SC + NC = columbus day weekend

One of my t-town roommates Niki moved to South Carolina a while back and I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to visit and check off another couple east coast states!

I hopped on a train after work, attempted sleeping and arrived in the early morning hours in Spartanburg,SC. I walked to a 24 diner – papas breakfast nook – and waited for niki to wake up! Meanwhile I made friends with this random dude who insisted on sitting down with me and telling me his travel history. Luckily for me, Niki arrived as I finished eating and at the end of his climbing/traveling/bumming around stories. He may or may not have insisted that we become fb friends…. Hahahaha, if you see a “bobby” on my fb it’s him…

After naps and showers Niki took me out to see Greenville, SC and wander for the day. It was a perfect, warm day. Greenville is BEAUTIFUL! There was a neat park along the river that made for a nice walk while sipping on starbucks! Duh… it’s me… Again it would be a PERFECT place to run. Some funky shops and (how did I almost forget) MOONSHINE tasting! It was a deliciously random day…

We went for pedicures and Niki cooked a bomb dinner for us!

The next day we woke up early to cross over to North Carolina! We went to Carowinds, an amusement park. Again we lucked out, nice weather and minimal crowds! We were able to tackle all the rides in record time!!! The park was covered in crazy looking skeletons and dummies for Halloween events. Our personal favorite was riding a facedown roller coaster over water with a trail of mental patient escapees (sp?)…. hahahaha

Niki cooked another BOMB dinner for us! Mason got me a t-shirt from his school! And we topped off the evening by watching the darkest, most twisted, graphic television show out there… american horror story… YIKES… thanks dudes, right before putting me on the night train home…

Arrived home, napped and wandered the taste of dc with my roommate! We listened to rusted root with capital as the back drop. Excellent people watching… yay Columbus day…

Virginia/old rag/luray caverns

Get me outta here! Work is ridiculous…. That being said any excuse to get out of town is a good one!

Mark had a genius idea to head into Virginia and go hiking! We both heard good things online about Old Rag Mountain…(insert joke here…hehehe) So we rented a car and left on a Saturday morning, made it to Old Rag late morning and did the 9 mile trail. It was gorgeous!! Nice to leave the rainy, cityscape for some sunny, beautiful scenery. The trail was not that difficult, but the rock scramble was challenging – in the most fun way possible…LOVED IT! Involving climbing and sliding and following light blue spray painted dots and the view from the top was truly amazing. (photo credit:mark)

We drove through skyline drive in the shenandoah national park… again so beautiful! Pictures don’t quite capture it!

Stayed the night in Strasburg, a tiny little town that was supposed to be hosting an Oktoberfest, but the weather changed and they closed down early….booooo! Most hilarious evening of attempting to find a bar in ANY of the neighboring towns proved to be fruitless… isn’t every small town supposed to have some dive of a bar, where all the townies hang out??? Apparently not…

Next day we checked out the luray caverns!!! Much like Wall Drug in SD there are signs EVERYWHERE for luray caverns. Interesting side note from the tour – some dude figured out how to play music on the stalactites (and yes I did have to look up the spelling on that) making it one of the largest instruments around. Our tour/admission included a car museum that was next door to the caverns which also turned out to be pretty interesting… amazing to think that my grandparents could have ridden in some of models…

Sadly, weekends come to end….booo going back to work….

I got a school boy heart, a novelist eye, stout sailor's legs and a license to fly,

One of the exciting parts of moving east was the opportunity to spend time with east coast friends, so it was about time ABBY and I finally figured out a weekend to get together! Since both of us wanted to get out of town (me-dc, abby-nyc) and we had to wait down to the wire to organize, we figured a road trip was in order.

Less than 24 hours before leaving…
Abby finally finds out she has the whole weekend off from all her jobs!

Less than 20 hours before leaving…
Erin gets a bus ticket to NYC and we decide to head towards Mystic, Connecticut, but we can’t book a hotel online because of the timing… so we plan on winging it!

Saturday
Bus to NYC… pass a NASCAR style race happening on blocked off streets in downtown Baltimore…CRAZY!
Bus arrive over an hour LATE…yikes, sorry abby! Hop in Abby’s car and start our drive!
Traffic, traffic, traffic… but not as bad as you might expect for a holiday weekend

Attempt like 50 hotels, but find out they are all booked due to: holiday weekend, local power outages, and of course snoop dog is in town – naturally most likely cause of having to drive 45 minutes out of town to find a hotel :)

Finally settle in an awesome restaurant in Mystic’s harbor…. only place more hopping than our restaurant choice was the ice cream shop down the street… even after 10pm, so naturally we had to check it out

Sunday
Drive to Point Judith, Rhode Island, take ferry to Block Island

Couldn’t have asked for a more lovely, sunny day! My pics don’t do it justice, but it was exactly what I needed… beach time, a ridiculous beverage, beautiful scenery with one of my best friends… thanks abby for suggesting such a PERFECT destination!!!

Could have wandered the beaches and taken pictures for days, but caught a late ferry back for one more night in Mystic.

Sorry Julia Roberts fans, we skipped Mystic Pizza (but we did walk by) in favor of one of the other amazing looking restaurants. After much mocking of the local business advertisements on the hotel TV in between showers we decided to take one of their recommendations VooDoo something… sadly we were just minutes past the kitchen closing…

MONDAY
Woke up slowly and strolled around cameras (and starbucks) in hand
I know many of you won’t believe me when I say that Abby and I both LOVE this little local coffee company called starbucks…. So let me clear it up for you… we may or may not have hit up starbucks 3 times between the 2 of us on the trip back :)

Scenic drive back, traffic not that bad….even in nyc… and driving along the hudson was gorgeous

Immediately hopped on the bus to dc… napped and worked… vacation over…SAD…

Already plotting the next meet up, hopefully OCTOBER for round 2!

earthquakes and hurricanes…SERIOUSLY?!

Second day of school earthquake magnitude over 5… seriously…
Followed up by reports of a hurricane to hit the most populated parts of the east coast… SERIOUSLY…

In the end it was a great excuse to sleep and stay inside. The most visible damage I encounter is actually the building connected to our middle school campus (across the alley from the elementary campus). It is brick and looks as if it is going to buckle – but no worries they put up some yellow tape and a wimpy fence to block the sidewalk, so you know if the 3 stories decides to come down I’m covered right?! REALLY?! Yeah, I have to walk by it at least twice a day…

Other than that, I am thoroughly under-whelmed. Most of the “crazy” winds must have been while I was sleeping… THANK GOD :)

Interesting side note: A parent at school said that her first instinct during the earthquake was that it was 9/11 all over again. She and her colleagues immediately looked out their windows toward the pentagon before considering that it might be an earthquake…

honk honk… thank god I am not a dc driver

people in dc use their horns a lot more frequently than in WA. For example, if you are first at a stop light you don’t have to be responsible to watch the light, the car behind you will alert you…honk honk…

do you like SEE food??

Couldn’t resist the childhood knee slapper… thank goodness I am not 6 anymore, ewww!

For real though, bonus to east coasters, LOVE and availability of SEAFOOD! My new roommate invited me to the party she threw for her boyfriend’s birthday in August. It was an AWESOME lobster+steamers eating extravaganza! I have NEVER seen so many lobsters in one place… YUM… Mom will never believe this but they were huge, whole lobsters - and there were so many leftovers!

concerts and other fun!!!!!!!!

I was really concerned that moving would mean missing out on summer concerts. And you all know how I feel about summer concerts! J Lucky for me there seem to be plenty of opportunities and venues to explore in dc. I am especially enjoying that I can WALK to some of them… yep WALK! So far I have seen Keith Urban at the Verizon Center, Rusted Root at the 9:30 Club, and Alison Krauss at Wolf Trapp. Don't worry Allison went to see a baseball game too!

Already have tickets to a couple more shows this fall…. Now if only some of my FAVORITE concert buddies could magically appear…

DC Digs (aka For Mom…)

The big move went REALLY smoothly! Since the super cute rowhouse I am renting a room and bathroom in was already furnished I didn’t really have to do much except unpack. Allison and I made one trip to Target/BB&B and then we were DONE! As in "get me out of the flippin’ hot weather, take a cool shower, and NAP for a bit before exploring" DONE!!! :)

Since Mom will probably drag her feet about coming for a visit, here are some pics of where I am living.

Welcome inside!

super comfy living room!


kitchen is HUGE!

my bedroom

very white bathroom

west philadephia born and raised....

First stop: PHILADELPHIA

Allison and I wanted to do another big trip this summer. We were planning on Espana. Then I screwed it up and decided I would be moving during our trip window. SORRY Allison! Anyway after considering a few options we both thought it was about time we traveled to Philly. Both of our grandparents on my dad’s side were from west Philadelphia and they have been telling stories about boathouse row, the Scanlin Tavern, and the special stairs at west catholic high for AGES. Also, our Dad’s much loved cousins still live the area and we have wanted to see them for awhile now.

2 big bags + our back packs, a one way ticket, and we were ready to go!

Day 1 = check out historic Philadelphia + reunion dinner with cousins!

We saw the Liberty Bell, parts of Independence Hall, Betsy Ross’ house, the meeting spaces reserved by the founding fathers, Christ Church, Ben Franklin’s grave,and my personal favorite part CITY TAVERN! We consumed the same beers, in the same location as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin. Definitely my kind of history.

Me, Jimmy and Allison

We also ate philly cheesesteaks on South Street!

Diane and Jimmy planned a dinner in Manayunk at this awesome CAJUN place! Loved it!

Day 2 = the Scanlin historical site tour + Valley Forge

We saw all the places where Black Jack and the fam grew up! It’s crazy to think it wasn’t that long ago he was there growing up, being a kid, dating granny annie, rowing the river and running the rocky steps! We saw the famous Scanlin tavern and ventured into some graveyards – including the one where Jimmy figured out what part of Ireland we are from! Jimmy was an AMAZING tour guide. We ended our tour having a Hykel’s hoagies. Darn good sandwich, I’d go back in a second!

Scanlin Tavern

We also checked out the BEAUTIFUL valley forge. I would have loved to go on a run there. Big gorgeous park, great day, very little humidity! Nice documentary in the visitor area if you ever head out…

scenic Valley Forge

Day 3 = finish up historic Philadelphia + night out on the town!

Back downtown to actually go in independence hall - we missed the memo about needing time stamped tickets on day one. Jimmy also helped us finish out our must consume list by providing us with awesome soft pretzels and birch beer. YUM.

soft pretzels outside of Independence Hall

We went to few other places namely to run up the ROCKY STEPS at the museum of art and for a closer look at the individual boat houses. Turns out grandpa and his brothers did not all row for the same houses – kind of reminded me of fraternities a little.

Then we met up with Diane and took a bus back downtown to drink at the top of a hotel! Then we continued our crawl to an irish pub where a bluegrass group (The Keystone Mountain Boys ) were playing. They were AWESOME. Great night!

Allison, Diane, and me out on the town!

Day 4 = Chinatown bus to DC!

Diane dropped us off and we enjoyed a nice 2 and half hour bus ride to DC. Thank god for AC!
Can’t say enough nice things about our lovely hosts Jimmy Scanlin and Diane Bones! Love you guys! Thank you for a wonderful visit!!!! I hope to see you both again now that I am so close!

Why DC?

Having lived on the west coast pretty much my whole life (ok, well, not for college, but anyway…) I also thought I needed a change in scenery. So at first I thought wouldn’t it be awesome to move somewhere tropical and warm like HAWAII! Great idea right?! NOPE, apparently the school system is no bueno and it would limit easy travel options to only the other islands….oh yeah and one other glaring issue…I don’t know anyone in Hawaii…. Scary, although I didn’t know anyone in Iowa either and that turned out alright. Anyway, Hawaii was out before I even finished working on my resume.

So next brilliant idea was to look for locations that aren’t too far (read short plane ride) from WA. After studying the map I decided Colorado seemed like a good idea, lots of high school and college friends, Denver seemed like a rad place to live – not too big to overwhelm me, not in the middle of suburbia either. Beautiful place, lots of sports teams, proximity to other rad places…. Wait, why didn’t I end up here?! Oh that’s right, I almost did… The school that I thought I was gonna love didn’t turn out to be the place for me and I turned it down.

Good thing by then I already had opened up the search to include DC because once I started looking at charter schools, my searches kept turning up interesting schools in DC. Which I started to rationalize the long plane ride against the major pluses: friends, proximity to fun places (I seriously can’t wait to explore more of the east coast), and the city is not too big. Even though I was (ahem, still am) second guessing my willingness to switch coasts and leave all of my family in WA… I think it is (will be) a great decision.

Everything lined up. Stars aligned. I’m here. Keep your fingers crossed it all works out. :)

WHY?

The most asked question since this winter when I found out I passed my national boards….
Well, in case you didn’t already hear the answer (or if I gave you the short version), the reasons were MANY. One, why not?! I am only 27! Also, I had been teaching in the same school (despite 3 different classrooms), at the same grade for 6 years. Which by itself is great because each year has brought new challenges, I still don’t think I have mastered it….but it was getting comfortable…. a little too comfortable. Like I could easily keep doing it until I turn 85. And last summer I finished my master’s program, in November I finally got my results from boards and passed (THANK GOD), and therefore had nothing left to juggle and keep me busy. I mean who am I if don’t have TOO much on plate. (Turns out A LOT more social than the last 5 years – hahaha).

Anyway, it was time for a change. Time to get out of my comfort zone. Time to shake it up.