I’ve moved to a more blog-ish place…I’m leaving my tumblr to remember my trip by. If you are interested in my adventures, thoughts, favorite links, music, etc….check it out!
10 points if you get the lyric reference before reading the first entry. Just guessing the band doesn’t count because lets face it, I don’t make it that hard to figure out the musicians I’m closest to.
ALightLeftOn.blogspot.com
Goodbye DC, Hello York!
DC was great. I got to visit with some Penn Cohortians, some family and some Ursinus folks. Basically, the summation of most of my visits along this journey. I didn’t do much in DC as far as sightseeing but I did get to just hang out, visit with people and spend a significant amount of time voting for Kingsfoil in their latest competition.
Currently, I’m back in York. I’ve officially made it home! Just over 11,000 miles on my car (I have traveled more if you count the flight home and back from chicago and all the public transit and friends that drove me around their respective cities). I’m sitting in The Green Bean Roasting Co. I’m notorious for getting into town and coming straight here…not stopping at home or anything first, so I figured I might as well round out my trip with one last cafe, the same one I started it with. I didn’t make it a habit to give the cafes that I have visited superlatives, but I’ll say that The Green Bean wins the award for best music…and favorite baristas. This could of course be because the baristas have been my friend for the past…oh, 6 years and have influenced a significant chunk of my music library….but oh well. Glad to be home! And I CANT wait to see all my friends over the next week. York this weekend, Philly on Tuesday, lots of family for the holiday…. See you all soon!
A major update is in order but first I would just like to say that I have officially been on the road for 10 weeks. It feels like it has flown by and yet, I am so ready to get home. Since my last update I have traveled from Rogers, AR to a little town south of Nashville, to Fort Mill, SC to Raleigh, NC to Richmond, VA to my current location in DC. During this time I MAY have celebrated a few milestones. 1) crossing into the Eastern Time Zone 2) reaching a state that touches the Atlantic Ocean 3) finding a Wawa (seriously, the midwest/ west needs to work on their C-stores).
Rogers, AR didn’t include a lot of sightseeing or touristy things, I did however make it to the “main” Wal-Mart store, located right across from the headquarters. I got my oil changed there. It was terribly exciting. They did test my patience, in multiple ways, but what would wal mart be if not for a thorn in everyone’s side, right? Luckily, I anticipated this, you see, I have been keeping a running count of the number of miles I have driven since I left York. When they changed my oil they reseted my tripometer….this would have caused me to flip out at them….much like I did do when the man there implied I didn’t know what an oil change meant and when the other man implied that I must not drive much since I’m a young female….but those are other stories. I happened to jot down my milage before it went into the garage, so all is good, but if I was a little less of a control freak and hadn’t made note, I would certainly be enough of a control freak to be PISSED at them. Instead, I’ll just be angry about them being sexist. That, I am definitely ok with.
Being in Arkansas I got to spend some time with Dutt, aka Dustin Sunday….my cousin? We’ll go with that. I would certainly consider him a member of the Zimmerman family at this point. It was great to catch up with him and meet his girl friend…and his cat, chow chow.
The only other thing worth mentioning in good ol’ Arkansas would be an “Overheard in Panera” moment that I had. The conversation was between 3 rather loud women in their 40s. The gem of the convo was, “Ugh. Vegans. I don’t know how they can live that way, it’s just so offensive”, she continued to state that “Vegans are un-holy” and that “Vegans hate Jesus”. Yep. Welcome to the South.
From there I traveled to visit with the Burnetts. Dustin is Kingsfoil’s producer and he and his family live just south of Nashville. He has such an amazing family, his wife Miranda and kids Cohen and Drake are all just awesome. While Cohen was at school, Miranda, Drake and I wandered around Franklin, TN and just spent some time catching up. It was great to see them and get to meet his kids. (Cohen is a swimmer who shares my favorite color so CLEARLY, she is awesome)
From there I made the trek to the Shriver residence in Fort Mill, SC. There was a stop for lunch in Knoxville in honor of Taryn, Joe and Robbie before continuing on to SC. Fort Mill is a small town about a mile from the NC border. The Shrivers are some of my favorite people. Their son, Michael, came home from college to hang out with us for the weekend and we spent it doing all sorts of random things but mostly just hanging out and visiting. This was the perfect chill weekend with one of my favorite families.
Michael happens to live in the next town that I was headed to, Cary/ Raleigh, NC. So, I followed him up there on Sunday and spent the day visiting with Jon B., one of my UC/ Res Life friends. I can’t accurately tell you what a 7 hour hang out with Jon B is like, so if you don’t know him, you will just have to take my word and know that it was awesome and just what I needed before I finished out my last week.
Currently, I’m sitting in DC at a little cafe called Baked and Wired in Germantown. Tonight I am meeting up with 2 more cohortians and then headed to see KATIE NUNN! Tomorrow night consists of a dinner that I have been looking forward to for months, literally. It has been too long since I have visited my DC friends.
I’ll be home on Friday! I can’t believe it.
OKLAHOMA! ….where the wind comes sweeping down the plains.
Fact: No less than three people started singing this song to me during different phone conversations while I was in Stillwater this past weekend. Without fail the conversation went as follows:
Person: hey Karin! Where are you now?
Me: Stillwater, Oklahoma
Person: Oklahoma! Where the wind comes sweeping down the plains? (in a singsong voice)
Me: Yep….
That being said, Oklahoma was awesome. And not just because I had a childhood love of Rogers and Hammerstein. I stayed with my friend Wil, who is a student at OSU. You may recognize Wil for a number of reasons. 1) He is from Doylestown and you love all things Bucks County as much as I do. 2) He was in “Davis Howley and the Diction” and he played in York a few years ago. 3) He performed with ZBS at Ursinus back in the day. No, he didn’t actually go to Ursinus….but he was in the improv troupe because…I don’t know, he just was…and it was funny. Anyway….Wil is pretty awesome, obviously ( being from D-town, friends with Davis, and improv-er)
When I arrived in Stillwater it was game day. Wil warned me I may hit some traffic. In my head, this meant Happy Valley/ State College traffic where you sit on the single road that leads into town for hours, I was pleased to discover that it meant that I had to sit through TWO light cycles to turn off the main street…setting me back all of 3 minutes. The game was a lot of fun. It was kinda amazing to watch the sports fans. Football is SO important yet, at the end of the game, they (meaning the fans) told the other side that it was a good game, shook their hand and went their separate ways. Now, we all know i’m not a die hard sports fan BUT I have been in the Philly area for several years now and Philadelphia is NO JOKE about their sports. please try to imagine in your head a stadium full of Eagles fans doing this. I mean, yes…there were drunk OSU undergrads mouthing off a little here and there but that’s to be expected to some level.
At any rate. I had a GREAT time in Stillwater. It was great to catch up with Wil, talk about music, listen to music, watch The Santa Clause 2, and see the sights of Stillwater. Its a pretty chill small college town. We made a stop at Aspen Roasting Company which was a cute little cafe on main street. I was kinda sad to leave BUT I’m pretty excited to get home. Oklahoma as a state was so beautiful. Its just now Fall there and the trees were so awesome.
I will say that Oklahoma does have winds sweeping the plains though. My trip from Texas to Stillwater was so windy that I felt like I was driving at an angle. My steering wheel was literally at a 30 degree angle to drive in a straight line. It was so windy that part of the rubber seal on the roof of my car blew off.
Today I arrived in Rogers, Arkansas. I’ll make sure to report back…at some point. The good news is, I’m only 10 days away from home!
Two posts in one night? Yes! You should read this one second though, just a word of warning. You see, Alia and I have this banter thing going on. It has existed ever since the stage manager of “The Examined Life” told Alia to show me around the theater during my freshman year. Of course, then, our banter was mostly her calling me a “clown” which progressed to her telling me she was going to “punch me in the face” and me awkwardly following her around like an annoying shadow. In fact, last time I was here (this past May), we may have emailed our theater profs an update on our lives, in the format of a play, as a dialogue between the two of us. Yes, Alia and I are total theater dorks at times, a green and yellow to be exact :-)
1) Awkward Nights- One of Alia’s favorite things to do is call me awkward. When I’m not the most awkward component of a situation we consider this a success. Because I get to laugh at the awkwardness without making fun of myself. Anyway, I arrived in Tucson and Alia was still at work so her husband, Doug and I went our to dinner. Alia likes to call this our “match.com date” because we went to a bar and hung out for the night while the bartender suspiciously eyed Doug’s wedding ring and my empty hand, looking at me as if I must be an idiot for not seeing it. It was rather amusing.
2) Projects- I can always count on Alia for a good project. This time, our project was to create more seating in her living room so that people could come over for the Eagles game. (Yes, I actually watched football). We get kinda crafty/ creative/ ambitious when we are with each other but after trips to goodwill, target, tj maxx, and a few other stores we settled on something that worked. (This was after several plans that involved spray paint, glass tables, body pillows, incompetent target employees and ultimately purchasing two end tables which ended up creating additional seating….figure that one out) This of course included the tape measurer from the tool bin in my car, and yes, it was teal.
3- It was 90 degrees here today. I mean, I like the snow and all but I would say sunny Tucson is better than my house in York that is currently without power.
4- Alia humors me- Its true, I may have a slightly limited palate with a love for chicken. But Alia and I have mastered each other’s pet peeves, and accepted them….I think.
5- YAY I GET TO SEE ALIA- obviously this is the #1 reason to come to Tuscon. I love getting to visit her and Doug (even if their cat did attack my hair, and my leg, and my hand). But seriously, I love getting to catch up with them. They are great hosts. Also, Doug does a great job of dealing with us if we slip into craft/ theater/ design/ etc mode…he gets a special shout out for that.
Hope you enjoyed Alia’s post and advice. Listen to it, just ask her, she is alway right. She did have an awesome wedding and is witty, pretty and successful. Also, she is absolutely right about the music thing.
Off to the Grand Canyon tomorrow. I’m sure there will be pictures in the next few days.
First, let this be said…as a precursor to this list, I WILL NEVER ROAD TRIP. Cars are gross, motels are gross, stale cheetos are gross and the worst part you have to drive… a long time. However, if my worst nightmares were to come true and I should have to road trip…Karin would be the one to plan it and here is why:
1. Karin Prep- When you road trip you need stuff and you need to pack that stuff…enter karin. Karin has every tool for every situation AND still has room for her suitcases, cleaning bin, music collection, gallon water jug and (spoiler) all the presents she brought for people back home. Talent.
2. Land Nav-Karin Style: Ever feel like you have NO IDEA WHERE YOU ARE?? Karin doesnt feel that way…or at least she doesnt show it. Karin has a yelp app inside her brain and if she doesnt know the answer she has a friend in Idaho who does. Keep Karin on speed dial.
3. Kamelion: When you road trip, you have to stay with people and thus you will have to be likeable and adaptable to different enviorments and households-such as mine where your husband throws the cat across the room for fun. Then said cat begins to eat your guests’ hair. Then said husband keeps the house in the desert at 80 degrees. And the water tastes funny. Karin doesnt blink. Learn that.
4. Peeve on Karin- Hide your pet peeves. Just cause your all over the country and a total crusty you still have to come off as normal and not a crazy transient. Karin’s pretty good at this as she is a easy going, neutral kind of girl. Unless you have bad taste in music or force her to eat anything but chicken. Whatever, everyone has their limits.
There you have it. Your signature color may not be teal and you may be a german who doesnt eat sausage but you can still take points from Karin and have a completely steller road trip…if that’s your thing.
Author, Alia Rolwood was born in NJ, graduated Ursinus, had a fantastic wedding and lives in Tucson, AZ. She is very witty, pretty and successful.
Savaya coffee in Tucson, AZ. The barista is dressed like a Starbucks employee for Halloween. She just yelled to her co-worker, “John, start burning the coffee!” haha.
The final days in California….
The rest of my stay in LA consisted of going to one of Darren’s shows (pictured above). It was this particular bands first time playing out and it was kinda fun to get to one of Darren’s shows again! The next day I did some more wandering around Hollywood before I went to meet Felby for dinner. We went to In-n-Out, a popular west coast burger chain, potentially most comparable to Five Guys. It was great to see her and catch-up. I have now see about a third of my Penn cohort on this trip! insane.
After dinner with Felby I went down to San Diego. Edward prepared me with a list of things to do and see, all of which were good suggestions. The coolest thing was the Museum of Making Music. Which basically detailed the evolution of music in US but it also had a bunch of instruments you could try out along the way. It also had a room at the end that was all test instruments with tutorials teaching you how to play them. It was really cool.
While in San Diego I also went to a cafe called the Living Room which was beautiful and had a view of the Pacific. My other plan for the city was to do something water related because, in theory, I thought this would be the best place to do it….southern most, coastal area on my trip. Nope. The snorkeling tours, paddle board shops and dives were all closed for the season. Even though the weather was in the high 80’s the water was colder than the water in Baltimore. Bummer for San Diego. Although, I must say, I was still better off than the folks at home in 10 inches of snow.
Yesterday I drove to Tucson to visit Alia and Doug!!! I was just here a few months ago but its great to be back and to see them. Its very dry and warm here which is lovely. I’m sure Alia and will come across some exciting adventure, I’ll be sure to report back.
Guess the city!?!?!
Yep. Its Philly. This a reflection post, I’ve been talking about the city of brotherly love quite a bit lately. Partly because I’m visiting people that actually know the city but also because I have come to miss it.
I took this photo on one of my most recent drives through the area. I can’t wait to get back! I’ve decided to narrow my job search to the Philly area and look for an apartment when I return to the east coast.
Philly has a certain level of grungy class that I haven’t found anywhere else. Yes, I have seen cleaner, friendlier, healthier, more drive-able and more welcoming cities. Some of these cities have great theater, art, music, food, etc. But none of them are my beloved Philadelphia.
So, this was my brief shout out to cheesesteaks, SEPTA, aggressive drivers, that homeless dude outside CVS that would ask me for a cigarette everyday despite my dirty looks, 75 cent MHL at Drinkers, dark and grey winters, humid summers, the crane outside my window, sirens at all hours, South St, Penn, the Liberty Bell and Ben Franklin’s Button.
Also, how many other cities allow be frequent trips to the Valley to hang out in a tipi? Very few.
