As we were traveling down the road today, it suddenly occurred to Doug and I that everything that we own, we are currently hauling with us, on us, across the country. EVERYTHING that we own. That's pretty wild! I mean, what a crazy thing! Who does that? Well, apparently, we do. And I think that is freakin' AWESOME! It's such a freeing thing, really. Just hitting the open road and experiencing that untamed and unpredictable adventure called life.

Speaking of life, the past two days have included lots of it! Last night, we camped over in the Badlands, witnessing the most awe-inspiring fire-works display I have EVER SEEN. No lie. And where did this gargantuan pyrotechnic celebration take place? Why, Interior, South Dakota, of course! (pop. 77) To say this was a surreal experience would be a vast understatement. It was DISTURBING how enormous these fireworks were. I think this tiny little town must spent more money on the fourth of july than their entire education budget for the year. Scary. As Doug so aptly put it, "Their teachers are getting paid 6.00 an hour but hey! They've got one hell of a fireworks display!"

Tonight, i sit on the front porch of the town store here at Devil's Tower, Wyoming, stealing their wireless internet while stealthily charging my phone. (This comes after sneaking into the nearby KOA and "illegally showering" in their facilities. I know, I've turned into a thieving renegade. I blame Doug completely.)

Devil's Tower, btw, is amazing. Absolutely breathtaking. As are the cute little prairie dogs that scurry around it's base.

I could say more, but Doug is getting hungry, so I will try and post some pictures of our latest travels!

CHICAGO

It's 10:30 at night and Doug and I have set up camp here in Sioux Falls, SD. Not much to report on for today's activities, I'm afraid. We left Winnetka, IL at 10:30 this morning and have been driving ever since, stopping for gas and for dinner at a mom and pop's Mexican place for dinner. (And by mom and pop's, I mean lip-lickin' good and more than a little bit sketch.)

So let me back up a day. Yesterday morning, Doug and I left Lebanon and headed north to Chicago, arriving in the Windy City shortly after noon. Miraculously, we managed to drive into the heart of Chicago and PARK our car/trailer in a garage for the low, low price of 13 bucks for the day. For those of you out there praying for us, thank you.

Once in Chicago, our first stop was a walk down Michigan Avenue, where I was immediately struck by the wide streets, beautiful gardens, and fascinating architecture of this strange yet oddly familiar city. Fortunately for Doug, I restrained myself and only snapped a couple of pictures. After all, pretty streets are one thing, but Doug and I, we were on a mission and that mission, was aptly titled: Taste of Chicago. Now those of you who live in Charlotte are familiar with the festival of a similar name and in essence, it is the same concept: hundreds, and I do mean HUNDREDS of restaurants from around the city come together and set up booths downtown. As a participant, it is then your job to meander the swarmed street tasting the delectable, finger sized tid-bits presented to you by the venders. So basically, we gorged. Mexican Empanada? yes please! Indian Samosa? Of course! Chinese Boa Bun? Why not?

Awesomeness.

So, after feasting upon the best Chicago had to offer, we make our way to Navy Pier in search of an IMAX theater. We don't care where or how, but IMAX is calling us forth and we have no choice but to answer with a "two tickets for Kung Fu Panda please." Of course, it only took us 45 minutes to hike across town, along the shore of Lake Michigan, to reach the gloriously cold mecca of air-conditioned entertainment. And oh was it glorious, Jack Black included.

By now, we have worked up quite a sweat (I am scaring little children away with the smell reeking from my pores) and our appetites begin to re-awaken. It's Chicago stuffed pizza time, baby!! Off to Giordano's we trot, revived by visions of a pizza so delicious, some say it was sent down on a golden chariot by his Holiness Himself. After waiting an hour for our own personal slice of heaven, I hold onto my faith. It will come; soon, I will be graced with its esteemed presence. Sure enough, the pizza arrives and, honestly, it's all rather a blur from there. Even now, I get dizzy thinking about how freakin' wonderful that pizza was. The stories are wrong though. God didn't commission the baking of that pizza; God WAS that pizza and that pizza WAS God. And I have finally seen the glowing light of salvation, a salvation stuffed full of gooey mozzarella, garlic, tomato saucy goodness, and giant chunks of meaty sausage.

Haleluia and Amen.

So Doug and I have reached our official resting place for the evening: Econo Lodge, Lebanon, Indiana.  It is past midnight and we have been driving all day.  We began by stopping off in Maggie Valley to say goodbye to the mountains that I so love and will miss so deeply.  I couldn't help but shed a tear or two during our last moments together.  After all, those mountains have really been there for me over the past 7 years; through it all, my heart has remained rooted to their unwavering spirit, and I will be eternally grateful.

Four hours and ninety dollars in gas later (yikes!), we made our second stop at super AWESOME  Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, the longest cave in the world!!!  The cave itself is hundreds of miles long, with untold miles yet to be charted, so needless to say, there are a lot of different tours and expeditions you can go on.  Unfortunately, Doug and I only had a few hours, so we chose the "New Entrance" tour, which was about three hours long and covered 3/4 of a mile.  The beginning of the tour lead us down over 300 steps into the very depths of the cave; the air was cold and moist as water trickled down the sides of the silky smooth limestone, continuing to carve away at the stone.  This was all rather majestic, indeed, but the real splendor came toward the end of the tour, with stalactites and stalagmites bursting out of every crevice.  I suppose I could go on, but I will leave you with some pictures of today's adventures.

final night farewell

So everything is packed; the room is empty.  Doug and I are both hovering around that inescapable pentacle of exhaustion that is so common to big moves and big changes.  I have said goodbye to those that I love dearly, including my friends and my lifeline here in Asheville: Brian, Meg, Annie, Andrew, Wes and Henry.  I also hugged goodbye to my family: Mama and John, Daddy and Sandrine, Tabatha, Keir, Rechelle, Isaac, Mallory, Elena, Amanda, Allison, Charity, and Hannah.  I will miss them all terribly.  They may not know it now, but I have cried many tears over the past couple of months, preparing myself for the final farewell.  It hurts my heart when I think of life without then, so far away.  Still, it is a cleansing sort of pain, a pain that will inevitably make my heart even bigger, able to invite even more beautiful people and experiences into my already full life.  For now, I am going to sleep in my empty room with the man I love lying beside me.  Tomorrow, we will embark on a grande adventure, an adventure that I cannot wait to share with all of you!  

As I say goodbye to Asheville, my heart swells with the love and support of those I leave behind.  Thank you.  I love you.  Goodnight.

A Haiku, for You

The grass is greener

Especially in Portland

On the other side.

Moving is a pain

birds really like the forest

I sure hate packing.

Procrastination

Can be a beautiful thing

Thank you e-blogger!

:)

The fruits of my labor.  Obviously I am somewhat lacking in the productivity dept.  Hmmm...

 Another Haiku anyone?

From Dublin to Belfast

So Doug and I are midway through our grande adventures in Ireland!  The Blessington clan (mum, dad, sis, bro, and myself) has officially ransacked our way through Dublin, Belfast, the Coastal Causeway, and [London]Derry.  Now settled in a blissfully lush hotel room in Mulingar, I find the time to take a deep breath and debrief.  

Overall, this trip has been thigh deep in political analysis and the in-your-face ramifications of a culture just starting to pick itself back up after years and years of war and conflict.  Arriving in Dublin, there wasn't much culture-shock.  Best described as a European mix of New York and New Orleans, Dublin doesn't really start hopping until 11 or 12 at night.  Still, despite the on-going drunken debauchery, there is still that surprising hustle and on-the-go pace that is reminiscent of the typical New Yorker, barely taking the time to tie their shoe, much less talk to their neighbor on the sidewalk.  Honestly, most of Dublin is a complete blur; after 12 hours traveling overnight with very little sleep, the sites we did manage to see upon arrival, such as the Book of Kells (oldest book in the world--very cool); the original tower of the Dublin Castle, build circa 1200; one of the oldest Korans in the world; and a sip of my first oh-so-delectable IRISH Guiness, just to name a few, all seemed to meld together into one extended blur leading up to my head hitting the pillow in our quaint little hotel.  Still, I managed to grab a couple pics along the way:

The next day, it was upwards and onwards (quite literally)! Here the light-hearted tone of the trip shifted as we entered a city rich with strife, grief, and sore wounds. Upon entering Belfast, it seems rather bright and inviting, your typical English settlement rife with jolly little pubs and the Grande Europa Hotel. The city itself is surrounded by the green hills of Ireland, a surprisingly peaceful landscape.  
However, Belfast itself is actually not even in Ireland;  Republicans refer to the six counties still belonging to England as Northern Ireland, while a Loyalist would call it Ulster or a number of other names that are escaping me at the time.  While in Dublin, an Australian woman suggested we take a "Black Cab" tour, which is essentially this:  a former member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) picks you up in his black cab and carts you around the city, explaining the history of the war, telling stories about what happened and what life was really like, all the while taking you to actual sites throughout Belfast.  

So that is exactly what we did.  To actually try and describe the experience would be rather pointless, at least here and now.  If you would like to know more details, just ask and I would be more than happy to talk with you about them.  However, I will say this:  Imagine sitting in the back of a cab as a former member of the IRA points down a street to the very house where British soldiers sledgehammered down the door in the middle of the night, went upstairs, and shot his brother in the head point blank.  "And just down that way is where they killed my brother," he says, in the same matter-of-fact, no-nonsense Irish twang that has characterized the "tour."  We look, stunned, down the street to the door in question.  Just beyond it stands the Peace Wall, a giant 40-ft tall barrier of steel fencing that separates Protestant Belfast from Catholic Belfast.  

To say this was a powerful moment would be a clear understatement, as would for me to say that I now know and understand everything there is to know about the Troubles of Northern Ireland.  Still, I feel like a giant light has been shown on an area of the world and a peoples that we as Amerians know little to nothing about, separate from BBC propoganda labeling the IRA as "terrorists" and "radicals," when in fact, a closer examination would show something much deeper: an oppressed population blindly fighting their own in search for a better, equal life.

Some more pics of Belfast and the Troubles:

A Writer's Dilemma

Last week, Doug and I were house-sitting for his parents and I had the opportunity to chat with his younger sister, Sarah.  She was baking a scrumptious apple pie and I jumped on the opportunity to distract myself from much-needed planning.  As the hours passed, the conversation ebbed and flowed around friends, family, literature, life.  Turns out, Sarah and I share an all-too-often squelched passion for writing.  I thought back on my most reason drought and pondered aloud,

 "Why is it that happiness and written expression have such an antagonistic relationship?"  

Her eyes lit up in response:  "Oh, I know!  It's so true!"

We sat with this thought for a moment before I added:  "I mean, when I was desperately sad, lonely, angry, and generally filled to the brim with this brooding angst, man, the words would just pour out of me.  It was so beautiful!  So fulfilling!  But now, when I'm finally happy and content with my life and in a healthy relationship, it's like BAMB! gone."

She nodded, her lips pursed together in resigned affirmation.  Her brow furrowed as she attempted to roll out the pie crust without it cracking along the edges.  

"Some of my best writing sessions have been in the depths of great sadness.  Why is that?"

"I don't know." I replied.  "But it sucks."

     An hour later, I sit and watch the vanilla bean ice cream melt around an island of freshly-baked apple pie.  To my left rests the valley, lush and alive after the previous night's showers.  A wave of cloud creeps over the mountain tops, cascading down the slopes and covering the landscape with a fresh coating of misty goodness.  I scoop up the first bite: a perfect combination of ice cream, crust, and sugary apple.  The flavors combine to create a sensory experience that rivals most and I can't help but breathe in the beauty of the moment.   

     Looking back, I know that, ultimately, my mind was not focused on capturing that scene and labeling it with four-syllable words and brilliant figurative language.  I didn't have a story-line in my head; The Grande Adventures of Candecium were nowhere to be found.  And honestly, is that such a bad thing?  I can't help but wonder if such intellectual stimulation would have lessoned the moment somehow.  Perhaps the best kind of sensory reception involves feeling, living, being in that moment.  Experience is ultimately the best teacher and yes, that applies to writing as well.  So, for now, that's where I will be: experiencing what life has to offer.  I will continue to breathe in all of its smells, taste it's wonders: the sweet along with the bitter.  One day, my words will thank me for waiting and when the day comes when their story needs to be told, it will be with the unquenchable fire of a true writer.