate cat. The whole reason we settled on him can be summed up in one word: headbutt! He nuzzled right up against Matt even in the cage at the animal shelter, and so we couldn't help but take him home. He's a champion purrer and much calmer than his adopted sister!

Lina is the little black cat on the right. She's probably about a year old now (the shelter wasn't really sure of her age when we got her), and she's rambunctious and inquisitive! Surprisingly enough, she's also the lap-kitty of our two cats - Oswald is calmer, but doesn't like laps too much, so it's Lina that curls up in my lap when I'm at my computer or against my side when I go to sleep. She purrs and flops over quite contentedly. We call her our "little" kitty, even though she's definitely grown a ton since we adopted her!

Of course, they both go crazy when we bring out the laser pointer Lisa gave us for Christmas, but that's another story...

Anyways, home! Beyond the kitties and the boyfriend, Seattle is a great place to live. Don't get me wrong, I still miss living in Spokane sometimes - I miss my gaming friends, the group of good friends and the LARPing that I was just getting into when I left, Jack and Dan's grilled cheese sandwiches, the Spokane River, Gonzaga, and even just the whole laid-back, slightly redneck feel of life there. But for a girl who always swore she'd never live in Seattle, I think I've adapted pretty well!

Home is a fantastic apartment with a walk-in closet, a folding table instead of a real dinner table, the comfiest couch in the world, two racks of DVDs, five bookshelves, no TV (my sixth-graders are aghast), a well-stocked pantry, and embarrassingly white and undecorated walls. (Seriously, we have four things hanging in this whole apartment: my whiteboard to-do list in the hallway by the office, a painting Matt's dad gave us in the hallway to the bedroom, a framed sampler my mom gave me in the office, and my DIY quote from Transmetropolitan over my desk. And I've lived here for ten months! I have a goal for this summer, obviously!)

At least it's an awesome quote.

Home is rain every month of the year, and hail when you least expect it. Home is predicted snowstorms evaporating but snow days in February because my school is above 1200 feet. It's living in one city but working in two others. It's ice cream for dinner some days (because I'm a grown up, darn it!) and date nights with Matt other evenings. It's Tuesday night games with the guys and random days when Matt's brother comes over to hang out. It's sitting on the couch with my laptop and going off on field trips with my middle schoolers. It's driving too long in traffic to get to school but seeing Mt. Rainer over the freeway on clear days. It's a Starbucks on every corner, rainboots exchanged for sandals come nice weather, and dozens of places I just haven't found yet since I haven't lived here long enough.

Crossing the floating bridge over Lake Washington on the 90 on my way to work. That's Mercer Island in front of me.

This summer is going to give me a chance to appreciate being both home and away - I'm going to have the chance to travel, but also the chance to be home in between trips. Even though I'll only be home for about two weeks this summer, I have some exploration planned (hikes! picnics! farmer's markets!), some apartment work to do (garden! non-blank-walls! cookie experimentation!), and some lazy me time scheduled (books! video games! more books!), all of which you might hear about on this blog.

What can I say... you can keep track of me even when I'm at home!

This post is scheduled to go up at 8am on Sunday morning, just as I'll be boarding a plane for Atlanta, GA and the third part of Trip 01. I'm putting together a recap of the first parts of the trip (Tampa, FL and WA), and should have that ready for you all soon!

-Beth

Upcoming... Trip 01

2011-06-13T12:00:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow the madness begins!

As of Sunday night, I've received my flight information for the first half of the trip, so everything is now official! Here's what Trip 01: FL, WA, GA, and PA will look like for me:

(Monday June 13: Last day of work at my school)
Tuesday June 14: Fly to Tampa, FL.
Thursday June 16: Event in Tampa. Fly to Tacoma, WA.
Saturday June 18: Event south of Tacoma, WA.
Sunday June 19: Fly to Atlanta, GA.
Monday June 20: Event in Atlanta.
Tuesday-Wednesday June 21-22: Drive to Philadelphia, PA (drive date/time TBD).
Thursday June 23: Event in Philadelphia.
Friday-Sunday June 24-26: Drive to Harrisburg, PA (drive date/time TBD).
Monday June 27: Event in Harrisburg.
sometime after June 27 but before July 4: Fly home to Seattle, WA (I don't have my ticket yet, so TBD!).

It looks like I'll have a few days of downtime in Philadelphia - hopefully I will have the chance to go explore some history while I'm out there!

Future trips aren't expected to be either as long or as coast-to-coast as this one is - the Tacoma event is a one-shot deal that I'm leading out here, and couldn't be rearranged once the main summer schedule was set and overlapped a bit. So they're pulling me from the main summer things for a day or two so I can lead the event south of Tacoma, and while I'm gone, my supervisor and the other crew get to drive the trailer from Tampa to Georgia. I just get to fly back in at the end for the event the next day!

I spent most of this weekend (well, Sunday; I had to be at school for tear-down on Saturday) packing up my things and cleaning the apartment. Matt will be home with the kitties while I'm gone, but I still wanted to leave it at least semi-neat before I left for... two weeks, it looks like! There are just a few more things to add to my bags, which are already packed, and then I should be off on my first adventure of the summer.

Hurrah!

-Beth

Trip 00: Ephrata, WA

2011-06-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

Before I get going on all of my summer trips, I thought I'd do a quick recap on my very first trip! It's not really a summer trip, so I'm calling it Trip 00. I was at that odd in-between stage of not-really-trained but not-going-to-get-more-training, so I was a bit apprehensive about it. Plus, I'd never really traveled for work before, so it was definitely a bit of a learning curve!

After getting the truck and trailer all squared away, we drove out to Ephrata, a small town in central Washington. It was about a three-hour drive (possibly longer, towing the trailer), and it was a really pretty drive there over Snoqualmie Pass. We went straight out to the site once we arrived in town, since we wanted to get everything set up first.

Set-up generally involves putting up a large event tent, 30-50 chairs, and an utter ton of cones put out in specific, measured locations for each of the five activities we run each event. Once the cones are paced out, we either chalk or spraypaint the ground to mark where they go, as we then take down all the cones and set out just the ones needed for the first exercise.

Clearly, as we're dealing with cars (or buses, or large trucks...), we need to set up in a place with enough room for the vehicles to maneuver. Usually this involves a large parking lot. In Ephrata, though, this meant we set up on an unused runway at the municipal airport.

An airport in the middle of the prairie. Cell phone pic.

Note that I did not say that it was an unused airport - just the runway we reserved was unused. This meant that we had to escort our students on and off the airport in a mighty convoy led and closed with our company vehicles flashing every single light that can be legally installed on a vehicle (which translates to police-like blinkers and flashers and strobe lights) while we crossed an active runway (after stopping to scan the skies for taking off or landing planes, of course).

It was, in fact, fairly awesome.

We had four full events, which translates to two full days of events. Luckily, we set up on Monday night, so Tuesday morning we could get straight to work! Two events on Tuesday, followed by dinner in the same small, hole-in-the-wall bar as Monday night with the other guys working the event (the waitress remembered our orders - does that make us locals after a single trip?), and then back to the runway for two more events on Wednesday before tear-down and heading back towards home. I managed to get home by eleven, which wasn't too bad, but yes, I was definitely exhausted by the end of it!

Still, it was definitely pretty

I've been told that the summer events aren't that packed - it's supposedly a single event day bracketed by travel days, rather than two full days crammed right next to each other. Still, as long as I get myself to bed early enough, I can manage these long days... I think I fell asleep before 9pm (it was still light out, at least) and had no problem waking up at 5am! The hardest part was the last night, getting home so late.

But it was a lot of fun to hang out with the other guys on the crew, and as the only girl, I'm lucky enough to not have a roommate at the hotel (unless there's another girl along, which doesn't look too likely)! So as a prelude to the summer, it was work-intensive but still a blast. We'll see how the real trips go!