Day 29: Home

And then we were home. <3

The odometer reading is about 4 miles off because I didn't remember to set it right away.

The day after we got home we went back to Lancaster to pick up our cat. This time my partner got to come.

I found a bass drum out on the curb, going out with the trash. But as seen below, I put it in my car. 

The kitty is back. I missed her.

Day 28: DC

Our last stop was in the DC area with another old friend.

She's a Hello Kitty fan just as Kiddo is, so they always bond over that. She gave Kiddo a Hello Kitty stool to take home. And Kiddo got some awesome Hide and Seek time with my friend's significant other.

Dinner was the Whole Foods hot bar (thanks for unnecessarily putting cream in way too many dishes, guys) and birthday ice cream. Because at midnight, it was going to be my birthday.

Kiddo wanted plain noodles, which I was not thrilled about, but then she chose two random vegetables to go with it, so my faith was restored. Collard greens and beets! I think she doesn't actually like collards very much, but she has one really nice memory of eating them with us and therefore asks for them sometimes (and then just doesn't eat too many). Anyway, plain noodles + beets = pink noodles. Which is awesome. I only have crappy pictures from my phone, so it just looks like bad lighting.

My friend has a convertible, and Kiddo loved riding with the top down. Nice moment for the last night of the trip.
I had been thinking about talking myself of blowing off DC and just driving the last three hours home, but I am so glad I didn't. Again, enjoy an awful phone picture.

Day 27: that's right, Roanoke

I grew up in Roanoke, Virginia.

I don't want to move back or anything, but the Blue Ridge mountains always take my breath when I first get back in the area.

We went to the same Tex-Mex restaurant we always go to. Then Kiddo stayed home and I went to see some dear old friends. We ended up going out for drinks... at another location of the same Tex-Mex restaurant we always go to (see?). 

First picture: the third page in Kiddo's three page book about the sunset (this is the moon/nighttime page that says 'the sunset is gone').

Second picture: a PlayDoh snake. Especially awesome eyes. 

Day 26: South Carolina

My uncle and aunt live on a lake in South Carolina. I hadn't seen them in 8 years, which means they had never met Kiddo.

Their house is gorgeous and we all had a good time. My aunt made us a great meal. Kiddo drew some pictures and was in love with the disco ball in the basement. She turned it back on to fall asleep.

The morning involved swimming, several epic meltdowns, and a little bit of Ms Pacman.
I think knowing she was going home was hard on the kid.

Day 25: Alabama

Leaving New Orleans was especially significant because it was all northeast from there.

I've always been interested in visiting the Deep South, but I suppose I need ideas about places to go in Mississippi and Alabama. The way the trip was structured, we did New Orleans and pretty much just started the drive home.

In New Orleans I downloaded a rough recording of a new song written by the rest of the band. I wrote a drum line by listening to my ipod while driving to Alabama.

Our host in Alabama told me they have other couchsurfers... I was curious since I'd be meeting someone I knew nothing about and hadn't even read the profile for, but I barely interacted with them (in fact, I don't even know how many of them there were). They were (I think) a family from Latvia, in Alabama for work. Apparently they wanted to stay for months and months, so they worked out a rental agreement with their host family. There were 4 dogs in the house.

Our host proposed we go to a Japanese restaurant, which turned out to be a Japanese/Chinese restaurant in a supermarket shopping center in suburban Alabama. I did not have high expectations. But hey, it was cheap! And Kiddo likes almost anything that's vegan and made of noodles.

They had sidewalk chalk in the shape of eggs, which Kiddo used on the driveway and then all over herself, predictably. They also gave us some Play-Doh that made for a new car toy over the next few days. 

Day 24: New Orleans

We woke up, packed up the tent, and went swimming in Kincaid Reservoir which is part of the National Forest. I'm always confused when lakes have beaches at their swimming area. The sand doesn't quite feel like sand, and it definitely looks odd far away from the shore. We can handle dirt and rocks, ok guys?

So then we were off down to New Orleans. In Baton Rouge we picked up a ton of traffic and monsoon levels of rain (we definitely saw some downpours on this trip, but this was still an impressive one... possibly second only to a storm we drove through in Indiana). Kiddo looked a bit sleepy, and I got scared - I was not about a nap this day, not when I wanted her to go to sleep on the early side so I could enjoy drinking and relaxing in New Orleans (this totally sounds selfish to me, but I need to just own it). So... I finally broke out the portable DVD player. She knew I brought one of her favorite movies, but she didn't know about the player until I handed it to her. I didn't want her to miss everything outside of the car because of movies. But I also am at least a tiny bit realistic about how hard long car rides are. Anyway, it worked like a charm.

We were staying with a relative of a Philadelphia friend - again someone I had some sort of tenuous connection to, but had not met in person before. She was out at a movie when I arrived. Her roommate had already given me a beer when I got a text that the movie was over, "herr yet?" I was unsure if it was a typo or slang. Either way, I was immediately busy giggling about Herr Yeti, aka German Mister Yeti. Which of course lets me link to the greatest thing the internet has ever produced. I think that's only my second external link on the blog. But really, it's that amazing.

I don't have any pictures of New Orleans because I only scratched the surface of it. However, this was more than my Vegas experience, which had nothing to do with Vegas (note: I still don't regret that choice... we spent time in Zion and then hung out with cool people... I still just think it's funny I didn't even go to Vegas proper, let alone the Strip).
We were in New Orleans itself (although I didn't see the French Quarter or any historic sections), and you could smell the bayou. I actually would have really liked to drive down to "the end of the world", and it was on a rough draft of the trip, but I cut it during planning stages.

My host has had some sadness in her recent life, and drinking with me was a distraction.

The further along I go, the more I think this is about connections. Connecting with the earth, the dirt and the rocks, the mountains and lakes. With different regions, places and cities with various subsets of culture. But mostly it's about connecting with individual people. I am traveling the country, searching for connections and forging them everywhere I go. 

Sometimes it's people I already know, and we are expanding and adding to what we have... but often we're strangers, and the course of our night together is forming this new connection. The connections are sometimes just surface things, sometimes more intimate conversations. Some of it is a question of compatibility... but so much of it is what we open ourselves up to.

Day 23: Kisatchie National Forest, Louisiana

We drove into central Louisiana. At this point it was clear that rain would follow us east and join us every day. I mean if it hit us daily in New Mexico and Texas... you'd have to think it would get us in Louisiana. I was just worried about having to set up the tent in a downpour.

Fortunately, all our downpours were early in the day. By the time we found the National Forest, we were back to just stifling humidity.

Trying to find the correct entrance to Kisatchie was probably the most lost I got on the trip. Kiddo said she needed the bathroom, but there were no gas stations or fast food places or... anything at the exit. A few minutes of rural road went by, with a few successful turns made... still nothing. Cruised along on that road for a few minutes, looking for the next one...
I'm still not sure if I missed a turn or didn't go far enough, but I double backed to take an unlabeled road, hoping it was the turn I'd been looking for (it wasn't). I called my partner to ask for google maps help, but for a few minutes I couldn't even figure out where I was (no intersection had a sign that labeled the street I was actually on, just the cross streets). Eventually she suggested I take care of Kiddo and call her back. I told her the problem was that there was nowhere for us to stop... "I just passed a sign that says 'Obama Who? Think Twice'. There is NOTHING out here". Kiddo cracked up. She didn't even know who Obama is, but that sign gave her the giggles for days.

During our call, I fortunately found a major intersection and was able to piece together where I was. We then found the correct route and descended into the National Forest (that's really the best way to say it... National Parks have visitors centers and destinations and attractions... National Forests just have unpaved roads and vague parking areas).

We found our free campground of choice, which was actually outshadowed on its own sign by the fact that it is also a trailhead. The campground itself was a vague clearing in between the parking area and a vault toilet. No one else camped there... we did have a pickup truck come into the parking area and sit for awhile, far away enough from the car so that I couldn't see the person inside. No one ever got out, as far as I know.

We set up the tent then went for a walk on the trail. It was shaded, but the humidity was so brutal we were both drenched. This was our camping trip with the least amount of water preparation, and as I discovered on the walk, the water that had been sitting in the plastic cooler/jug thing tasted like, well exactly like water that had been sitting in a plastic container for a week. I also had a water bottle that had been refilled at a fast food place, and therefore had more than a hint of the artificial flavor of soda it shared a spout with. Kiddo had a bottle with good water, so I tried to leave it all for her. Upon return I did find a metal water bottle in the car that tasted nice, and it got me through the night.

Our trail went through the forest. We claimed a diagonal downed tree and turned around when we got to a creek I'd seen on a map at the trailhead. Kiddo doesn't seem to like trails that are as destination-less as this one. Actually she seems to mostly like trails that climb hills and/or descend into canyons. Picky.