Better Late Than Never

I have been lazy with my blog since returning home! But it is a travel blog and I'm technically not traveling at the moment.

First off: Tattoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pretty neat, right?

So how did I get home after spending the most awesome birthday weekend ever with the bestest sister ever? Well, that is a planes, trains and automobiles ordeal (minus the trains -- there weren't any trains involved). Whitney dropped me off at the airport a few hours earlier than I needed to be there so that she could play some lacrosse. This left me time to wander, although I never did walk all the way down to Terminal E, which is where Whitney likes to go to get Pinkberry when she flies out of Charlotte -- she even has a special song to declare her love of their frozen yogurt and her quest to find it -- never destined to be a Billboard Top 40. Moving on. I was flying from Charlotte to Baltimore and then Baltimore to Boston on Southwest. I'd never flown Southwest before but they legit give you a number! They don't have real seat assignments! You just check in, get a number, and fight it out once you've gotten on the plane.

Regardless of whether I loved or hated their seating arrangement, I did hate hearing that my flight was going to be delayed due to bad weather. PSA to everyone who has ever flown or ever will fly: shouting about how upset you are that you flighter has been delayed will not clear up a thunderstorm hundreds of miles away. It just won't and you're shouting in my ear. An hour later, we got the call that we were good to go and it was time to line up. My ticket was 38B which isn't the greatest number to have -- it means that #A1-60 and B1-37 have boarded in front of me -- and is closer to the end. I was in line and they'd boarded all of A and B1-30 when they got a call that the flight had been delayed again! Half of the plane had gotten on and was stuck. Thank B38 that I wasn't one of those people! So I sat back down and watched more drama unfold. I was told that this delay would mean that I was going to miss my connecting flight, which really freaked me out and was standing in line trying to get rebooked when I was told that my connecting flight had also been delayed and that I should get on the plane. They kept going back and forth on this and I spent at least an hour totally convinced that I would never see Boston again, but I eventually did get on the plane (managed to snag an aisle seat!) and flew to Baltimore.

BALTIMORE

Flying to Baltimore, however, did not mean that my flight to Boston would still be waiting for me and that meant a mad dash through the terminal after my flight had landed. Luckily for me, my flight to Boston was boarding as I spring up to the line! I was officially Boston bound. Once I was sitting on the plane -- having found a comfy window seat -- I managed to collect another geotag in Baltimore (one must always make time for Snapchat in these serious moments).

And then I was home! Thank goodness!

Since returning home, I've mainly vedged out. I got a 30 days of unlimited yoga for $30 deal and have caught up on lots of TV.

I was reminded that I needed to blog when I realized that I had never shared my fall itinerary! I'll be back in Montana for the most part, zig-zagging all over the place (obviously). Now ladies and gentlemen (or Mom and Dad), I proudly present my intinerary!
9/14-9/19 - Lander, WY
9/21-9/26 - Lyman, WY
10/5-10/10 - Bridger, MT
10/19-10/24 - Helena, MT
10/26-10/31 - Wolf Point, MT
11/9-11/14 - Harrison, MT
11/16-11/21 - St. Ignatius, MT
11/30-12/5 - Amsterdam, MT
12/7-12/12 - Trout Creek, MT

Zig and zag

I'll work on collecting population counts as I prepare for the coming autumnal months!

Castro Street

This is Thomson Jaffe, coming to you from North Carolina, with a report on my last day in San Francisco.

As Queen of the Gays, no trip to San Francisco would have been complete without a trip to Castro Street. I can't report on everything that happened there, but I can tell you about some of it. We actually started the night in the Mission District, which had snapstickers, obviously. 

We went to the American Grilled Cheese Kitchen for dinner because... an entire restaurant dedicated to grilled cheese? Yes, please. I actually found out about this restaurant on my own back when Mandy was talking about moving to San Francisco. I told her that she had to go and a few weeks ago, she passed it (their second location, not the one we actually went to) and apparently made some very poor driving choices to get there just so she could say that she went there for me. I got the Mac N Cheese Grilled Cheese because well, duh. Have you met me? That should surprise no one. I did shock Mandy by ordering a strawberry lemonade. I don't think she'd ever seen me order something besides water at a restaurant before.

After we'd filled our bellies with molten, golden lava, we walked through the Mission District to Bi-Rite Creamery. This place came to us not only courtesy of The List, but also my cousin Sarah, who gave me her own list. According to The List and Sarah, the flavor to get is the salted caramel, so we did. Yes, I got something besides a vanilla milkshake or chocolate/vanilla twist!!! Ok, so one of my scoops was chocolate, but it's the scoop on the bottom, so if you look at the picture to the left of your screen, you're seeing nothing but their most popular flavor and something I never would have dared to try, much less purchase, a year ago.

We enjoyed our ice cream outside in Dolores Park (another suggestion of Sarah's) and then we walked to Castro Street. Being the more historically inclined out of the two of us, I wanted to go to 575 Castro Street before we hit any clubs/bars. Mandy had no idea why I'd want to go there, so I had to give her (and now you) the quick history of Harvey Milk, the mayor of Castro Street. 

575 Castro Street was the location of Castro Camera, which was the camera shop that Milk ran and lived above. It's also the location that he ran his campaigns from -- ya know, the campaigns he won that made him the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California. Since then, he's been called "the most famous and most significantly open LGBT official ever elected in the United States." Today, 575 Castro Street is the home of a Human Rights Campaign store, which is pretty perfect if you ask me. Mandy and I probably would have bought some swag there is we weren't going out.

I'll describe our night after that as being the most memorable night that we don't remember and that is all you're going to hear about that.

I left yesterday morning to surprise Whitney for her birthday! I got lucky and was switched from my flight(s) that would have meant I didn't get to NC until 11:50 to a direct flight, scheduled to arrive at 9:06pm! I mystically got even luckier and on this "sold out flight," there was one empty seat that happened to be next to me! Our flight was delayed slightly but I still managed to make it to Pfeiffer in time to surprise the birthday girl before she turned 22. She was in shock! It was awesome.

We celebrated her birthday this morning by getting some brunch at Waffle House in between her classes and this afternoon, we're headed out to get our very first, matching tattoos! Happy birthday, Whitney!!! 

P.S. In the past 11 days, I have been in all four US time zones, gone from the east coast to the west coast and back again.

You Know It's a Good Day When...

...it begins and ends with Teen Wolf and that is exactly what happened today.

As I said, the day started with Teen Wolf. I got up before Mandy and caught up on last night's episode while she slept in. She didn't actually sleep in very late because we left for our hike at 9:30am. In a twist of events that I'm sure surprises no one, we got lost. What can I say? Old habits are hard to break! We never found the trail Mandy had set out to find but we did have a nice time and got some pretty views of the bay (or Bay? or is it bae? That last one was a joke, but I'm really not sure about the capitalization rules of San Franciscan bodies of water). 

After hiking up, down and all around, we got back in Mandy's car and headed to Amy's Drive Thru. Amy's Drive Thru isn't any restaurant, it's a fast food restaurant, but not just fast food -- America's first vegetarian fast food restaurant. At least, I think it's the first, but either way, it's a rarity that Mandy waited to try until I arrived here. We were really excited to go here -- Mandy's friend had given it his stamp of approval (he had said there were limited options but we thought they had plenty of stuff -- this is what happens when the meat eaters are forced to look at our side of the menu). It was really cute and very tasty. I hope it catches on because while I doubt they'll be popping up in rural Montana any time soon, it would be nice to have the option of something fast on the road. 

After that, we fit in some Teen Wolf. After months of rolling her eyes at my Teen Wolf obsession, Mandy decided that it was time to give the show a chance! Victory is mine!!! Not only did I get her to watch it, but she's hooked! Hehehehehehehehe

Despite hiking for two hours, we hit the gym in the afternoon and then went got takeout for dinner (we couldn't waste time sitting in an actual restaurant when there are five seasons of Teen Wolf for Mandy to catch up on!). We didn't just go to any place to pickup our dinner, we went to Homeroom. Homeroom is "a restaurant dedicated to the best food on earth: macaroni and cheese." This restaurant might just be the greatest place on Earth.

It shall be mine!

Mandy went here right after she moved this summer and told me that they actually had a mac and cheese cookbook -- a cookbook that we'd seen on a shopping trip somewhere on our journey together that she said was the perfect book for me. I'd always debated buying it but am happy to say that this morning, I realized I had an Amazon giftcard and went for it. The book should be arriving at home at the same time I do! We got the jalapeno popper mac which was spicy and yummy and wonderful.

As we were filling our bellies with the cheesy deliciousness of cheese covered noodles, we filled our brains with Teen Wolf and eventually hit the hay, excited to have one more full day together.

Blog ALL the Things!

With limited internet these first few days (Mandy didn't have the password to the wifi at her aunt/uncle's house in Walnut Creek), I wrote things as they happened and am just now posting them, so if you're confused by tenses and verbage, I'm sorry, but I'm also lazy and write quickly and edit poorly when I'm focused on having fun and you should have very low expectations of this blog by now anyways.

DAY ONE IN SAN FRANCISCO was really a day in Walnut Creek, CA. Mandy's aunt and uncle live there and Mandy spent most of the months leading up to our tour there and we were dog sitting. Mandy modeled the brand new Aladdin t-shirt that I brought her and the dynamic duo was back in action.

Walnut Creek has some pretty geotags... I'm still really confused about how geotags work because sometimes they're there and sometimes they aren't, even if you're standing in exactly the same place as you were before but now you can design and upload your own, so I might have to do that someday. Along with their pretty geotags, they had one that took some decoding. Please not "DubC" in the upper left-hand corner of my photo collage; Mandy admitted to me that she didn't know what it stood for when I asked and it took me a while to figure it out but I did. Walnut started with W or "dub" and Creek starts with C. Yay logic!

We went to a vegan restaurant for lunch. It's so nice to be in veggie friendly territory with another vegetarian. Mandy wants me to mention again that she didn't force me to become a vegetarian, but I'm glad I did because I'm having lots of fun trying all of these new things. I also saw the pet store that inspired Mandy's switch to vegetarianism, which is what inspired my switch. I'm not sure I've ever told the story, so here it is:

When asked why she became a vegetarian, Mandy's response is always "It started with a snake..." As I said before, Mandy lived with her aunt and uncle for the months leading up to our tour but I didn't mention her two young cousins or that one of them has a pet snake. Mandy had to take her cousin to Petco to buy mice to feed the snake and as she was standing there, she thought about how inhumane it was that these little mice were just being picked up to be fed to the snake and how they didn't have a chance and then she had an epiphany that she was doing the same by eating meat so she said goodbye to steak and chicken. I have now seen those mice -- actually, I probably didn't see the same mice, those mice are definitely dead by now, but I did stand in an important spot in Amanda Belscamper history.

After lunch, we went back to her aunt and uncle's and made some banana bread (a new favorite that Mandy got me into in the spring) and watched TV. We were marathoning UnReal, which I had already seen but I thought Mandy would like (I was right). As we were hanging out with two hours to go before we left for an evening in the city proper, Mandy said "I think I have time for another half of an episode" and I said "I think you have time for a whole episode, how long does it take you..." And then I remembered who I was talking to.

We had a good night out. We collected more geotags and just looked cute in general. We met up with a couple of Mandy's friends and had a lot of fun.

DAY TWO was also a day in Walnut Creek. I woke up early -- Mandy did not... I caught up on some TV and then rewatched some Teen Wolf until she was up. When Mandy did eventually get up, I tried to explain five seasons of Teen Wolf to her in just ten minutes, which wasn't a real success.

After that, we went to "The Reservoir." I'm not really sure what that means, but apparently that's all you have to say and people know exactly what you're talking about. Typically people go earlier in the day to avoid the heat but Sleeping Beauty changed our plans.

Reservoir

After that, we went back  in town in Walnut Creek to an ice cream place from the list called Cream. I was disappointed quite frankly. Their specialty is custom ice cream sandwiches and everything looked great but they warmed up the cookies before they made the sandwiches! I know that sounds like a weird complaint but it meant that half of the ice cream had melted by the time I had paid. They also wrapped it up in a wax paper envelope so it was hard to get a grip on it. I don't feel like I even got to taste it because I was trying to shove it all into my mouth before it dripped all over my face, hands and front. We got some lunch at California Pizza Kitchen after that and then we went back to the house for more UnReal binging. We went to yoga in the evening and it was really great except that the studio was carpeted, which was new to me and I had a hard time balancing because the floor felt so squishy. We finished UnReal after yoga and after making ourselves a pretty awesome dinner of hodgepodge items we'd bought at Trader Joe's, we went to sleep.

DAY THREE started with a bang. Or should I say a shake? Actually, I should say a quake, because we experienced an earthquake in the wee hours of the morn. Ok, we for Mandy, pretty typical for myself. The quake even made the national news because when we turned on Good Morning America (which we consider news), they were talking about it.

We went to the Exploratorium in the early afternoon. It's a museum that seems to be about everything and anything. We had a really good time there, running around, acting like big kids and sometimes having to fight off little kids to do what we wanted!

After that, we hunted for some grub at Fisherman's Wharf and after lunch, stumbled upon Musee Mecanique, which is a penny arcade/museum. It was full of vintage, working penny arcade games but the first thing Mandy and I found was a photo booth. And I mean, how could we not?! We decided we would walk around to see everything and save the photo booth for last and while we were walking, I had the revelation that maybe this is the arcade where Anne Hathaway took Julie Andrews to play with the arm wrestling machine in San Francisco. Mandy seriously doubted this, but hey, when we came back around to the photo booth, we noticed a familiar face -- the face of the weird guy on the arm wrestling machine. We both took posed photos with it and while I was taking mine, some small child photobombed me and then told me "You know it's a game, right?" Sorry I didn't waste a quarter to reenact my childhood, small person.

After that, we returned to Mandy's apartment in Berkeley and then to the Saturn Cafe for dinner. The Saturn Cafe is on The list but Mandy had gone there without even knowing that, so when I told her I wanted to go, she was all for it!

The photo of Mandy in the lower left hand corner is a joke because when we told our waitress that we were both going to have water, she only brought us one glass and was surprised when we wanted a second one.

I got the fajita bowl with vegetarian chicken. Technically, I think all chickens are vegetarians, but this chicken was fake chicken for vegetarians. It was good fake meat! I thought it was all good.

After that, we returned to Mandy's apartment again. We'd wanted to find a Redbox earlier in the day but seriously could not, so we ended up watching a documentary on high schoolers at a performing arts school.

Now that I've managed to catch you up on three whole days in one post, it is time to take on Day #4.

To San Francisco!

Check in is over and I am in San Francisco!! How did I get here? I flew, of course. Just flapped my arms and into the air I went -- just kidding, I took a plane to Salt Lake City, Utah and then on to San Francisco.

I had to get dropped off at the Missoula airport like three hours early, which is a lot for any airport but especially the one in Missoula where there is like... nothing. I mostly fought with the internet for those three hours.

Although Salt Lake City had some quality geotags, I only had a short layover there.

My flight to San Fran was easy. The plane was very comfy too, which was a nice perk. I mostly slept through the flight:

Actual photo of my arrival.

As I continue to collect geotags,  I would like to point out that airports tend to have their very own and I have quite the collection. The Missoula airport doesn't have one -- it has more taxidermy than aircrafts -- but these are me in my various states of travel via air and space. Fun fact: I didn't actually go to the airport in Atlanta (bottom middle), I just stayed at an airport hotel!

Mandy met me at the airport and it was AWESOME! She even got me blueberry muffins because she thought I might be hungry!!! We drove back to her apartment (which may or may not belong to a murder victim -- no judgment, it just looks like someone might have died here!) and talked until like 3 in the morning. Now I'm up and she's not (what a surprise, that's such a new thing for us) and getting ready for the day. 

Good morning from Berkeley, CA!

They Grow Up So Fast

The tally is in: 8685.1 miles this summer. They grow up so fast!!

A Few Stats for You

While I haven't tallied up the total number of miles driven on this tour yet, I do have a few stats for you.

I worked in six different states, but traveled through a total of 29 states and one Canadian province in 11 weeks. I had two road trips that totaled more than 2,000 miles each. I worked on three different military bases.

I worked with 330 kids this summer (those are kids who are in the show, not kids who auditioned and were cut or kids who were involved in workshops but weren't in the show because then the number would be much higher).

I got to see friends and family and continue to learn about myself and the fact that I have an absolutely incredible job.

2805 Miles Later...

And we're finally back in Missoula. I seriously never thought we would make it. Seriously, I think I spent a good part of North Dakota convinced that I was dying, but here we are!

So, what happened on the day that marks the end of this very special adventure? I shall now tell you.

Not much actually happened, but I did have a thought of thoughts and a lot of time to think these thoughts so this is actually going to be a decent length post.

To start off, we left at 5:30 in the morning and if that isn’t a great way to start the day, you just know that you’re going to have a super, awesome, wonderful day when you get on the highway and the GPS tells you to turn in 756 miles. I did see a shooting star before the sun came up, so that’s a plus.

We drove through the Grassland National Park. I was the one driving, so no photographs, but I would like to point out to the Parks Organization that all of North Dakota is grass, so I don’t know how anyone can figure out when they’re coming or going.

We also drove past “Home on the Range.” I didn’t realize that this was an actual place. But it is, with an exit on the highway and everything today and I know this because we past it. We didn’t get off because underneath the sign that denoted the exit was another sign that said “No Services.”

We also passed a sign for “Bad Route Road.” Poor planning, Montana! Why would you do that to yourselves? Aren’t things hard enough without giving your streets a complex by naming them such horribly depressing things? We also passed a sign that said “Welcome to Beef Country.” I didn’t need that sign, I know, Montana, I know.

We stopped in Livingston, MT, for gas. Now I haven’t been keeping tabs on everywhere we’ve stopped for gas the past four days but my mom’s cousin lives in Livingston, so I thought that was sort of cool. I got a F’Real shake because I wanted one and after four days, I deserve it.

After that, it was smooth sailing to Missoula. I'm headed to a yoga class soon because what is a better way of recovering from days of being crunched up in a ball than tying yourself into a knot?

Also, way to up your game on the geotags, Missoula. Much better than in May...

Oh Yes. Pink Elephants.

Did I start a post last night that I never finished? Yes. Did I complete that post and post it today as if I’d written it all yesterday? Yes.

I know "Oh yes, pink elephants" is something that I picked up from my friends, who all picked it up from a song, but I still haven't heard that song after casually using that phrase for years. But, I think I have finally found the proper use for that phrase and if you keep reading, you shall soon know why.

It was a casual 851.3 miles from Chicago to Bismarck and every inch of it was about as suckish as it seems. That is just a longgggg time to be in a car. I tried doing car yoga, which helped a little bit but seriously, this is a lot of driving (it's longer than our trip to Alabama by a few hundred miles but we've got to make it in the same amount of time).

We finished Go Set a Watchman. It was absolute trash. I hate publishers. There was a reason that the book was never published and that is because no one wants to see a racist Atticus Finch in a half-baked novel that's really a rough draft for a beloved American classic that shall continue to shine despite the existence of this blemish. We're listening to Harry Potter now.

Oh yes, pink elephants.

Now onto the pink elephant. We stopped in DeForest, WI to see Pinkie, the pink elephant. Let me explain this is terms you can understand. Pinkie is a pink elephant. Pinkie is everything I love in this world. Pinkie is my god.

After Pinkie came Minnesota and there was lots of it. Minnesota is far bigger than I thought it was. It took ages to get through it. One of my best friends from high school is from Minnesota and likes to bring it up whenever he can (he’s now lived in Massachusetts longer than he ever lived in Minnesota, but oh well). It was wide and somewhat flat and I eventually traded it for wider and flatter when I entered North Dakota.

I’ve only ever spent two hours in North Dakota – this spring, Mandy and I drove there to go to Walmart. Not joking. The novelty of driving to another state to for a shopping trip distracted me from how dull it actually was. Like I said, wide and flat. Pretty, but wide and flat. I took some photos from the car to entertain myself that shall serve now serve as proof for my previous comments…

Wide and flat...

After something insane like 14 hours in the truck, we made it to Bismarck. I have seen exactly one block of Bismarck – the Sleep Inn and the Exxon station down the road. I spent more time exploring Walmart in April than I did doing anything in ND today. We ordered pizza and slept. The end of Day Three.

Day 2: Two New States and Another Country

Another long day in the truck. 613.1 miles in the truck through four states AND Canada. We started the day in New York (which is where we ended yesterday, so it would make sense) and had our first pit stop at TIM HORTON'S! Thank you, Upstate New York, for a taste of Canada.

Our second pit stop was in Canada (sort of). Technically, we stopped on the New York side of Niagara Falls before crossing into Ontario, but poetic license! Niagara Falls had a few quality geotags (along with it being Niagara Falls).

I'm cute.

Melissa had never been out of the country so I figured that since driving through Ontario on our way back to Missoula only added on 10 minutes to our 40-hour trip, what was the difference? Ontario was not very interesting. Sorry not sorry! But going through border patrol to get back into the US was far more intense than it ever was in the entire winter/spring. There was an actual wait! We had to sit in a long line of cars. There was also a fee, like excuse you. Also, it didn't matter if you paid the fee in US or Canadian funds, it was $3.50 either way, which I say is bull because I know just how bad the exchange rate is these days!

Well, we got back into Michigan, which is my 25th state of the tour. Yes, I have been in/through 25 different states this summer (and another Canadian province that I hadn't been to before). Nothing much happened in Michigan except that we started listening to Go Set a Watchman which is horrible. It is so bad that it hurts! I loved listening to To Kill a Mockingbird but this book is a mess and HarperCollins should feel ashamed of themselves for taking advantage of Harper Lee in her old age (which is what they've done without a doubt). Melissa and I are now trying to explain Go Set a Watchman to her brother and it's not going well... we don't actually know what the plot is.

After that, we drove into Indiana (State #26) which was great for me because I spent a year and a half of high school in Indiana, and now I can finally say that I've been there.

Now we're at Melissa's house where we shall be spending the night before another long drive tomorrow.

Also, in a wonderfully strange turn of events, Mandy and I might be miles apart, but we coordinated outfits today. I kid you not. Photographic evidence below:

Day One of Four

Today was the first of four days of driving back to Montana. Four days. Ok, I can do this. Technically, I've done it before -- back in June, the drive to Alabama, remember that?

Today was just a casual 563.9 mile drive from Waterville, ME to Rochester, NY, which is our stop for tonight. Not much happened on our drive to Rochester -- we were basically just backtracking the drive we made last weekend from Schenectady to Waterville. We listened to To Kill a Mockingbird on tape because we decided that we wanted to listen to Go Set a Watchman and we have more than enough time to listen to both of them. I will say that To Kill a Mockingbird is better when you're 24 than when you're 14 (which is the last time I read it). I know that I'm not actually 24 yet, but hyperbole! I feel like I should start rereading all of the books I read in middle school because I'll get so much more from them now (except for Romeo and Juliet, I think I have that one figured out by now... pretty sure I had it figured out then too...).

Lookin' fierce.

Rochester had a pretty spiffy geotag to welcome me. Apparently "geotag" is the official term for snapsticker but I still like snapsticker more. Oh well! We didn't have a lot of energy for sightseeing but we did go to my life idol, Susan B. Anthony's house. I went there with my mom and grandpa when I was a kid, but going back (even just to go in the gift shop, which is all we actually did because the tour was kind of expensive) was cool.

I'd like to say that I continue to be impressed by the forethought that so many great Americans had when buying/building houses because how could they have possibly known to buy a house with a gift shop in it? How am I supposed to amount to anything in life if my house didn't come with the gift shop included?

Tomorrow is Day #2 (because that's what comes after one) and not only we'll be driving a few more hundred miles, we'll also be driving up into Canada, because why not? Say hello to Ontario!

Whitney in Watervile and the Last Show of the Summer

Yesterday, Whitney came to visit!

She drove all the way up to Maine just for me and it could not have been better. I love her so much and am so happy I got to see her!!!!!!!! She also gave me my presents from Israel! She got me a matching necklace and bracelet and they are both incredibly beautiful.

We didn't have a ton of time together but we made the most of the time we had. We went and got some nice seafood for dinner, because Maine, ya know?

After dinner, we went to see the movie, Trainwreck. It was a pretty slow comedy. There were some good moments but it wasn't amazing and I'm really bitter because Amy Schumer stole my Partridge Family flash mob idea!

Lobstah roll.

This morning, Whitney slept in while I had to get ready to do the show. We had an awesome dress rehearsal. Basically this whole week in Waterville was pretty great and Whitney surprised me with a lobster roll for lunch. The kids were obsessed with finding Whitney in the audience once they knew that she was there. They wanted to know all about her. It was kind of cute (actually, it was really cute).

And then it was the last show of the summer. It was a really great show. The kids were amazing! A fantastic way to end the summer! Tomorrow is the first leg of our trip back to Missoula. I can't believe we're already here.........................

An Update from Waterville

Things have cooled off since we arrived on Sunday so staying in the dorms without the AC is not nearly as bad as it was the first few nights. I've still got my trusty fan going but I know longer feel like I'm staying at a college on the surface of the sun.

Apart from lacking an internal cooling system, Colby is gorgeous. I've been walking the campus a lot because for most of the week, it has been cooler than being in my room.

While here, I've also managed to go to yoga twice, which is quite the treat for me. They had a photographer at last night's class so it's like yay, the random girl that showed up here for the week is now on our website forever. (I'm not in the foreground, but it's still pretty cool and I look awesome).

I am very sad to report that I have received confirmation that although it is set in Waterville, none of Wet Hot American Summer was shot here and neither of the two landmarks I was looking for exist.

Tomorrow, Whitney is coming AND one week from tomorrow, I'll be going to see Mandy!!! It's so exciting!!!

The radio station we've been listening to this week is called 92Moose and I don't know what is more Maine than that.

Also this residency is being done like a camp and the kids have theme days to dress up and yesterday was Dress Like Your Favorite Counselor Day and three girls dressed like me!!!

Made it to Maine

We're staying at Colby College. What they lack in AC, they make up for in snapstickers.

Actually, I'd rather have AC, but still.

I've spent my entire week in Schenectady laughing about how Whitney once had to sing a song about the Eerie Canal for her chorus.

Also, I have officially crossed 300 blog posts. I feel sorry for you humans who have been dedicated enough to read them all. I know I'm awesome but you need to find a better hobby.

Mandy says that I can't be her friend if I don't like Wet Hot American Summer.

I am watching it now and I just took screenshots from Waterville landmarks that I must hunt for (assuming that they actually exist).

Wet Hot American Summer

So, everyone I know is freaking out about Wet Hot American Summer and the prequel that was just released on Netflix, but apparently, the whole thing was set in Waterville, ME.

Which is where I'm going tomorrow.

Ok, I know what I'm doing tonight....

Update from Schenectady

It's my last day in Schenectady, so I should probably write an update about how I've spent my time here.

Other than working on my brilliant retelling of The Ride of Symon Schermerhoorn done entirely in the ermagherd language, I've seen quite a lot here.

Earlier in the week, I went for a walk at Union College, where I saw the Nott Memorial, but never found my actual destination of Jackson's Gardens. The Nott Memorial is one of the world's only 16-sided buildings.

I realized this week (well, I put to words, anyways), that everywhere has it's own piece of history. Every place I've been has it's own something that makes it unique and interesting. Cohasset has Witches of Eastwick and the local legend of rejecting the Kennedys because they were Catholic (which is why they went to the Vineyard) and Schenectady has the Nott Memorial. Which students at Union College call "The Nipple" or "The Nipple of Knowledge" if they're feeling generous.

The Mammilla of Intelligence

On Wednesday, I went to yoga! Sorry, not sorry.

Master selfie-taker

On Thursday, we drove to Utica to see another TAD, Olivia! She is currently working at a Renaissance Fair in Upstate NY and wanted to catch up. She thought Schenectady was a smidge closer to her than it actually was, so we each ended up driving over an hour to get together but it was still really nice.

Friday was show day, part 1. This week, we were the lucky winners of a Friday show AND a Saturday show! But it really wasn't too bad, I actually like that schedule when I've had it in the past. I also went back to yoga on Friday -- there might be a picture of that. Apparently some yoga/health bulletin is doing a little bulletin on the studio I went to so they needed to take a picture, so maybe I'll be yoga famous!

This morning, I didn't have to be at the theatre until later in the day since all we needed to do was get the kids ready for part 2, so I walked back to Union College to see if I could find Jackson's Garden. And I did this time! Very proud of myself! I was also able to go into The Nipple. It was really weird because you knew you weren't in a round building and yet, it felt more like a dome than anything else. They had a very cool exhibit about Union for the Union which detailed how involved graduates from Union had been in the Civil War. There were a lot of them, doing lots of important things (and some less important things on the Confederate side of the equation), including Secretary of State, William Seward. I'm just filling up on facts these days! After I left, my dad told me that I'd been here before but I don't remember that, so it doesn't count!

Tomorrow, we're driving up to Maine while Whitney is on her way back from Israel! Maine is our last residency of the summer and then we'll be in the truck for four days to Montana and then... SAN FRANCISCO! (Ok, San Francisco comes after a few days in Montana after the four day drive, but it's still insanely exciting!!! Mandy and I are already planning the San Francisco Bay Area Milkshake Marathon, the sequel to the Calgary Milkshake Marathon. This one will probably be cooler because the name is longer and because we can use our cell phones to navigate from place to place, although I guess Canada is cooler from a technicality standpoint).