4th of July Weekend

Colby had a great 4th of July-and a red white and blue outfit to boot:

For the 4th we took the 4 and a half hour journey over to South Dakota to my in laws.  In general this drive is most miserable because it is on two lane highways that weave through small towns and they carry a lot of farm traffic and I'm always hesitant to pass these people.  Traveling with our dog and child we had to make a few stops to stretch and feed him.  When we started off it was 99 degrees out with clear blue skies.  With about an hour left of our journey the skies turned greenish yellow, the wind picked up and then it started to down pour.  We got a mile out of a very small town when my husband and I made the decision to turn back into town to find somewhere safe to hide out.  We had just pulled into the downtown area when the tornado sirens started going off.  We saw some lights on at a pharmacy so I told my husband we should go there.  I got Colby out of the car in his car seat and ran to the buildings and saw some other people in a hair salon walking so I darted in there to see if they'd let us bring our dog in and down stairs.  Of course, being the polite Minnesotans that they were they said of course, I stepped out to tell my husband and I couldn't find him.  Colby and I hunkered down in a dank stonewalled basement with another couple.  The electricity flickered off and we were left in the dark.  Luckily Colby was a trooper and he was content trying to eat his stuffed dog.  When we finally emerged from the basement my husband and do walked in the door and our family was reunited again.  He had went into the pharmacy and got ushered to the back of the store where he thought he'd find me waiting-and he said he was extremely disheartened and nervous when I was nowhere to be found.  We finally made our way  back out to our car and back on the road.  Most of the streets were flooded and we drove by several trees split in half our uprooted.  Luckily the rest of our journey was uneventful. 

Italy-I can't wait to see you again

Wordless Wednesday

My Contact Lenses - or - Remembering Amsterdam

My contacts need to be changed.  Or at least removed from my eyeballs.  That has been the ever-present thought of my day.  Things are not, shall we say, clear.  Are they ever?  You may be thinking.  And the answer to that would be, I am not entirely sure.  However, I do know they are usually at least a little clearer than they are at present.  Which leads me to a memory I have of the trip that Lily and I took to Europe back in 2006. 

Towards the end of our journey, which lasted a little over three weeks, we found ourselves in Amsterdam with very little money, as usual, but a lot of (perhaps foolish) adventurousness, as usual.  After deciding we would take a ferry from Amsterdam to England the next day, and then discovering that a ferry left pretty early in the morning, we came to the conclusion that we did not need to waste 20 Euros on a hostel.  We were in Amsterdam after all, the city that never sleeps of all cities that never sleep.  And so we would never sleep as well. 

It began well enough, as many strange ideas often do.  I remember being excited by the prospect of an entire night of wakefulness, of the myriad adventures it could entail.  Now, however, the memories of that day come and go like strange snapshots taken by an exhausted brain.  I can clearly see a bald, limber street performer in a striped shirt juggling in a cobblestone square.  I remember the lighter I bought that had “Amsterdam” written on it, since I thought it was fitting.  I remember the Rembrandt Museum, and the pretty grounds that surrounded it.  A café comes to mind, a little place close to the main square, and I think we had a nice dinner there while we surreptitiously watched with astonishment as a group of middle aged men smoked their “herbal” cigarettes at the next table.  And the canals, the endless stretch of concentric loops radiating out before us.  They were beautiful, but utterly confusing.  I remember dodging many bicyclists as they zipped by us, often when we were least expecting it.  I can see Lily’s face as she demanded to know if I realized none of the little children, hanging precariously from their parents’ handlebars, were wearing helmets.  I can also remember the red light district, which was supposed to be shocking, but which at that point in the night was just another destination where we had to pry our eyes open and keep moving to keep our sleepiness at bay.  I remember being unsettled by the sight of children with their parents, their faces bathed in the glow of the crimson light emanating from behind the prone bodies of the nude women in the display windows.  And I remember feeling sad about the apparent commercialization of the sinful arts for the benefit of gawking tourists, like ourselves.

But eventually, we began to grow tired.  We wound up in a bar, stacking coins and counting the hours.  We got into a political discussion with two Dutch men, who each knew at least six languages, or something astonishing like that, and bemoaned the ignorance of Americans.  But anyway, the clearest memory I have of that ordeal is climbing on the ferry the next day and discovering the air was heavy with smoke.  We looked around, blinking, as we realized we had just boarded a giant casino on water, which was a bit garish in the early morning light.  My already over-worn contacts dried out instantly, and the world became a fog.  I remember stumbling around the strange seating formations until I found a place I could stretch out and sleep.  And so we slept there, next to the slot machines and the full service bar, in a smoky ship headed across the English Channel.
 
Anyway, that’s sort of what my eyes feel like today, to a lesser extent.  All in all, though, I would rather be on a boat in the English Channel right now, having an adventure. 

The World Outside My Front Door

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land. ~G.K. Chesterton

Our neighbors in our new town have been very welcoming, or at least the ones we have met. On one side of us lives a character straight out of King of the Hill. He stands outside with a few of our other neighbors, beer in hand, and shoots the breeze-swearing loudly across the street. The neighbors on our other side we rarely see, we were informed that they were Hmong. I had never heard of Hmongs before, but I found out from my history teaching and loving father that Hmongs were originally from around Laos and Vietnam. They helped the US with the war in Vietnam and were persecuted after the communists took over and many fled from their homelands.

Yesterday cars were lined up all the way down our street. My husband was doing some yard work in the front lawn and our neighbor invited him to come over to help celebrate the birth of their daughter. We knew that we had to go over since we were invited, but we were both very nervous to barge in, seeing as we honestly didn’t think we could spot them in the crowd if our lives depended on it.

We walked the long 20 feet across the yard to their garage. A group of Hmong men were outside the garage in a circle chatting. They graciously welcomed us and introduced themselves, shaking hands with each of them. We learned that during the party the baby and parents are given strings wrapped around their wrists by the elders of their family. Each elder wishes them wellness and happiness for their family. In the garage little Hmong women were cooking in massive pots, dicing and washing pots and pans in the front lawn. We found out later that they had a pig and a cow slaughtered for the party and they had been cooking since the early hours of the morning. To my uneducated nose the food smelled of Mongolian beef.

Our neighbor “Chow” came graciously thanked us for coming over. Inside the house all the furniture was put away and the carpets were covered with vinyl. Big banquet tables sprawled across the living room and there were at least 35 people inside and another 20 outside. The gal that brought us inside made a joke that she thought we’d probably never think so many people could fit in one house-she was right. We met our neighbor “Wing” and the young child. She introduced us to her mother who with waves and gestures asked us if we lived next door, pointing at our house through the kitchen window. The conversation then turned to my very pregnant belly and the old woman had the biggest grin on her faced and gave my belly an excited rub.

It must have been obvious that we were outsiders, being that we were the only white people in the group, but everyone was very friendly and seemingly excited to have us in their presence. Upon our departure “Chow” returned and promised to bring some food over later once it was done. After dinner most of the cars were gone from down the street and I assumed that the offer was just a kind gesture and we weren’t so special after all. Then the doorbell rang with a short, curly haired Hmong woman standing outside my door with tupperwares. Little did I know of the world that lived just outside my door.

Travel - First Post

"If adventures will not befal a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad" - Jane Austen, Persuasion

We have been fortunate enough to travel a bit, through the US and abroad.  We have learned a lot about how to make travel goals possible, and also have some stories we will share.  We also hope to continue with our travel adventures in the future...

-Sea