Back in NOLA update

Well, I've been home for over a week now, and haven't given many updates. This is mostly due to the fact that A) I don't have internet in my house yet, and B) I've been a very busy girl! The day after I got home, many members of our family started arriving from northern regions to help celebrate my grandfather's 80th birthday. The last of the family members is on their way to the airport now. So, spending time with them has taken up a fair bit of time. I've also been attempting to get settled into my house. This has been a bit easier said than done. There's a lot of work to be done cleaning and organizing before I can even begin to start unpacking and settling. This is going to be a long term project, but well worth it in the end. And, I started house sitting for my mom's coworker while she's in CA planning her wedding. This is Jack:



He's a real sweetheart, but he misses his momma something awful! So, I've been trying to spend lots of quality time with him to keep his mind off that!

I've also got my own psychotic animal at home that I've had to contend with! Gus has decided that his favorite new activity is to climb into my wardrobe boxes (that I've yet to unpack) at 3 in the morning. However, they are too deep for him to get out of, which makes for some highly interesting sounds to wake up to in the middle of the night!

But beyond all of that craziness, I did finally sign my contract at Ursuline!!! Yay! Here are some of the details:

I'll be teaching mostly seniors (a semester of World Religions and a semester of Synthesis - not really sure what that is just yet) and one section of sophomores (a semester of New Testament and a semester of Sacraments). I'll also be the assistant coordinator for the Student Council. I've never been on student council myself, so this should be highly interesting! I met with the campus minister for the school who is quite wonderful! I hope to be able to help her with the senior retreat in the spring. If you know me at all you know how much I love that!! New teacher orientations and such will begin on August 3, so I've still got a month of relaxing and settling in before school begins!

I don't want you to assume that life has been all work and craziness for me though. I've had plenty of wonderful times. Moving home of course means partaking in some of my favorite activities (read: foods) that home has to offer. Since I've been back, I've had: sno balls (yes, plural), po boys, beignets, fried seafood, mama's home cooking, and many other wonderful delicacies! I also got a French Quarter play day and the house I'm sitting for is in a great spot uptown for exploring that area as well! All in all, it's been a wonderful welcome home!

And don't worry, Oscar is doing great as well! He's looking forward to school beginning, because he will find a permanent home in my classroom. I think the girls will love to meet him!

Sarah and Oscar's Excellent Roadtrip! Day 20

Day Twenty - Let's Get This Show on the Road

A few weeks ago, while having a conversation with one of my hostesses, I came to the conclusion that on a road trip Interstates are for people who are focussed on the destination while smaller highways are for people who are focussed on the adventure. Up until this point, I would say it is safe to assume I was very much focussed on the adventure. Today however things changes a bit. I'm ready to be home. I'm ready to start my new life - new home, new job, new friends, etc. I see this as a clear indication that this adventure was a major success. Had I just moved home straight from Chicago it may have been a bit too anticlimactic. It would have seemed weird to just leave one way of life and bam! start another. But this way I had a true transition, and the transition was magical. Along the way I learned a lot about myself, my country, my friends, and Oscar. I saw some amazing sites. I took in pure beauty in many of it's forms. I truly lived! But now I'm done. From this point on, I'm an interstate girl.

I did however manage to get a few shots in with Oscar. We entered two additional states and got these great shots:





Also! No road trip is considered complete until you've dined at a Cracker Barrel. I'm pretty sure this is a universal truth! Just outside of Atlanta, right as I was getting hungry for lunch, a Cracker Barrel magically appeared. OK, that's not entirely true. I actually googled where to find one once I passed Atlanta, and we stopped at the first one.

Oscar was quite excited to try this culinary delight and the subsequent adventure that goes along with any visit to Cracker Barrel. Here are his pictures:







Tomorrow, we get back to New Orleans!!!!!

Sarah and Oscar's Excellent Roadtrip! Day 19

Day Nineteen - Weather or Not, Round Two

When I last wrote you, we had many plans today for hiking and swimming in water holes in the mountains. When we woke up this morning, it was clear that was not going to happen. The sky was black again, the rain was pouring, and the thunder was rolling. It was quite clear to us that this wasn't clearing up any time soon. We quickly decided that if we couldn't go hiking in the woods, we'd have ourselves a good old fashioned southern brunch with friends!

In cahoots with Travis' friends Camille and Kelly, we put together one fine looking meal! And it was delicious! I was able to document some of the fixings. Oscar even helped making a few things. Check out this deliciousness:

Camille making the best homemade biscuits I think I've ever had in my entire life!

Oscar overseeing the cooking of the potatoes and the gravy for the biscuits

Oscar says, "Those look A-Maze-Ing!

The finished product!

Even now looking at these pictures I'm getting hungry again! It is perhaps one of my favorite activities in the world to cook a meal with friends, whatever the end result may be. But when the result ends this good...woah!

Here's one shot of the torrential weather. I wish I had gotten video because the rain was coming down so hard and fast!

But believe it or not, that weather turned into one of the loveliest evenings! The skies were clear, the sunset was lovely, the temperature was perfect! We decided to take a drive around the corner to the Grove Park Inn, some fancy schmancey hotel up in the mountain. After dropping $25 on two drinks, we strolled through the grounds and took some photos of beauty in action.

Oscar even decided to have a little fun on the golf course. It kind of reminded me of the good old days of the Fairway Apartments at SHC!

Here's a shot of the fireplaces inside the Grove Park Inn. Travis and Oscar are standing inside of it so you can see how big they are. Can you imagine sitting in front of one of these when they are roaring into action during a cold blustery winter!?!?

We closed out the evening with a sunset dinner on the porch and are now relaxing a bit.



Tomorrow begins the last leg of the journey. We'll drive from here to Mobile and then into NOLA on Tuesday!!!

Sarah and Oscar's Excellent Roadtrip! Day 18

Day Eighteen - Weather or Not

What a crazy day!!!

I woke up relatively early, and Travis was still snoozing away. So, I took my book and a bottle of water out on to the porch and just had a delightfully relaxing morning. The sky was crystal clear, not a cloud in sight. The temperature was just perfect. Around noon or so, we decided we would head to the public pool for an afternoon sun and dip. We had heard that the weather might turn this afternoon, so we wanted to get some sun and fun in before that happened. It was a lot of fun for about an hour, and then we noticed some somewhat ominous clouds off in the distance. And they were heading in our direction very quickly! We decided it might be smart to pack up our stuff and get the hell out of dodge!

On the way out, our friend Meghan's boyfriend called, and somewhat insistently told us we needed to get home. NOW. It seemed that the world was about to end by the tone in his voice! There were very weird weather sightings all over Asheville at that time, and we wanted to ensure our safety, so we followed orders and headed home.

Upon our arrival though, we discovered that we had no power. And just about that time, the skies cleared up and all that nasty weather we were expecting to bring our certain demise was gone! Well there is only one response in a situation like that...order pizza and drink the beer in the fridge so it doesn't go bad!

The rest of the day pretty much followed suit until we showered and headed to another friend's birthday party (she had power). While we were there we learned that we had power again. So we came home, made dinner, entertained some company, and are now settling in to go to bed early.

You'd think after sleeping in and not doing much all day we'd be raring to go. But no. We're exhausted!

And on that note, you'll notice a severe lack of photo documentation and Oscar-isms today. It just wasn't happening! Hopefully I can do better tomorrow!

Tomorrow - Hiking, waterfalls, and swimming holes. Oh my!

Sarah and Oscar's Excellent Roadtrip! Day 17

Day Seventeen - The Long and Winding Road (or The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Music)

I write this as I sit lounging on yet another Appalachian Porch. During the day, this porch looks like this:



You can't really see the mountains in this picture, but they are there and stunning. Of course, I can't really see them now, because it's 10:20 at night and pitch black outside. But the weather is perfect, the company is lovely, and the mood is light. Life is good my friends! Oscar too finds this quite the lovely end to quite the lovely day.

Our day began with the trek from Abingdon a bit southeast to the pleasant town of Bristol. One of the cool things about Bristol is half the city is in Virginia and the other half in Tennessee. And State Street which runs through the center of town runs through the border. Buildings on one side of the street are in one state and the other side in another. How crazy cool is that!?!? Well, we went specifically looking for this sign at the base of State Street. It made for a great photo op for Oscar:



The only issue with going out of our way to go to Bristol is that the route out of Bristol to our next stop is quite the winding road. It's a darn good thing neither Oscar nor I get car sick. Otherwise this could have been a very ugly ending. I tried multiple times to get good shots of the windiness of these roads, but the windiest parts had no place to pull over, so the only shots I got were like this:


This is not even close to the windiest of these roads. The cool part was in between two mountains, just as you're about to get sick of driving these curves you come out upon a pleasant place aptly enough named Shady Valley. It looks like a painting come to life. I sadly enough did not get any pictures of that because as soon as I got over how pretty it was I was driving up another mountain!

Fortunately, I "borrowed" a ton of music from Kathi before leaving Abingdon. Most of it was very folksy and bluegrassy. It was such a perfect compliment to our drive through the mountains. It was literally like the mountains were singing to us at one point in time!

Along this winding road, we entered into North Carolina. While were at this border, we went ahead and took the Tennessee picture since we didn't really get a proper sign picture in Bristol, so here are those:

After driving through this for about 60 miles, we arrived in Boone, NC. We were going to stop for lunch but traffic was hella crazy! The plan was to get on the Blue Ridge Parkway (scenic route central), so I thought I would get something to eat there. What I didn't realize was that Blue Ridge Parkway is more or less like driving through a state park. There are no stops for food!



This was a 96 mile run through the mountains, so it took about 3 hours. I was so famished at one point in time I had to stop and dig through my car and find something to eat. The best I came up with were some old pop tarts, but I was so famished they were delicious! But here are some shots from the Parkway. It's just so darn lovely up there. I don't know that Appalachia could get any prettier if it tried!






Arriving in Asheville is always a treat because it means I get to wrap my arms around the neck of one Mr. Travis Proffitt!



Travis and I spent some time catching up and then hit the streets to see what wonderful things Asheville had to offer tonight. And we were not let down! The night included a street festival, a drum circle, and beverages and dessert sitting under the stars! And now we conclude the evening on the porch! What a wonderful day!

Tomorrow, more Asheville adventures!

Sarah and Oscar's Excellent Roadtrip! Day 16

Day Sixteen - Fun with Mountains and Colored Umbrellas (or Why Porch Sitting Can Save Your Soul)

My Appalachian Hostess, Kathi, decided that we would spend this glorious spring day exploring the mountain goodness of Southwest Virginia. Oscar decided that climbing mountains in a cassock was not a good idea, so he opted to stay home. Armed with our cameras, we hit the road for Grayson's Higlands State Park. Apparently there is a trail there that wild ponies roam around on. It sounded delightful.

The morning was quite gray and chilly, which wasn't boding well for our outdoor adventure, but by the time we got up to the top of the mountain, the sun was shining with big white fluffy clouds. It was warm enough to be comfortable, but not so warm that we wanted to pass out!

The trail we chose was a short one. All in all we hiked about 3 miles. And it was through some quite hilly terrain...at least for this NOLA girl. You gotta remember the closest thing I know to a hill is a levee and that don't count for much! Sadly, we saw no wild ponies, but the views were amazing despite this! Here are a few of our shots:

We hoped to continue on another trail that would lead us to a waterfall, but we decided that the ravenous feelings in our bellies were not about to go away with more hiking! So something had to be done to take care of that! Off we went to the Whistling Pig in Damascus! So. Darn. Good.



Let's just put it this way: outdoor patio, on a stream, colored umbrella, good friends, good food, cheap beer. Done and done! While waiting for our food, we had fun taking pictures of things that the colored umbrella was reflecting off of. Pretty darn fun! Here's a random smattering of our work:







There was some more hiking to be done post lunch time. This hiking involved climbing to the top of this hugulous rock wall/arch over the road and then climbing back down the other side in order to play in a creek. Again, please make note of my extreme fear of heights. There was one point in time where I just sat down because walking any further would have made me pass out. I survived though. I did not fall off the side! I was quite proud of myself!

These are SOME of the steps we had to climb:

Me taking a rest on the side of the very high wall of death:

Playing in the creek:

Holding the wall up with my own brute strength!:

After all of that adventuring, I was worn out! We came home and had a DEE-VINE porch sittin' sort of evening. Oscar was happy to join in. There was amazing food, wonderful friends (new and old), and a YouTube marathon that rivaled any good time I've had in a long time. We laughed so hard we cried. Oscar considered this an All American sort of evening. He concluded it with an All American Beverage. You can reference the YouTube vide below to really get the gist of why this is so!






All in all, I was most certainly not led astray by SWVA! Tomorrow we hit the road again! More scenic byways on our way to good old Asheville, NC!

Sarah and Oscar's Excellent Roadtrip! Day 15

Day Fifteen - Carry Me Back to Old Virginia

So many wonderful adventures today! I don't even know where to begin!

This morning as we began to map out our trip for today, we realized immediately that any route we took would take us right into the heart of Washington DC. Well shoot! After the Capitol-mania we'd experienced for the past two days, we had to make a pit stop at the grand daddy of all capitol buildings. So, we dodged traffic and found an amazingly close parking space to the capitol building!

About two seconds after getting out of the car, I realized that similar to the Grinch's heart, my bladder is two sizes too small. I was about to be in a dire situation. I made my way to the Capitol Visitors' Center, and asked a guard where the nearest restroom was. Apparently you have to go through security in order to go to the bathroom! And the line to go through security was about 100 people deep. I think he could sense the desperation in my face, and sent me through ahead of everyone else. Once the crisis was averted, I attempted to see if we could make it into the rotunda. It has been over a decade since I've been to DC, and security is a bit more intense than it ever was before. You can't get into the rotunda area unless you're on a guided tour. Security here's even tighter than New Jersey!!! So, knowing that I was on a time crunch I gave up and just got the outside shot with Oscar. Good enough for me!



After getting sufficiently lost trying to get out of DC, we finally made it into Virginia.



In my opinion this means we finally made it into the south! There is just a calm that settles on my soul once I set foot on southern territory. It felt good!

Having spoken with my hostess for this evening last night, I had a game plan in mind of stops we wanted to make along the way. We took the Interstate west until we hit the lovely town of Strasburg. At that point, we hopped on US 11 and headed south. Along the way we passed through lovely town after lovely town and stopped for a few treats along the way. If you ever make it to the thriving metropolis of Strasburg, you should absolutely try Christina's Cafe. The atmosphere is reason enough, but the food was pretty darn tasty as well!




Moving on, we stopped for frozen custard in Woodstock, VA. What a delightful treat!




We even found an old covered bridge!




A few more small towns later and we opted to take the scenic scenic route. Small, rustic towns are lovely and all, but we're in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. We should have some pretty views! Fortunately for all parties involved there is a road called Skyline Drive. This is a scenic route running through the middle of Shenandoa National Park.



This is by far the prettiest drive we've experienced yet. And guess who learned to use the panoramic feature on her camera today!?!?

I do have one confession to make however. We almost had a bit of a tragedy in getting this particular shot. I was standing on a low brick wall holding Oscar in one hand and the camera in the other. I don't really know what happened, but the next thing I knew I had dropped Oscar. Down the side of the mountain! Now anyone who knows me well knows of my slight fear of heights. I have no problems with tall buildings that have thick panes of glass between me and the vast nothingness that lies below, but the thought of standing on the side of a mountain to capture a picture usually makes me want to die. And the thought of shimmying down the side of said mountain to grab a framed picture I dropped is not something I would ever do. But something in the moment gave me courage, strength, and above all coordination to save Oscar from a horrible fate. (note to reader, I may be over exaggerating just a bit the danger I was in. Oscar was more or less reachable without letting go of the wall, and there was no steep decline that I was about to hurdle myself from)

After this major scare, we decided adventures were just about through for the day, and it was starting to get late. So, we headed back to the interstate and south to Abingdon. Tonight and tomorrow night we lodge with Kathi and Adam, pictured here with Nicole and Oscar at Abingdon's Bella's Pizza. Yum!



Tomorrow we explore Abingdon and have some more fun SWVA style!