I like to keep people informed as to the thrilling events of my engaging life. This summer I did this via email updates. Now you too can share in the gorey details of my exisitance.
My kickin' summer excursion
Me in NY, Part 2
I heart NY
Krispy Kreme and other
rantings
Farewell
My kickin' summer excursion: 06.12.01
Heidy-ho! I thought it was time for a summer update of sorts and there are simply too many people that I care about, so I apologize for the mass email. Please don't hate me!
So, I'm sitting at my desk in my very own GIANT room looking out one of my three windows (in bay formation) and thinking that this is how college dorms should be. They also do our sheets and towels for us and clean here every weekday. The program has taken over three houses at the College of St. Rose and we're the smallest, though the physical house is huge. There are six girls that live here and they are all very cool. Jaquie's the sort of person that helped me carry my stuff in from the car before we had formal introductions but has no qualms about taking someone out in a game of rugby. Loxene and Crystal are tied for sweetest smile, Wanda's from Puerto Rico and is very interested in everything, and when Vicki's not listening to punk or working out like a madwoman, she's trying to find a good tatoo parlor. Daralynn might as well live here; she's a very proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, Incorporated. Skeewheat! She tried to teach me to step dance, but it was an utter failure. Everyone in the program's really neat and it's cool to be around so many people who understand what I'm doing and are just as confused about the same things (grad school, individual project, etc.) as I am. I thought that everyone who really into their field would be a lot like people at Tech, but I'm finding out that I was wrong. It's good sometimes to have your preceptions shattered.
I work for the New York State Dept. of Health and I am such a government employee. Everyday I show my special photo ID programmed security badge (that must be visible at all times) at two security desks to enter my department, which is subterrian. I decend two floors to level C and spend my day wearing a white lab coat and latex gloves (except for when I walk around the building, in which case I would be volating safety rules). There are about a thousand security cameras everywhere. Last night I had a dream that I did something bad (I don't remember what) and then realized that it had all been videotaped. I woke up with an, "Oh, crap!" feeling. The scary thing about the cameras is that I have no idea who's watching them. In normal places there's a front desk with about ten screens and a security guard reading a cheap romance novel. Not so at the Wadsworth Center - the front desk security attentively sscans for badges (pronounced bejes here) and Big Brother watches me wander the complex. The whole place is so confusing. Every hall looks alike and leads to nowhere. It takes me about 15 minutes to get anyplace other than where stairwell 9 takes me. It's kinda funny except that I am paranoid that I'm going to get stopped and asked if I belong there. The major upsides to being a government employee is that I feel very safe and photocopies are free. The library also gets "Gourmet". =)
I work for Dr. XinXin Ding and this
summer I'll be making a virus carrying a mutation in the promoter region
of a marker gene. That probably means nothing to you so the simplified
version is that we want to see if a specific stretch of DNA does what we
think it does. The work's really interesting and it's wonderful because
the lab is so well funded. I'm learning how to do all the protocols
I learned in Atlanta with kits and today we got two new pipettes and no
one noticed. Nobody in the lab fills tip boxes or makes solutions
or washes glassware or makes media or autoclaves anything themselves.
There are people for that. The grad student I work under is named
Guoyu and, yes, it took me a week to pronouced that remotely correctly.
There are about ten people in my lab and all are native Chinese.
It's a little hard because they speak Chinese to each other and not many
are comfortable speaking English. This makes chatting kinda hard,
so we smile a lot at each other. I've started having conversations
with a few people whose lab is adjacent to my desk and they're all very
neat. I feel sorta bad because I know that it's difficult for them
to talk to me, but it's been cool because as they talk to me more they
are gaining confidence in their English. There are a few interesting
tidbits about
being the only American in a natively
foreign lab:
1) I have become the average American.
Yes, you can laugh. Even though I am a boring prude, my life seems
very frivolous and exciting in their eyes. I never really gave it
much thought, but people in America play a lot: we value sports, spend
money on concerts, go to bars (well, not all of us), etc. This is
a new concept to my lab. I have become the authority on everything
American and thatcracks me up.
2) I have learned to speak very slowly
and keep slang to a minimum (especially after trying to explain the concept
of crapwork). Everyone in the lab is very highly educated (many already
have MDs), so I don't know how extensive their vocab is and that's kinda
hard because I don't want to offend anyone.
3) My food is strange and too sweet.
One of the post-docs borrowed my cookbook to learn American cuisine.
4) The way I study for the GRE is weird.
5) I apparently know everything about
driving and this weekend I'm going to take Yingxiu out and show him how
as his test is Tuesday.
My major complaint about my job is that the labs are kept at 65F. Of course, that's usually not too far off from the temperature of the city, so you can find me on any given day in pants and a jacket. I don't even miss wearing sandles because I think if I did I'd get frostbite. It's going to be 80-90F here this week and it's cracking me up how all (awl) the Yankees are freaking out. Today several of the interns and I walked back from work and it was all of 80 and not that bad but to hear them talk you would have thought that we were in the middle of Florida in July. On the other hand, I've been doing happy dances in front of the weather channel for the past few days.
I've taken up working out. Last
night I was on the eliptical maching for 50 minutes. Go me.
All the interns are fitness freaks, especially my housemates. On
the flip side, I walked to the Dunkin' Donuts tonight because
my craving for a doughnut had gotten
bad enough to compromise my KK standards. All I have to say is DO NOT GET
THE VANILLA CREME FILLED KIND. It was yucky: the "creme" was artery-blocking
icing and the doughnut part was stale. =( Blech.
With the exception of the Dunkin' Donuts, I like Albany. It's a really cute city and there's so much to see and do. There are even podunk festivals in the area and that seriously floats my boat. This weekend I'm going to the Strawberry Festival and the Whipple City Festival. Tons of cheap or free entertainment everywhere. The architecture is really awesome and they have tons of old buildings all over the place. The public transit's safe and convienent, but you can get about anywhere on foot. It's also nestled in the middle of farmland and state parks. Uber pleasant.
Wow, I really wrote a book. If you made it this far, congrats and thanks for caring (or being bored) enough to muddle through. I miss you and hope you're having a wonderful summer.
Jessica, American Extroidinaire
Hi there! It's time for an update
as my laundry's drying. I think that this
week is a good week for a numbered
format, don't you?
1. I just made snickerdoodle biscotti but I don't have an airbake cookie sheet here so the bottom's a little burned. I had never had biscotti before, but I like it dipped in milk.
2. I learned this week that China
isn't bad. Contrary to popular American belief, it's not an evil
communist stronghold bent on tormenting its citizens. Over the last ten
years there has been much change. In fact, China's operating under
a partially capitalist system now and there isn't an equal distribution
of wealth. Yes, the government is into everything, but the citizens
don't hate it - they expect it and don't mind it for the most part.
No one in my lab sees any reason why there would be resistance against
the one child policy. It was
really hard for me to grasp an acceptance
of the Chinese political system and to hear that its citizens are satisfied
with it, for the most part. I'm coming to terms with China not being
the big bad bully I was taught to think it was.
3. My room stunk because it's above the basement but I bought a candle and now it smells like "garden cucumbers."
4. I discovered this week that
one of the great things about working for the government is that all of
my packages are openned for me. I think it's very thoughtful of Uncle
Sam to make it so I don't have to wrestle with all that nasty packing tape.
In fact, my life is so interesting that he snoops through the parcels.
I am a fascinating person recieving fascinating things. As an aside,
if you want to give me explosives, drugs, or weapons, please wait until
the end of the summer. Uncle Sam likes that stuff so much that he
keeps it for
himself.
5. I love Ritz photo processing. It's cheaper than Wolf and much better.
6. Usually I really don't mind learning metabolic cycles. I was all over last year and it was my favorite part of microbiology. However, I have recently discovered that learning these cycles in the summer is not nearly as much fun. I tore through the book for the general GRE, but I am having a time with the Bio GRE because I actually have to learn all kinds of stuff, or worse, try to remember or elaborate on stuff I already know, which feels like a waste of time. If you're studying for upcoming tests, you have my utmost empathy.
7. Tuesday I went to a Strawberry Festival. Over the weekend I had tried to make it to one out of town, but it was so far we had to come back before we got there. So, you can imagine my delight to hear of one within walking distance of work. It turned out to be in the fellowship hall of a church and it was more like a eating deal than a festival. For $2.75 I got two large biscuits with mass quantities of strawberries and real whipped cream, plus a drink. It was really good, though I may die of a corronary later. I enjoyed it because Daralynn and Crystal came also and we had some great conversation. Also, it reminded me of my grandpa's old church and that made me smile.
8. I bought two new plants. One hangs in my big window and is a white impatien. I don't know the name of the other but it has flowers with two parts. One part is a bunch of petals that are highlighter pink and curl back and the other part is deep purple and comes out from that. I've been trying to come up with good names for the plants but haven't had any that fit. Lemme know if you have any suggestions.
9. I have begun to speak Northern and it's freaking me out.
10. Laundry's dry - gotta go fold so I can get some sleep.
11. I'm going to see Dave Matthews Band in concert!
12. I worked out again tonight: 50 minutes on the eliptical machine. Sunday I ran the longest that I have ever continuously run and I didn't even feel like I was going to die at the end (and no, that doesn't mean I should have run longer).
13. I found a church I like. It's a tiny Wesleyan church within walking distance. I went there Sunday and about five people came up to me and said they were glad I was there. (Note: when visiting a church, wear red.) There are a bunch of older people and some middle aged and kids, but no one really my age. I like that they are uncomprimising in their theology and that this church is really into working with other denominations to achieve unity among beleivers. It's a great environment in many ways and I left wishing that there was another service sooner than a week away.
I hope that this email finds you well. I miss you and hope to hear from you. Thank you to everyone who has sent me snail mail - it's been a big day-brightener. Ok, I really have to go fold now. Take care!
Jessica
Hi there. It's been a while since I've updated so I have a lot to tell ya. Get good and comfy and take stretch breaks as needed. =)
1. One of my goals this summer
was to learn how to bake bread. I've always been kinda scared of
working with yeast, but I took this fear head on and made my first two
loaves a couple weeks ago. It turned out pretty well and no one's
dead yet. I was surprised that it wasn't as difficult as I had thought.
Since I've been here I've also made a white pizza, bread pudding, snickerdoodle
biscotti (good with milk), veggie pie, chewy chocolate cookies, and Baymont
Inn cookies. It's been fun and the others in the program don't seem
to mind too
much, especially as I usually dump
some of the goods on them.
2. I just got the Lillywhite Sessions by Dave Matthews Band and it makes me very, very happy. I've had these songs going through my head since I heard them in Sacremento last summer. I can't wait to see them perform at the end of July. Woo-hoo!
3. My lab had a cookout at Lake George last weekend. It was a lot of fun. The area is really beautiful and it was overcast (until it rained) so it wasn't too hot. It was pretty funny because as the American I was instantly the authority on all grill related matters even though I have never actually grilled anything. There was so much food there. I'm serious - we could have fed a third world nation. But the amusing part was that it was all meat (in four highly seasoned varieties) and watermelon. I mean, skip the carbos and cut to the chase. We also played beach volleyball and in true Jessica fashion I came home with a very nice sunburn. Go me.
4. We are experiencing a cold snap. I am currently wearing flannel. But even when it's 85 the wind is so hard that I get goosebumps. It's crazy.
5. I saw Rockapella at a street
party thing. They're the group that sang on Carmen Sandiago.
Ohmygoodness they rock so hard. I never thought that a capella could
be like that. They had this one guy who could be drums and sing AT
THE SAME TIME. It was unbeleivable. It was one of the coolest
things I've ever heard or seen. Anyway, in the process I learned
something new about Yankees: music paralyses them. I don't know if
it's that they physically can't move or what. The people I saw trying
to dance were pretty bad (as if I can
talk) and everyone was looking at them
with looks or condemnation and confusion. Music? Dance?
What? I was about to explode because I wanted to shag dance so badly
and there was no one else there that could. All I could think (other
than how great the group was) was that if that had been in the South there
would have been some serious street dancing going on. Another important
discovery: Boca burgers are good, especially when they are free.
6. Another observation about the North: everyone's single. It seems to me that in Georgia everyone's married except kindergardners and that's simply because they are not literate enough yet to sign the forms (this can also be a limitation in rural GA). Here either literacy is a big problem or committment is, or they just don't see marriage as important. It's surely not because of a shortage of possible mates, as evidenced by heavy couplage. It's stranger to see a wedding band here than not to.
7. I had a great Independence
Day and hope you did also. First I ran continuously in the morning
for half an hour - a personal record. In the afternoon some people
in the program and I went to this gorgeous state park for a cookout.
There was so much food that we all ate until we were grotesquely full and
there was hardly a dent in the spread. We then went hiking on the
Indian Trail which was absolutely amazing; there were waterfalls and overlooks
from which we could see the heart of Albany. It smelled so clean,
like the scent I associate with vacation. On the way back to the
city we stopped for homemade ice cream at this little store that sold all
kinds of crazy flavors like peanut butter and jelly ice cream and root
beer sherbert. I got a medium
maple nut that was very yummy and very
large. That evening we went downtown to watch the fireworks but it
was so rainy and the wind was so strong that we turned around and came
back. Of course it cleared when we got home. We all ended the
day sitting in front of the TV in pj pants watching the Boston Pops (with
a psyco Cyndi Lauper) and fireworks. It was a great day, but I was
very sore the next.
8. I have been curious about Stewart's Shops since I got here. They're kinda like a mystical, magical 7-11. I finally went to one and it was everything I thought it could be. They have ice cream - lots of it and it's cheap. You can make your own sundae for $1.50 and there are piles of toppings. Here's the greatest thing ever: they have Cadbury Creme Eggs (3 for $1, none the less). I think I'm in love.
9. This weekend is my favorite festival ever. It's in Saluda, NC and is called Coon Dog Day. And I am totally crushed that I cannot be there. I would tell you of the wonder that it is, but I'd get feklempt. Let's take a moment of silence to honor the grief that is my seperation from the best hick festival in the world.
10. I went to a club for the first
time ever last night. Some observations:
a. The music is really, really,
really loud and you will go horse if you try to talk at all. I had
to finish off my ice cream when I got home as an effort to remedy this.
That was probably the only good part of the experience.
b. If you ask for a Shirley Temple
the bartender will see that you are old enough to buy alcohol, look at
you funny, and then tell you that they don't have the stuff to make it.
That's ridiculous. You mean to tell me that you have every spirit
known to man and you don't have cherry syrup and 7-Up? I should be
the one to look at him funny.
c. I can't dance but at least
I don't dance with my reflection in the mirror on the wall.
d. Dancing with your reflection
is not attractive.
e. I do not fit in at clubs because
I wear entirely too much fabric. I was trying to be all trendy last
night (which as you should know is a moot effort) and so wore my 3/4 sleeve
shirt. I could have ripped off the sleeves and made one a skirt and
the other a tube top and still looked like a nun in comparison.
11. Work is going well. I'm all most finished with the subcloning part of the project and am about to move into the playing with (nonvirulent) viruses phase. Today marks the halfway point in my internship. It's flying by and I fear that the next few weeks will be a blur.
How are things in your little corner of the earth?
Jessica
Why don't sheep shrink when it rains?
Krispy Kreme and other rantings: 07.28.01
Hello. I think it's time for another giant email as people have begun to write me and ask if I am alive. Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. I hope that was the desired answer.
In case this is slightly disjunct it is because I began this at home and then the internet was taken away (VERY traumatic) and now I am working on it while I wait for a reaction at work.
1. I like numbered formats. They make me happy. Organization is good.
2. I baked the second ugliest cake of my life for Crystal's birthday. It was a three-layer Martha Stewart one-bowl chocolate cake with buttercream icing. After the four-layer disaster (complete with fault lines) that I made for Gayle's 20th, you would think that I would have learned to limit myself to two layers and let the cake cool all the way before icing it. But with time comes pretention - hence Crystal's "cake". After gluing all the great divides together with frosting, there wasn't enough left to coat the sides, so it looked rather like a deranged oreo. The top resembled a model of the effects of plate tetonics on Pangea and the sprinkles I used to distract from this only got lodged in the cracks and enphasized my failure. It was a dark day for baking.
3. Last Monday I went to visit
the University of Rochester's grad school. I drove up Sunday and
stayed overnight. They put me up in a king suite at this great hotel:
I could lie perpendiculary across the bed and not hang off and the bathroom
was bigger than my room at school (as are most closets and high school
lockers). Sunday evening I went in search of black socks because
I lead a very exciting, fashionable life. On the way back from Target
(did I mention it's a CHEAP, exciting, fashionable life?), I saw it:
in the distance a soft green and red radiance beckoned me. I drove
closer. No! It couldn't be - but it was; it said, "Hot Doughnuts
Now." Frantically, yet cautiously (as if not wanting to wake from
the blissful dream), I pulled into the parking lot and got out of the car.
I must have stood there for a full minute staring at the bastian of doughnut
perfection, Krispy Kreme. I walked in the door and almost immediantly
a woman inside said to me, "Welcome to Krispy Kreme. Would you like
to try a free fresh, hot sample?" How could I reply but with, "I
love you"? I tried to tell her my sad story of addicition and transplantation
to the barren doughnut wilderness of the North but she looked at me with
confusion. So I took six hats and ordered a dozen. They had
wonderful, magicial flavors I have never seen before: peaches and cream,
powered sugar strawberry filled... Ah, bliss. And then, as if that
wasn't enough, as I pulled out of the shopping center I saw the Atlanta
Bread Company and read the thermometer in the car at 82F. It was
then that I decided that even if they beat me on Monday, I would move to
Rochester. It's a good thing that I ended up liking the school and
that my
interviews went well.
C. I have a 1964 quarter and it clinks differently than all my other coins. I guess it's because that was during the war. I wish I knew it's composition...
4. Last Wednesday a group of us from the program went to see "Oklahoma" for free in Washington Park. It was really predicatable, but amusing nonetheless. I really liked the song for which it was named, but I wish that the other compostions had been held to equal standards of complexity. As an aside, we all had a lot of fun and I managed to wheedle a whole bag of Skittles from Steve. I don't like the new green apple ones. Red's the best.
5. I recently discovered that Iowa not only has people who live there (I've had my doubts, but I guess someone has to dig the potatoes), but their liscence plates come in both the raised and flat format. It has a picture of a farm on it, complete with silo. Imagine that.
6. Last weekend I faced my #3 fear: New York City. I have a very cool cousin who is living there now and I went down to see her. I didn't find NYC overwhelmingly impressive, but it was amusing. Apparently, if you have too much money the mod thing to do is starve yourself and take your yappy little white dog shopping with you. Some even go so far as to carry the beasts in baby carriers. I just can't imagine what these women do if they are in the Armani Exchange and Fifi has to tinky. Does Armani have fire hydrants all over the store? Is there a designated doggie caretaker? These are pressing questions.
On a similar note, a bird crapped on me in Manhattan.
7. Thursday a group of us went to see the NYC ballet perform in Saratoga. It was the best student discount I have ever recieved: $5 for lawn tickets. The performance was excellent. The danced to Ash, Morgen by Strauss (my favorite), Romeo and Juliet (an excerpt), and Tchaikovsky's Suite 3 (also very good). Next week the Phillidelphia orchestra will be performing, so we are talking about going to see that.
8. Last night I went out to a big field with Eli and Steve and looked at the stars. They are constellation gurus and Eli even knows the mythology behind it all. It was really neat: the stars we so bright and it was so quiet (to a city girl, at least). It was also very cold so I spent most of the time wrapped in a giant blanket. The sky was so clear that I could see the Milky Way - it was astounding. There were about ten shooting stars. It's the beginning of the August meteor showers, so go and check it out if you have a chance.
9. A science tangent: No one in
my lab has ever made any growth medium before so it's sort of one of the
forbidden arts around here. Recently, I needed some LB plates and
broth and couldn't wait for the dept. that makes them to get them for me.
So I did it. It involved openning new bottles of premade LB (which
has SUCH a difficult composition) that were bought in 1994. Around
here making your own media is somewhere between an act of God and an unspeakable
evil. When I took the LB with agar down to get it autoclaved, it
was the first time they had ever seen agar and the people there were very
nervous that it would exlpode in
the machine. After assuring them
that I had done this about a thousand times before they took it.
Gouyu was absolutely fascinated that I could do it steriley and ran controls
for about a week. He was very upset the I poured the plates on my
own because he wanted to learn how. It's pretty ridiculous.
You should have seen his face when we ran out of a mini-prep kit and told
him I'd make up the Mantiatis solutions...
10. I painted my toenails but you can hardly tell. That's how you know you got the right color.
Well, it's off to transfect cells. Take care. I hope you having a great day.
Jessica
I know you have been anxiously awaiting my final update, so here it is. I'll be leaving Saturday way too early in the morning and getting back into Charlotte sometime Sunday. I hope (well, maybe that's not the right word) to be back at MaTech around August 18. It will be good to see my pals again, but I could really do with all that academic gunk that gets in the way of a great social life, or at a least mediocre one in my case. All the same, my tenure in NY state is coming to a close and I know that you are dying to hear all about it.
1. A couple weekends ago Chris L. came up and hung out in the bustling town of Albany as Monday was the Dave Matthews Band concert in Saratoga. It was good to see him, especially as it's been about a year. The concert was at the same venue as the NY City Ballet, but the experience was a tad different. For one, I wasn't frisked to see the ballet. Also, I think there was less pot at my cultural outing, or at least it was better disguised. In addition to a great show, I was entertained by a very look-at-me-I'm-so-different chick in front of me that had plastered herself with butterfly tattoos. Very original. Mark, Chris, and I all were happy when we left the concert because the song each had wanted to hear was played. Mine was "Grace is Gone" off the unreleased "Lillywhite Sessions."
2. Chris and I went to Vermont just 'cause and saw a giant obelisk commemorating some Revolutionary stuff. Then we came back.
3. Last weekend I went to see
Cori and Derek join in holy matrimony in Atlanta. It was a beautiful
wedding and Cori was a positively radiant bride. From what I could
gather, Derek seemed pretty happy too. =) It was an honor to
be there. I had a great time and it was also nice to see so many
of my friends. Here are some brief notes from that trip:
a. The lady across sitting across from
me in the Pittsburgh airport spent about fifteen minutes meticulously folding
Kleenex into thirds.
b. Bagels that have jam on them for
five hours have a funky texture.
c. I like "Spirit of Moonflower" perfume
from the Body Shop. This knowledge is courtesy of a layover.
d. It's strange when you go to the
first wedding of a friend only to discover that two others have married
without your knowledge, two more couples are engaged, and a two "boys are
trouble" girls are in serious
relationships. I think the word
for this is "surreal." It's happy, though.
e. I hate nail polish with far more
passion than even I imagined possible.
f. The Atlanta airport commissions
"AirportArt." This is disturbing.
g. The woman sitting next to me on
the way home got into Studio 54 when she was at NYU in the early 80s.
She also went to Calvin Klein's birthday party and failed Calculus as a
result. This was far more interesting than anything else she had
to say more or less nonstop for two hours.
4. I gave a presentation on my lab work this morning. It was really nerve-wracking, but it's over and for that I am very thankful. I have to write up everything I've done in a scientific format by Friday and that is not cool. Blah.
5. Some observations courtesy of public
transportation:
a. If you are a large female who has
to shave your back, do not wear a sweater with many giant holes in it and
only a blue bra underneath.
b. If you talk to your necklace and
flip it around incessantly, you will look crazy.
c. People will stay away of you discuss
with yourself your diagnosis of schizophrenia.
6. My dad is flying up to drive back with me. I am glad because I like him loads and because it's a crazy-long trip and now I don't have to drive it alone.
7. Today after presentations Steve,
Eli, and I blew off work and went in search of covered bridges. In
six hours and 142 miles we managed to find four, a Revolutionary cemetery,
and dinner. It was an exciting trip for several reasons, not the
least of which was that in the span of hours we experienced 100F and 83F.
It's been rather muggy and warm, so the latter was somewhat of a relief.
As for the former, well, it was fun to watch Eli and Steve flip out.
And yes, in true road trip fashion, the windows were down, the music was
loud,
and I am horse from singing with it.
The first place we stopped was Buskirks Bridge that threatened a "25 dollar
fine for driving faster than a walk." You will be relieved to know
that the land was protected by the right to farm life law - about which
we postulated for the remainder of the trip. Next up on the covered
bridge queue was Eagleville Bridge. It was neat and made totally
of wood, complete with wooden pegs instead of nails. There were several
people there enjoying the river and we weren't about to be left out.
We waded around in the clear, cold water and I learned how to skip rocks.
I can only hop it twice, but that's a start. As an aside, five hours
later my Tevas are still clammy. Next we found Shushin Bridge, which
had been converted into a museum. This was a good thing because I
was intimidated by the large warning: "Five dollars fins for rideing or
driveing on this bridge faster than a walk (sic)." Ironically, it
was accompanied by Salem District No. 6 School Museum. There was
also a stone from the first Baptist Church, erected 1800 and rebuilt in
1898 - but, oh wait, there was no church. Hmmm. The last bridge
was the Rexleigh covered bridge built in 1874. Some of the kids there
saw me with my camera and were afraid I was going to turn them in for jumping
off the bridge, which of course, was absolutely my intent when I set out
this afternoon. We decided that this was probably because no one
younger than 50 is ever a tourist at covered bridges. Imagine that;
I was an anomaly. Anyway, we had a good time and now I am very tired.
It was great to get out, though, because I love trips that are halfway
excuses to just get out and drive around on country back roads and
breathe clean air. I was
even commended for not driving like a city girl.
I hope that life is treating you well. Though it stinks that summer is coming to a close, I look forward to seeing my Tech friends and I hope that I will hear from the others. Now I think it's time for bed.
Jessica
Jessica, Bio Geek
"Life is what happens to you while
you are busy making other plans." --John Lennon