A trip across the country

Last week, as one of the lucky Fairhaven students who don't have to hang around for finals, I flew away from Bellingham after a sleepless night spent on the phone for my on-call advocacy job. I trained my way to Seattle and hopped on a plane destined for Fort Lauderdale, Florida in a meager seven hours. I met my mom at the airport and dragged myself through the wonderfully warm palm-scented air to the car only to collapse half an hour later under grampa's whirling guest room ceiling fan.

I brought rain to Florida like a true northwester and I slept soundly to the monsoon-like downpour outside my window. First thing in the morning, I wandered the streets splashing all the way 'til I was soaked to the bone. I wasn't ready to go home though so I climbed the swimming pool gate (having forgotten the key) and jumped into the hot tub:) My first morning of vacation was wonderful.

Over the next four days, mom and I did manage to cook the grandparents some veggies and tofu which was entertaining in itself. I successfully skirted the vegetarian conversation most of the time and the weather was quite beautiful. Having rained so hard at such a time of drought, the plants were even more grateful to be in Florida than I was. There were brand new vibrant shades of green everywhere and the air was the temperature of Goldilocks choosing.

Grampa, mom, and I went canoeing in the Everglades, specifically within the Loxahatchee Refuge. We saw 31 adult alligators, each within 10 feet of us and at least 13 babies ranging from 12-18 inches in length. I thought they were one of the most amazing creatures I had ever seen, but mom was not feeling so relaxed. While I wanted to sit as still as possible and stare back at their slowly roving eyes, mom was desperately pleading for me to paddle in the hope that we would quickly create some securing distance between them and us. I had never before seen her that afraid...it was a fear gone irrational, one which doesn't listen to reason. After an hour of exposing the fact that her fears were based off of Hollywood animal dramas and the fact that these alligators couldn't have been much more docile (my grampa swore they were dead), I gave up calming her down and prayed that we wouldn't tip. a serious prayer being that my oblivious, goofy, overweight grandfather was in the middle...sitting under an umbrella looking hilarious in the middle of the alligator filled Everglades. at one point, mom started screaming and I immediately assumed that we disturbed an alligator under the murky water and that they were thrashing about towards the end of the boat, but I was wrong. it was a fish. Mom was hysterically shoving the thrashing eel-like fish forwards, away from her, with her paddle. Grampa and I did our best to catch the slippery sucker without tipping the canoe, but it took several minutes to return the poor, terrified creature to it's home. I'm sure the whole scene could have been used as one of the world's funniest comedy sketches. and then it happened again. The second time, I took it upon myself to balance the boat as grampa almost tipped the canoe within a few feet of a just-under-the-surface alligator. (shhh. I don't think my mom knew about the alligator and I, sure as hell, wasn't going to tell her.) The whole experience was phenomenal. It was good exercise, I saw more long-legged shore birds than I ever have in one place, and the alligators were fantastic!

Finally the fifth day rolled around and I rolled out of bed too late for my mom, but eager nonetheless to see Savannah, Georgia on our first day of road-tripping to Chicago in my mom's green Prius. Savannah was amazing. It was more gay-friendly than I ever expected which was a treat and the weather was perfect. There are square block parks every two streets in the historic district in north-south as well as east-west directions. The small parks are filled with tall oaks draped in moss and rhodies and azaleas fill the ground floor with color. The larger greenspaces have fountains and trails as well as fields full of people playing frisbee and running around with their dogs. sooooo beautiful. I took lots of pictures, but the colors just never came out so you will all have to visit the place yourself. We, also, took a free ferry-boat ride down the Savannah River (where I sacrificed by lens cap to the River goddess) and stared at all the crazy human traffic on River Street from the relatively calm water. Dinner was at a place called "Vic's on the Water" and we both had fried green tomatoes for the first time in our lives. they were excellent and they capped off our Georgian evening quite well. Unfortunately, the music festival was beginning in Savannah that night and there was not a single place to sleep, minus one severely over-priced single bed room that neither of us were interested in, so we disappointingly had to drive for another hour and a half down the freeway 'til the next lodging sign where we crashed in a stuffy motel room. Even this place though was beautiful, come morning. It was next to a huge lot for sale and I'm sure most would say that it was just a field, but I walked across it to the water and watched the raptors awake with the sun. We all let the rays seep into our bodies and I hoped that the lot's price was too high and would remain so. It was gorgeous!

Our next night's stop was intended to be just on the edge of the Smoky Mountains in the Appalachian Range (we were told there was nowhere indoors to sleep once you were in the mountains). We had to do a few u-turns in Bryson City, North Carolina to find a B&B (mom's turn to decide where to sleep) that had an open room, but in the end we found the best place of all. Some of the guests were hanging out on the wrap-around porch under the ceiling fans drinking their wine and reading from the porch swing. In front, there was a beautiful Cherry tree in full blossom with wooden lawn chairs underneath. A small waterfall led you to the stairs on the side and our room was decorated in all kinds of butterfly paraphernalia topped with a sweet butterfly quilt. Mom soon found her way to the clawfoot bathtub. I parked myself in the living-room accessing the B&B's library to look up all the creatures' names that we had seen and to choose a good hike for the next day in the mountains. There were even chocolate chip cookies for the taking. Apparently breakfast was amazing there as well, but we were successful early risers and had our own budget version. The manager on duty had set out a bit of milk and strawberries for us and laid a private table knowing that we would be leaving early in the morning. I wanted dawn in the Smokies on camera.

When we finally pulled into Chicago at around 10pm, it was almost 80 degrees...warmer than Florida had been and all the young people on spring break were out on the street though it was a Monday night. It was a nice return approaching from Lake Shore Drive into the brilliant city skyline.

In the end mom survived the allligators, the mountain hikes, an after hours night-time swim, and even had the patience for a wild-turkey chase. Florida's bit of the Atlantic stole my sandals on a rip-tide and I left my lens cap in Savannah, but I daresay I gained more than I lost.

coming soon: a map of me...sorry. I can't post the mosaic due to the extra-large file:(

For those of you who don't already know, I am graduating this year. In fact, I cross the stage on June 16. yea!!!! at the moment, I can't even comprehend that time, let alone getting on a plane this coming Monday headed for Florida. at the moment, I have three papers to write on ravens, animal telepathy, and Orcas (not necessarily in that order:), I have two presentations to give tomorrow, one of which is for phonetics, a world of knowledge I can barely wrap my head around, and I have at least six more interviews to do with my waiting animal clients. whew.

My Bellingham life has become quite hectic between doing sexual assault advocacy, working at the Food Bank, publicizing environmental events for campus, applying for summer jobs/internships around the world, working on my photography portfolio, and modeling for the fine arts department. Oh, and every Thursday is vegan potluck night at my house. One wouldn't think that I was a full time student, but I am simultaneously doing some cool work in school and connecting it to all the real world goop.

Two of my favorite people are leaving town soon....heading to Mexico on their bikes and I am preparing to leave as well. I can't for the life of me make up my mind about where I want to be the most, but you can count on it being somewhere interesting.

I hope that everyone out there is surviving in their own fantastic ways and that this blob of words find you in good health. My intention for this email was to show you all a picture of one of my final projects, a photo mosaic but the file is too large. In other words, it is still to come. Keep checking and I will keep working on it:)