T -1 day to departure
Ok, so what have I been up to recently? I finished my last round of grading in late January (Thursday, Jan 26, to be exact). The next day, Marcy, my fiancée (did you all know that I was affianced back in September of last year?) and I packed up all of our stuff into a truck belonging to my co-habitant of the Davis Cetner, Kelly O’Neill & her husband Paul and drove it up to my parents’ house in Vermont (stopping to drop off Kelly & Paul, to whom we’re eternally grateful, in Killington). We stored out stuff in the attic of my parents’ garage and then slept off some flu and various other stressors for a couple of days, then on February 1st mounted our trusty Beretta and headed out of town.
The first day we drove as far as Philly, where we stayed with Marcy’s friend, Aisha, who treated us, among other things, to a wonderful new vice: a British Soap called Footballers’ Wives whose salacious scandals and prurient pratfalls blaze like a bonfire to which no American TV offering can hold a candle. The second day, after a very nice visit with Marcy’s first cousin once-removed, Al, and his wife, and a brief tour of the Elysian Eden that is Swarthmore (all of which was properly labeled, of course), we set out for our nation’s capital (or at least Montgomery County), where my friends Dave & Augusta put us up in their beautiful house and we had dinner with Ben Harder.
Day three was our first real strike away from the coast. After a good breakfast at Cracker Barrel (where we picked up a book on tape–try the Cracker Barrel book swap program if you’re ever driving around this country!), we had a very scenic drive down I-68, jogged up to Pittsburg, then drove all the way across Ohio to Richmond, IN, where we partook of Days’ Inn’s hospitality and dined at Ruby Tuesday before heading, on Day four, to Illinois. There we stayed for two days with my best friend from high school, Brent, who having finished his PhD last year (a feat I’ve yet to accomplish) is teaching at the Illinois school of Public Policy. Along with his two housemates, Abo and Max and Abo (both canine), we had a very nice time, watched Pittsburgh win the Superbowl (Pats not quite up to it this year–and now they’re losing Vinatieri!), baked some cookies, and then drove south on Day six to Memphis. We saw Graceland (my 2nd time, Marcy’s first), ate some great ribs, and patronized yet another Days’ Inn. Day seven took us across the beautiful swampland and hills of Arkansas and then the increasingly flat state of Oklahoma as far as Elk City (Econolodge–Days’ Inn was entirely booked, for no discernible reason). I had my one chicken-fried steak of the trip there, which was tasty (I ate the whole thing–not all the gravy, though). On Day eight we drove through Amarillo Texas (breakfasted there at Cracker Barrel), then on to New Mexico. We took a right turn at Albuquerque and drove up into the Jemez Mountains to go to some hot springs that we had to climb up the mountain for, then returned to Albuquerque that night to stay with a friend, Justin, whom we’d met the summer before at Jonathan & Nicole’s wedding. We had some great Mexican food that evening, and the next day drove to Arizona, stopping to see some really amazing sights in the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park (which conveniently straddles I-40 for many miles in northeastern Arizona). We made it as far as the Grand Canyon Holiday Inn that night, and then on Day nine we got up and did the drive along the Canyon’s southern rim (which was a fantastic three hours that more than whet my appetite to return for some actual hiking there) in a paltry three and a half hours, then drove across the rest of Arizona and the Mojave Desert to get to Marcy’s folks’ house in Los Angeles that night.
It was a fun trip, and it felt even rather leisurely, the pace at which we did it. I think the whole trip could probably be done in 5 days with some arduousness (and a lot of books on tape!). It was nice to be done, though, and then spend a month or so here in LA resting a bit, working on some statistics, and getting ready for our big trip to Brazil.
So we’re leaving tomorrow, March 22nd, for said country. We’ll be there until August 16th, with an apartment in Rio (hopefully found in a few days), during which time I’ve got five other states within Brazil in which to take interviews for my dissertation research. We also should get to the Amazon, too, and are looking forward to hosting a parade of guests! This blog should serve to let you know of my activities in this time, and also as a record for myself. When we return, we’ll be moving to Berkeley, CA, for Marcy to start her PhD program in Political Science, and for me to fall to the writing of my dissertation. Thus concludes the first entry of my new blog.
