Devil's Tower, Mount Rushmore, and the Badlands

So initially I had thought that Devil's Tower was Chimmney Rock, of Oregon Trail fame, but it is not...

It's much bigger, and really neat anyway.


Very, very tall.


And then we went to Mount Rushmore, which was sort of on the way - it's very accurately summed up in a picture. To get there, you have to pass through the unbelievably ticky-tacky town of Keystone, which is full of RVs, Olde-Tyme Western recreation dinner theater and photo booths, 101 ways to part a tourist with his money shops, etc.


Then we went to the Badlands, which are truly, truly bad... Very alien.

More Badlands, next post (having some trouble posting pictures) 

Wyoming and South Dakota

Hi All - we're in Chicago now, but (until I get the pictures off Matt's camera, again) here are a few thoughts to tide you over:

- Devil's Tower is not Chimmney Rock
- the Badlands are truly bad
- Mount Rushmore: the national park most accurately summed up in a postcard (Matt's phrase, not mine)
- another observation of Matt's - weeny computer nerds on the coast drink inky black coffee, while manly men in boxy states drink weakling tea-colored coffee. Discuss.
- thunderstorms that don't rain (only lightning and thunder) are very scary, especially when the lightning starts prairie fires right off the highway
- South Dakota is long

After this rousing day, we got to Minneapolis and stayed with Matt's sister Sarah, who administered restorative measures of culture and vegetables.

Montana - up to speed (or up to meth, as you prefer)

The long road through Montana... it was long. But it wasn't entirely flat - in fact, it was quite pretty. Oh, and we saw the strangest anti-meth display yet - not the government gross-out posters. We were passing through the small town of Moccasin (population under 50) - it was mostly wrecked shacks and a few trailers. And along the highway is a giant, probably 9 ft. plastic grim reaper modeled mid-gesticulation, presiding over about a dozen white crosses stuck in the ground with the motto "Meth Kills" written menacingly nearby. Very odd.


We slept last night at a Super 8 in Great Falls. Bats sleep at the Super 8, too.


Carzor the Magnificent (covered in bug splat)


And we stopped at Little Bighorn Battlefield, because what else are you going to do in southeast Montana? Here is Custer's grave. They've added a little exhibit about the Indians who died there now, too. (The Indian one is much more artful, in fact. And they've marked two of the Indian graves with tombstones, at which other visitors have left offerings of unsmoked cigarettes.)


Ready for a honky-tonk good time through Wyoming and South Dakota!

Tonight we're at a Motel 6 which obviously has high-speed internet access in Gillette, Wyoming. No good food news since we lost sight of the coast, really, though in West Falls just before Glacier we found a specialty food store which carried Sharffenburger chocolate and all our favorite CA cheeses - Red Hawk, Humbolt Fog, and the rest. We got turkey sandwiches there. We stopped at a Montana Brewing Company in Billings today for lunch - I had a wheat beer which has won lots of awards, and it was very good! We've only eaten at a McDonalds twice this trip, and have mostly stayed away from chains (though tonight we opted for the Village Inn instead of "Hong Kong Restaurant"). OK, off to bed!

Glacier II - the Continental Divide

This sheer knife-edge of rock is the continental divide...


Me, sitting precariously on the little stone ledge that separates you from ...


huge, steep, 9,000 ft. drop.


Matt was unfazed. And he was driving!


And we saw a goat. We saw lots of goats, in fact. One of them was walking on top of the stone guard rail while cars were whizzing by! (Until the stupid cars pulled over to gawk, and then it hopped down onto a lower rock.)


And there was an awesome canyon river. I'm sure it's more impressive with snowmelt, but it was low enough for Matt to do this...


The most frequent cause of visitor death at Glacier is drowning.

We popped out of Glacier at St. Mary's on the east side and started our long, long journey through Montana...

Trip Recap - Glacier!

Matt and me at Glacier National Park! (Yes, it was very out of our way... we thought that Chris might have sent us on a wild goose chase... but you'll see it was totally worth it!)


View of the lake and mountain.


The neatest thing about the lake was that the stones of the lake were all different colors of the rainbow (different metal contents or something, I guess) - but they were all polished smooth by the lake and looked like jewels. (my feet)


Matt and his view.


You can see that for being Glacier, there wasn't much snow - of course, we missed the entire east exit of the park being closed off for wildfires by about a week. So there's no snow (the glaciers are, I hear, still there) and all the rivers are very, very low. But you can see how this one usually carves out the rock at high speeds...


Pretty!

Trip Recap - Washington/Spokane

So we left lovely Seattle - we had a great time in the city, and Matt's relatives are lovely. We headed east - over the cascades, and then into farmland. For several miles the fields were labeled: alfalfa, potatoes, wheat, potatoes, corn, and then ... peppermint! A whole field of peppermint! And then we passed a tobacco field - unlabeled, but pretty unmistakable.

After farmland we hit blight (archeologists call it lava flow) - dry scrubby bushes on desert rock, pretty desolate. Around Spokane pine trees began, and we called our local Spokanian Chris for a dinner recommendation. It wasn't great food, but it was probably the most *interesting* restaurant in Spokane - the Catacombs. It's underground (a hotel's former boiler room) and they've done it up all "medieval" inside.


You can just make out the wall hangings. Oh, it was ... lovely. :) No, but we both decided that if we had been teenagers in Spokane, we would have hung out here *all* the time.

And then we went to Glacier National Park!

Trip Recap - Seattle! (with pictures!)

Me on the ferry to Bainbridge Island - Seattle!



And Matt!



We found an awesome bookstore in Pioneer Square (the historic district of Seattle) - Elliot Bay Books (and Cafe). While we were there, we took the Underground Seattle tour - when the sewer backed up, they raised the city an entire story, so all the basements of the old quarter are original street level. It was pretty cheesy, but neat.



We stayed on Bainbridge Island with Matt's great aunt Alice and Joe. Here we are overlooking Puget Sound over drinks at Gretchen's house (their daughter - Matt's ... 2nd cousin? once removed?).



Matt's extended family - the McMickens (well, actually, since it's his grandmother's sisters, all their last names are different).



Matt loves this side of the family because great-grandpa McMicken had a yacht called the Lotus, which had its own cabin boy and set of silver.

Trip Recap - with pictures!

We started going up I-5 - scrappy yellow kamikaze butterflies swarmed the highway as it ran between fields of dried sunflower stalks - we hit them at an astonishing rate and they looked like scraps of paper, or petals.

We stopped at several rest stops to stretch out.



I did my yoga.



We made it to Mount Shasta - here's me and the mountain. Then we headed to Ashland - I've already written about that...



After we found Portland, we went by Powell's books, which is impressively large (puts Moe's to shame, that's for sure... ). But the ones in Seattle were prettier...

Seattle, next post -

The M in Montana is for Meth

OK, there are also lots of nice things in Montana... But there is also a series of ads to keep kids off of meth (see npr story here - not even with the most graphic pictures) and they're really gross. What Matt and I can't figure out is... why make *this* go faster?


(I'd use my own picture, but we can't find the cord to Matt's camera.)

Aaaany way for some reason m y computer thinks I'm const natly hitting the space bar, so I'm going to quit for now - I'll writ e abou tthe nice things later. :)

Trippin' - Days 1-3

The great cross-country trip has begun!

Matt and I began our travels early Tuesday, after a final bagel and coffee at Yali's cafe... exactly 24 hours after our scheduled departure time. Driving north on I-5, lunch at McDonald's and several bathroom breaks later, we made it to Ashland, Oregon, where we stopped for dinner. My mom and aunt keep raving about it, so we thought we'd check it out. It's very, very cute. Strangely so, in fact. It's main industry is the Shakespeare Festival, which runs for about 5 months, so the entire town is funded by drama money. And you know what happens when you give yuppie Shakespeare fans a huge amount of money... well, they build a Globe Theater, have tons of cute shops, very clean streets, and heraldic flags hanging at every corner. A beautifully appointed park and dolled up creek bed make for "creekside dining" at all the local restaurants. We did find a rather exquisite restaurant - dragonfly - for dinner. Not on the creekside strip (fortunately... really, the creek needs some more water in it, and less stagnancy...), but up under the cabaret theater a few streets back. Latin-Asian fusion. We had crispy plantains with avocado, and my favorite, ahi tuna "wontons" with sweet soy sauce, sesame seeds, and wasabi sour cream. It was like tuna candy. So, so good. This was followed by their vegan "Buddha" bowl - a tasty noodle bowl in coconut milk broth with a polite smattering of shitake mushrooms. Ashland is very yummy.

After dinner we tried to make it to Eugene - that was misguided - but we ended up and a slightly less-than-comfy Comfort Inn in Roseburg. At least we got free donuts in the morning. We stopped in Eugene, Oregon for second breakfast and walked around the University of Oregon campus. (Several of Matt's history professors got their start at Eugene...) And may I say... woo-wee! Oregon has got some mad cash flowing into that university! The buildings are suitably old feeling and ivy-covered, the trees and lawns are geometrically manicured, and it has quite a New England feel.

We lunched in Portland - after we found Portland, that is. I mean, we found the ports. And the industrial area. But - for those who don't know that "Rose Quarter" or "4th Street" are the proper city exits - the actual "cute" part is very difficult to find from the highway... The whole city is contained by a highway loop which goes around it ... we missed the city 3 times. Yeah, well. When we finally made it INTO Portland, there wasn't anywhere to park, so we cruised the shopping and financial districts for another 15 minutes. Finally parking and asking for a map at the local Westin hotel (we *always* ask for restaurant recommendations and maps at swanky hotels... they're much nicer), we made it to the northerly part, saw Powell's Books (stepped inside, just so we could say so), and found a lunch place. Everett St. Bistro - I had quiche, Matt had steak tartare and a salad. It was nice to sit, and it's a nice place - not spectacular, but just what the doctor ordered for restorative measures.

Losing Portland meant that we were several hours late to Great Aunt Alice's - not too much traffic coming into Seattle but we had to wait for 40 minutes for the ferry to Bainbridge Island (the McMicken ancestral hometown). Matt waited until this moment to tell me he didn't have his great aunt's address ... just the directions. Luckily they live in a cul-de-sac and when we parked Alice walked outside (she had been watching for us).

Matt's relatives will take a whole 'nother post; I will let them be for now. Alice is very nice. Her husband's name is Joe. We also met Gretchen, Alice's daughter (Connie - Gretchen says to remind you about a bottle of sauternes and a rowboat?) and her husband John. Tonight there is a dinner with everyone plus Joanie (Great Aunt #2) and her daughter Sarah.

I guess one fun thing is that Matt and I get homecooked dinner and breakfast every day, and we're served with regular dishes on plastic placemats with paper napkins... and the ancestral monogrammed silver.

I'll probably be able to put pictures up once we're at Matt's sister's in Minneapolis. We're in Seattle now - leaving tomorrow - heading across Montana...

More later!

busy being fabulous

So. Fabulous girls had a birthday (their fabulous fiances made them dinner) and had their mothers visit, had a wedding dress fitting (!) and now are planning to move across country. Re: wedding dress fitting, there was a shoe fiasco and an underwear fiasco, and apparently I am no longer the size I was when they measured me (stupid cheeseburgers) but all is well now... The move gives me a good excuse to throw out things I've been meaning to toss (and in turn, a great excuse to buy new stuff!!) but things are a bit rushed right now... the big drive begins Monday...

Fabulous girls ... um... dye their hair orange?

It was *supposed* to be blonde... and I don't have a picture of it yet, which is why I've delayed this post. Matt says it looks blonde. But there are bits that are distinctly orange (along the roots, where the dye stayed longer). It was supposed to be a "natural" blonde color but it came out on the reddish side... kind of like a strawberry blonde, I suppose. But it wasn't supposed to be reddish! :P

Fabulous Girls eat at Chez Panisse

Yes... it finally happened! Matt and I went to dinner at Chez Panisse -- the downstairs! We went last week, on Friday the 21st. I called to make reservations the month before - started calling at 9am and the phone lines were already busy. But it was SO WORTH IT!

We started off with an aperatif - melon liquer mixed with prosecco - served in a little shot glass with a single ice cube floating in it. (Matt speculated that the ice cube was frozen prosecco, so as not to dilute the mixture.) It was served with freshly roasted almonds. That was followed by shrimp and lobster with a horseradish cream sauce on a bed of sliced heirloom tomatoes, accompanied by teeny piles of various vegetables - radishes, beets, etc. We had a half-glass each of a white wine recommended by the sommalier with this course, as our 1997 Brunello di Montalcino (which I'd bought in Montalcino during the Florence trip 2 years ago) was decanted and breathing in the back. They brought that out with our corn and squash blossom bisque served with fried green tomatoes. The wine was velvety and rich, and the bisque was bright and flavorful. The fried green tomatoes were amazing - tart and savory... yum. Then we had the main course - delicately sliced grass-fed rib-eye steak (medium rare, natch) with tiny chanterelle mushrooms, mashed potatoes, and green beans with black eyed peas. So good! Then came dessert - a strawberry ice cream "bombe", a layered dessert with a kirch-soaked sponge cake topped with organic strawberry ice cream topped with a layer of creme fraiche ice cream (sliced). With that I had a glass of Beames de Venice and Matt had a 5-whatever Tokaji. Then of course we opted for the cheese course. That was the only thing that was good but not excellent, considering the Cheeseboard is just down the road...

Everything was of the highest quality ingredients and cooked to perfection. The service was great, and we had the best table (I thought) - right up front, by the windows. It was quite an experience.... sigh!... yum.

fabulous girls

I've been feeling a bit blah lately... probably, some would say, a combination of summer laziness and post-exams brain fry. Aside from wedding planning I really haven't been doing much (er, as is obvious from my last posts, I guess). I mean, I've found places to live in Rome and Boston by scouring craigslist and sabbaticalhomes.com (yes... who knew??), and I've done everything to advance to candidacy (even wrote that incomplete paper from last year). But I really have nothing to differentiate my time - probably why I'm not doing much work for the dissertation. And probably why I'm starting to fantasize about being an acquisitions editor for Simon and Schuster. So last night I randomly pulled out an old book (well, not old - not like Chaucer old) The Fabulous Girl's Guide to Decorum. And I've realized - it's not that I hate grad school (necessarily) or want to get a real job (necessarily) - it's that I need to reinject some fabulousness back into my life.

(Some of you might think that just becauase one is trotting off to get married in Rome and gets basically a year off of school to go "research" around the globe would automatically make one fabulous... that is a misconception... one only needs to measure the "fabulousness" of one's professors to realize that the academic lifestyle does not fabulous make...) (And anyway, how much can I really talk to you about my wedding before you puke - er, tire of it?? Anna excluded. :)

So. The rest of the summer will be devoted to rediscovering my inner fabulousness. Which, naturally, will come to have a positive effect on my productivity, and thus be good for my dissertation research. I started this morning by buying a new bag to replace my manhattan portage bag. Yes, the manhattan portage bag that I've had for over 7 years, which used to be black and has faded to a reddish-orange-brown. I think Marisa has it right - she carries huge shoulder bags instead of a backpack to classes. It's hard to be fabulous with a backpack. (A mantra for everyone!) Anyway, Matt found anthropologie bags for sale on ebay, so I got a brown leather travel bag which I'm *very* excited about. (Unfortunately, fabulosity can have high start up costs. But seriously, it's like when you open your drawer and you realize that you still have old wal-mart cotton underwear from high school. Time to upgrade.)

But fabulosity is not just about new shiny expensive things. (Though it's totally about those, too.) It's about caring for yourself and your living space. It's about being polite, tipping well, and walking with head held high. It's about being good to others, exercizing, and eating well (not necessarily eating "right"... but that too). Anyway, I'll stop before I sound too much like a kaiser permanente commercial. But I'm off to be fabulous. I'm going to start by cleaning the kitchen.

er, more dissertation research...

Finished Return of the King on Monday. Er, ahem. Very important for dissertation.

Closest I've come to working was dropping off (and picking up!) two books to be photocopied. Don't worry - they're old. Now I have Gerald of Wales of my very own!

Yes, it's truly exciting being me.

dissertation research - day X

Have found great looking pair of shoes online for dress - but will I be able to walk down aisle all right in 3 3/4 inch heels? May have also found housing for fall in Boston. Designed save-the-date cards, emailed old out-of-touch friends, bitched to colleagues about doing research. Had Chris over for dinner, made polenta. Baked a blueberry pie with woven lattice crust for the 4th. Going up to bear valley this weekend. Last weekened dragged Matt into city to Ann Taylor to check out bridesmaids dresses - returned celadon dresses yesterday and am going with "sage." Today, began reading (rereading) the Hobbit.

Research is hard!

dissertation research - day 1

just the title of this post depresses me. oh my... here I am in grad services with a little stack of books. I'm starting small - just four hours - can I do it? My advisor seems to think I'm a little unfocused. I'm supposed to familiarize myself with my field. After I pick a field, that is...

well, at least we passed!

Here's us, celebrating PASSING. We're PASSERS. If we get our forms in on time, we'll be "doctoral candidates"! Sounds impressive, doesn't it? I thought so.

I wish I could say my absence in the blogosphere was due to more interesting circumstances, but I just have a really slow dial up internet connection and so I never update it. Matt was in Sweden and the Netherlands for about 10 days. I wrote a paper for an incomplete. (now completed.) Yeah, I'm fascinating. I know. :)

you might think I'm working...

... but actually I'm composing spam poems and generating slogans on Anna's Blog.

bought a dress!!

YAY! I bought a wedding dress last Thursday!

No, I'm not putting a picture of it up. Nyah Nyah.

But sigh - must keep reading. Less than a month until my first written exam - still about a dozen items to go...

mad props to the mother of the groom...

... for having this to say about dress 8:

"Ya know, if you do the one that stands up on its own, you could slip out for drinks and no one would know."

Thanks, Connie, for focusing on what's truly important! ;)

Wedding Dress Update

I lifted the injunction on my father and now everyone except Matt can go look at my wedding dress blog, Dress Hunt, for fun pictures and hilarity at such fine establishments as David's Bridal. I will be purchasing (YAY YAY YAY!) a dress of still undetermined form at Amy Kuschel -- the leading contenders are Fiona, Veronica, and Lydia (drawings only available on the website). My heavies Statler and Waldorf will aid me in making the final, on-the-spot decision, next week. !!!!

Oh yeah, and I'm reading for orals. Promise.

oh come on...

Does anyone find it funny that the UK foreign secretary is named Jack Straw? Jack STRAW?? As in, peasants revolt leader 1381 jack straw???

article here

Oh snap - Wikipedia has just informed me that politician Jack Straw adopted the name after the rebel leader. Now why the heck would he want to do that??

Wikipedia article here

More Manimals

Mr. D. D. D. : Hamster. Solitary, burrowing, nocturnal animal, with short tail, soft, thick fur, and large external cheek pouches used for holding food. Non-monogomous. Kinda cute. Entertaining for about 10 minutes. Works harder, not smarter.

Also likes to play in cedar chips.

Mr. C___ : Owl. A nocturnal bird of prey, with eyes directed forward and surrounded by disks of radiating feathers. This peculiarity lends it an appearance of studious intelligence. Its eyes are especially adapted to see in partial darkness, and it spends the day sleeping in caves, hollow trees, in the library, and other secluded places.


Owls feed on hamsters.

Mean Girls and Cocktail Party Questions

I've been thinking a lot lately about:
A) Spenser
B) Rabelais
C) the anecdotal structure of travel narrative
D) If you were an animal, what kind of animal you would be?

Answer: D.

Yes, if you come across me at a party, dinner, club, or bar, I will invariably ask you this question or it's counter-part, if a movie star were playing you in a movie, who would it be? Of course, it's also fun when you assign animals to OTHER people without their knowledge, and you can be meaner, too. Huh, Rachel McAdams, what?

  

And so, on to my first pairing, helpfully anonymized by 19th century novelistic conceit:

Mr. R___ : Walrus. Styles himself the big gay teddy bear, when in fact - though he looks cuddly - he has sharp tusks and is very territorial. Entices unsuspecting oysters out to play on the beach, lulls them into security by talking "Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--/Of cabbages--and kings--." And then he eats them!



Next,

Ms. M___ (by her own devising) : Gazelle. (They proink.) A lithe-limbed, cloven-hoofed creature with a short attention span, examining bits of brush and dirt piles with great interest for hours at a time, and then, unexplainedly, blithely hopping off. (Proinking.) By and large a timid creature, though graceful. With an aversion to birds, I hear.



Yours Truly : A tough call. In college we decided I was a mink, the prettier version of the crafty weasel. SOMEONE, however, thinks I am now better categorized as cattus domesticus...

Some pictures from Vagantes...

Well, at the request of my Fan, here are some pictures from the night we all went out and got drunk.


The medievalists at Berkeley are obviously the best looking in the world. Matt, Jennifer (my prof!), Marisa, Jamie, and me.


And then all of us with Chris. (I think of him as the Will to my Grace. Er - but that doesn't make Matt Leo. So don't push it.)

I hate Spenser

Oh God, please make the song of Spenser cease
(Quoth she) a student deserves not such pain,
For even now my headache does increase
For thinking of the pages that remain.
No tortures such as these deserved my brain,
Already tired amidst the booky pile
Assayed to finish for exams, in vain!
Oh Lord! please do release me from this trial!
And let me look upon The Simpsons for a while!

I've officially finished an item!

I'm sure you all are breathless to know, that I've officially finished an "item" off my exams list.

Oh my poor, poor blog... your carefree summer musings have given way to the autumnal frost of scholarship... the drafts of academia are already seeping through the cracks...

It's Over, yay!

It's over it's over it's over! Yay Yay Yay!!

www.vagantes.org

now I get my life back! now I get my life back! now I get my li-
oh. except I have to start reading for exams again. drat.

what fun

Really, nothing new has happened. I'm sitting in Yali's coffee shop, and I should be reading. But I'm updating my blog. But with what new information? (Very meta.)

my books hate me.

chaucer chaucer chaucer

Here's fun - let's read hundreds and hundreds of pages of middle english!

Pour me a drink, little man 

Would this be weird? This would be weird.

I was posting an ad on craigslist to sell my bass guitar (the end of a beautiful, short lived era...) when I happened across this. Normally I skip over these things, but ...

INTELLIGENT EGG DONOR NEEDED - $10K+ for right match

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Loving San Francisco area couple seeks your help in having a child. If you academically gifted (SAT above 1200 - Verifiable SAT scores required), involved with regular extra curricular activities, are 21-29, naturally blond, blue/green eyes, 5’10” or less, small/medium build, healthy family medical history, with Irish, English or Scandinavian ancestry, and would like to help this couple, please call
Jacquelyne XXX Nurse Attorney, (XXX) XXX-XXXX. $10k plus expenses for the donor
who is a good fit!

It would be totally weird to finance a wedding by selling one's eggs. (Right? Right?!?) But how uncanny the description! The ads in the Berkeley rag are always looking for Asians!

Now a surrogate mother can get $25-30K - that's where the real money is.

Asian Bling

My hundreds of rabid readers have all asked me - what is Asian bling? Well, readers, it means that Matt's friend Jing offered to let me wear her wedding dress, which she designed herself and had made in Thailand out of the highest quality Thai silk, and had hand-beaded by the smallest of little brown fingers...


Indeed.

It's lovely, and it would have saved me, but it's not really my style... and I think my parents might object to the one-shoulder look. In a church. Just maybe.

PS Notice I'm standing next to a column.


 

exams

honestly, how's a girl supposed to plan a wedding when she is required by her program to read a hundred books by May? I mean, really.

My study buddy, Jamie, has apparently already started having panic attacks. Um, was I supposed to be reading over the break? I'm sorry, I was trying on crazy Asian-bling wedding dresses and finding Italian photographers. Should I have written that paper for my incomplete? I'm sorry, I was looking at stationery at the Crane store and, incidentally, playing Burnout Revenge on Matt's friend's Xbox. As Matt and the game can attest, I acheived a "Maniac" rating and my best scores come from "Traffic Attack," in which one attempts to use one's racecar as a battering ram against the regular "innocent" traffic flow in any number of CGI-rendered global cities.

More points if you can get them to crash into that oncoming semi.

What's that you say? The wedding is more than a year away, and exams are scheduled-ish for May? Pish posh. Details.

a teaser...

Where is this church?