Mail

Casey and I both love to get mail, but since we moved in together/moved to the East coast, his main correspondent (me) prefers not to use up stamps to send him letters, and I can't do something cute like fill our mailbox with confetti because we share it with our housemate (also I am sure it is a crime.) He asks every day if he has any mail, and so far he hasn't got one piece. But, I remembered that you can get all sorts of little free samples by mail, and I spent an evening signing him up. I know from doing this once before that you don't get real-life spammed forever, so I know it won't plague our housemates after our very short sublet is up. Our correspondence chess days may be over, but he'll be getting toothpaste and vitamins and bumper stickers  in four to six weeks.

Transcontinental Letterbox

At either end of Route 50, there is a highway sign that tells you how far the opposite end is. I carved a pair of letterboxing stamps for these signs. Here is a picture of me with the one in California: 

It was kind of an awkward place for a letterbox, but I figure if someone is already getting out to get their picture taken, I am not encouraging dangerous highway behavior, maybe. Each letterbox is in a camo pouch. You can see it's the stamp I used for the Transamerica 2012 postcards. 

 Here is a photo of how good I hid it. The freeway shoulder area was very barren, so I stuck it down alongside one of the sign posts.

 I'm not listing the letterbox on atlasquest until I get the pouch planted at the Eastern terminus. I live 144 miles from Ocean City, so it's too far to go just for this, but I have never swum in the Atlantic Ocean so I'll have to before I move home. Hopefully the pouch in CA isn't removed before I have it up.

I accidentally moved to the south.

I am sure I'm not the first person this has happened to, but it took me a super long time to catch on, considering that I have heat fatigue every day and it doesn't even get cool at night. Before we moved to the DC area from Nor Cal, I compared the forecast in both places, and the forecast for DC was absurd- 90 degrees and day after day of thunderstorms. I discounted this as a fluke, and wondered what the weather might actually be like. When we drove into Maryland from Pennsylvania, Casey spotted the Mason-Dixon line marker, but I was shouting, "Welcome to Maryland!" or something and I didn't see it.

We'd been in Maryland for four days and two thunderstorms when a comment of Casey's tipped me off. We were in DC, sweating, and I was saying what a terrible climate for something as crowded as a capital and he said that putting the capital in the South was part of a compromise way back when. And I thought, wait. If the capital is in the South, and my town borders the capital... I live in the South. I don't think this is entirely my fault- why are there even houses here for me to sublet? And then today he said something else, about the heatwave ending, and I perked right up. Heatwaves end! And then I will be able to go outside without carrying/drinking a gallon of water that then escapes through my skin.

Road Trip

Moving from California to DC was my first interstate road trip as a driver. It was a lot more eventful than the one my parents took me on the summer between fifth grade and sixth. It was fun to have so many friends to visit on the road- Casey's college roommates in Minnesota and Illinois and my friends of the family in CA and family in Indiana and Michigan. I planted a letterbox at the west end of the 50, even though we took the 80 most of the way. I have my letterbox for the east end prepared but I haven't planted it yet. 

My inexpert reckoning left us with a very short time to spend in Salt Lake City, so we didn't see any tourist things, but we went letterboxing in a very calm, lovely garden. In letterboxing you have to be discreet, so if there are people around when you need to pick up the letterbox you can pretend to tie your shoe, pretend you've dropped something, or pretend you're posing for a picture. Here I am "posing" in some ivy while I dig around for the box, which was lovely. 

 

After Salt Lake City we went straight to Yellowstone. I painted a ton of postcards for my TransAmerica project and we had a great time. If you go, be suuuuuper careful of wildlife on the road. I don't understand how something as enormous as a buffalo could loom up at me out of nowhere at night, but two managed it. 

 I had a great time seeing all the geothermal stuff. It is really special with all sorts of colors and everything. I bought a moose charm for my charm bracelet and I pressed an old faithful penny and then lost it.

After three days in Yellowstone we drove to Mount Rushmore. Everyone told us it wasn't so great, but worth seeing. I see what they meant. There is no entry fee but they charge $11 to park, but at 10 at night there was no one to take our parking fee.  Even at night, it was quite warm, and hardly anyone was around, so I was glad I didn't see it in the heat and the crowds. After Rushmore we couldn't find a cheap enough motel, so we drove all night until we got to Minnesota and after we couldn't sleep in the heat at a rest stop, the Sunset Inn let us check in at noon. 

Minnesota was pretty fun, considering I had no destinations or plans in mind. I got to see the Jolly Green Giant, I bought a book of Brian Andreas poems, we had hoagies with Casey's Minnesotan who introduced us to beer cheese soup (what), and I dipped my feet in the Mississippi. We went to the giant because he happens to be in one of the towns I'm sending a resolution to (I got NM and MN confused, so I was extra surprised to see Blue Earth on the list of stops in MN.)

We had a good time in Chicago. Casey's friend really knew loads about all the public art and architecture we were seeing. A storm came through and although it was fun to be caught in it, after we were soaked we didn't so much want to keep exploring. 

This was my second time in South Bend, Indiana. It wasn't as hot as I remembered, and it was super fun. My family was so excited to see me, and so gracious. It was amazing to sleep under a handmade quilt after a week of more or less roughing it (I guess that's not fair to our hosts in other states, who were super great and made us feel at home. But it was hand made by our hostess, my great aunt Patty.)

The family has really made the town their own in just 5 generations. I saw our family gravestone, my grandpa's alma mater, the house where my Nana and her siblings grew up and the trees they had to plant as kids. I grew up Catholic, so I felt right at home at the university, Notre Dame. We saw the replica of the grotto at Lourdes, and my great aunt told us that when they built the grotto a spring came up right where it came up in France where Mary's apparition had Bernadette dig. They had to cap it with a drinking fountain. We drank from it, of course.

Monterey Bay Aquarium Day 3

Today I just stopped by the aquarium on the way to Trader Joe's. Mom and I got to pet the bat rays. They are very strong, and they amused themselves splashing a delighted child. Here is a photograph of the sand dollars' dome:

Today's re-entry hand stamp was a shark. My visit was around closing time, and the little cabinet filled with uv stamps was ajar. My greedy heart fluttered. Maybe I will ask if I can stamp them in my journal, but I don't want to bother anyone. If I had an address, I would probably order the invisible UV ink today. 

Monterey Bay Aquarium Day 2

Today I went to the aquarium with my Mom. We immediately got seperated but I am really happy with the drawings I made.

Blind contour drawing is an exercise where you try to capture the outline of the subject without taking your eyes of your subject- you never look at your drawing. When you do this exercise in an art class you have to draw your hand and it is the worst, but I think these sharks came out pretty good. The Open Ocean Exhibit is quite dark, so it was easy to keep from looking at my faint pencil drawings (I went over them in ink at home when I inked everything else.)

The Secret Lives of Seahorses exhibit is beautifully designed with kind of Victorian tracery, silhouettes, and filigree on the gates and illuminated on the walls.

I felt like I was really appreciating the designers by sketching this lovely entryway, but the sketch came out loose and so it doesn't show off the dainty, pretty metal. Oh well, I have 3 more aquarium visits.

I am really pleased with how these two sea dragons turned out. This is the best I can draw, and I can only do it when I have been practicing.

I went into a children's exhibit and there was this little stamping machine. Children select a bookmark with conservation facts on it, put it in the machine, and press a button to stamp an anemone, penguin, or seadragon. There were two, so I didn't feel bad monopolizing one.

Today's UV stamp was a sea otter.

Monterey Bay Aquarium Day 1

My family is on vacation in Carmel and the cottage where we are staying has guest passes to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I plan to escort everyone to the aquarium and thus get to visit it every single day to draw the animals. I have wanted to do an extended study like this for a while. The aquarium is great because it's out of the sun and there are loads of exhibits. 

Seadragons are my favorite. This is a composite drawing of all the Leafy Seadragons they've got. These were pretty slow moving, but they drift in the current a lot. I noticed that everyone who visited the exhibit said the same couple of things, and also everyone had to take a picture. That was annoying because of course it got in the way of my serious pursuit and also it happened over and over.

When I was done sketching, though, I took some pictures. In this picture his nose is at the bottom and it's a picture of his spine.

I am also using their UV re-entry handstamp in my sketchbook every day, but I don't have a picture because I didn't bring my blacklight on vacation. I really like UV ink (I have been eyeing the Noodlers invisible fountain pen ink for a while) and I really like stamps so it's worth having to explain to the re-entry attendant what I am doing. For Monterey Bay Aquarium Day 1 the stamp was a sea turtle.