Seeing the Country in 20 Months

Screw only making it to a reasonable 40 states—I’m going to see all 50 in less than 2 years.

At this point, my only remaining states to get to are as following: Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Hawaii, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming… At least two of which (Vermont and Maine) that I am guaranteed to get to by the end of May, and one more (Connecticut) that I have a high likelihood of driving through. For BER, I can definitely make it to almost everything that is left on the list, excepting Alaska and Wyoming. With KAL’s help, I hope to make it to Alaska for a short jaunt sometime in the not-too-distant future and I’m contemplating a little road trip to Yellowstone as soon as I get back for the summer this year. So, if you start with October of 2008, when I started this job, by the time May or June 2010 rolls around, all I have to do is go to all the states I am lacking, and add in extra visits to California and Florida to say I did all 50 in about 20 months.

Then you add in that I’ve gone to all of the more southern provinces of Canada west of Quebec and have at least been to Puerto Vallarta in Mexico, and I feel like I’ve covered most of North America. Then count that I lived in Paris for three months, toured Italy, and spent a month in New Zealand and Australia, all before turning 26, and I can hardly believe it myself. Now to just finish making it happen!

The Seasons

So I had a week of summer two weeks ago, then a week of fall in New England last week, and this week the trees are bare and I got my first snow flurry! It's fun having things change like that as I pass through.

Some days I don't take a lot of photos because I'm simply trapped in the hotel room or on the way to the airport. It's sad not getting a good idea of a city, but at the same time, I can't do and see everything. My exhaustion this week proves it.

I think I have hit the lull point of the new-job process, where I'm not quite 100% at the job, but it's familiar enough that I relax into it... and make a lot of mistakes. At least it's generally okay to make mistakes in life. I still feel bad when things go funky though.

I had an amazing conversation with my Kelly temp today, a man who grew up in Nigeria and moved to the US and then Canada. It's fun meeting people along the way and suddenly finding myself in deep philosophical conversations.

This weekend I need to do nothing on a grand scale.

An Off Day in Edmonton

Turns out having a perpetually sunny attitude wears me down after a while. I've definitely surprised myself with how consistently optimistic I've been lately even in the face of canceled flights and crappy speaker systems, but today for some reason I'm just off. The day started out fine, especially with the election results buzzing around in my head, but I just don't really have the energy to be particularly proactive. You think the room is cold? Well, you should generally have a sweater with you if it's only 40 degrees outside, so maybe you could put that on... The speakers stink? Let's adjust the volume as far as I can and then just give up to the worthless little speakers in the gigantic room. You want me to have a cab waiting? Okay, I'll make a call but who knows if it will show up on time...

My presenter isn't bad at all this week. In fact we had a ton of fun last night waiting for results to start coming in. I just think that Wednesdays are hard days for me. I'm fully exhausted and just want to not deal with another person who feels like they want their certificate at the afternoon break rather than waiting til the end like everyone else. If I wanted to hand out all the certificates at the afternoon break, I would be doing that. I made the mistake of giving a few out to some women who had a 3 hour drive post-seminar, and then suddenly EVERYONE had at least a 3 hour drive and I ended up passing out half the certificates by hand.

See, I just have this icky attitude creeping in. Maybe it has a little to do with the fact that I'm over 1500 words behind on NaNo... I think tonight I'll try to lock myself in my Calgary hotel room and write. Hopefully there will be no wi-fi there.

Notes from Canada...

1. Winnepeg smells like cow.

2. I brilliantly went to get cash this weekend, and forgot that I am in Canada this entire week, thus necessitating CANADIAN dollars. Luckily, I didn't need to tip last night before I could get to an ATM and then find change at the front desk.

3. When will the wonky accent start to take hold of my vocabulary? Aboot now, eh...