So someone suggested writing the first chapter last.
The final preperations occured in an almost boring and uneventful fashion. There was the completion of my NP clinicals with Dr. V and feeling like family after so many hours there. The end of my working at New York Big City Hospital which was a change to me reevaluating and reminding me why I went into nursing. If anything it was a reminder that there exisits healthy workplaces where people want to goto work, and patients get better.
There were times througout that I regretted not having the motorcycle. But it was obviously that when the car was packed, and the day to leave had come that even with the preperations I did do that it would not have all fit well on the back of that small bike. I was not really prepared, and the hubris of "Getting the skills" on the road might have led to catastropic failure. Wether or not I decide in the future that the risks of riding outweigh the benefits of something that I truly love will be determined in the near future.
The food was eaten, the fridge unplugged and baking soda put in to dehumidify. All the power and the stove gas was turned off. I remember that my Dad would unplug the garage door openers so that someone could not use a hacking tool to get it to open. The advantage was that I could lock up my apartment and there was nothing really to take care of, no lawn to mow, pipes to freeze, and so much else. The rush to get the house, white picket fence, and so forth means that such trips become more difficult. If the white picket fence is where I am heading.
I expected...I don't know what I expected. I tried to approach this with an open mind and know that i was going out of my realm of prior experiences. I think I filled many pages of that journal with expections, concerns, and worries. Most of them which never came to pass. Several which by being prepared I was ready for.
Maybe that is why I started the trip up to Barb and Allen's. I took a different route, the route I got lost on the first long trip I took by Motorcycle up to their house, past the various back roads into NYS. I remember riding Skyline Drive with the bike, the big wheelchair van, the green car, and now on my way out. I thought it was a technical road and tricky to ride, but I did not know what I was facing in Colorado, California, and Wyoming yet.
View Larger Map
As usual the backroads take 1.5 to 2X as long. But there is a lot more to see. It was only a 100 mile or so day, and it was going to somewhere I knew. It was a good start and a sunny day. I found my self in the "Black Dirt" section of Orange County. It was the first of many farms I would see on this trip.
From NY to Chicago
I spent the weekend doing things, was it to keep my mind off the fact that I was leaving on this distant trip? Suprisingly I was nervous but not anxiety ridden like before some of the larger events I cooked. I felt ready, like luck was a factor but all the worse outcomes were prepared for or elminated by not taking the motorcycle.
It was partially because my two friends now have a small child with the accompanying lack of time to do things. Barb's father passed away three years ago and being retired did much of the day to day maintenance on the two houses in the woods. The two things that went through my head about moving upstate was the amount of time needed to do upkeep as well as the isolation from all my other friends.
At this point my idea of "The middle of nowhere" was very different from where it is now after experienceing remote British Columbia and the Yukon Territory.
Allen was fustrated that many people come over but the place is a mess afterwards, with few people helping. This hit several thought proccesses of mine after being in the SCA where you have 200-300 people come to an event but a minimal amount of people actually helping run things. It's been more difficult because of the child, and two of the people who did much of the prep and cooking have had work conflicts, and one of them moved away.
They also rescued a snake from a member of my SCA household when he died unexpectedly, and the person who had immeidately after became pregnant. I'm glad I did help get the snake a new home, because there is so much I gained from knowing these people. Especially in the dark years when I was feeling so isolated. It also taught me that there are people who you need to define what you are doing for them and what you need from them, and not to be too fast to offer up help. It's an expensive animal to feed, and I feel I should give back for taking it off of my friends 7-8 years ago.
So I spent the weekend disassembling destroyed things, cleaning up things that needed to be cleaned up. Part of it was dissipating nervous energy. Part of it was making sure that things were better for my friends. There have been several projects that several of that group have promised to do and it has not happened for a variety of reasons. I am looking forward to once I am finished with school getting to do at least one of them.
Maybe I read LOTR right before I left, and have a friend who has the books almost memorized. Or I read Cambells "Hero With a Thousand Faces." Or it sometimes a beatup old gate is just a beatup old gate is just an old gate. But there was the feeling that I had not left yet. That I was still much in my comfort zone. To quote a friend of mine, Alex from PA like the beginning of LOTR with "Hey camping is fun!" before things get serious, and the barrow-wraiths capture them.
It was nice thought to start out with a surrounding of friends, food, and a jovial attitude on my journey.
Early tuesday morning I rolled out and headed south west to Lancaster PA through rural Northeast PA. I have a classmate that lives in the Poconos and commutes to Hackensack Medical Center every day, and another friend who grew up in Hazelton PA. It's an area that has a combination of natural resources (coal) and a lack of practitioners. It's also in the 200 mile radius from NYC.
As I may have mentioned but since this is not the first chapter, my Mother, Sister, Brother in Law, and any potential Nieces or Nephews are going to be on Long Island. The recent loss of my Uncle who I think I saw 10 times in his lifetime makes me want to be more involved and more available. Getting onto the island takes without traffic about 1 hour to go the 60 miles, with traffic it can take 3-4. I wish I was joking on this.
So There is a large amount of eastern PA in there, as well as Philly.
So I went on the backroads and exploring. It's rural, but similar to upstate NY and Ohio. There like much of upstate is not a lot of industry, but the whole area seems healthier than southern and middle Ohio. Saw some abandoned mines and the first of many gigantic wind turbines.
One of the places I wanted to goto was Centralia PA. Based on one of the large coal seams in the area, someone set the town dump on fire. This ignited the coal sometime in 1962. It's not much to look at but the fire will probably burn forever.
Past that I saw a small working steam engine which I took some pictures of prior to heading south to Lancaster PA. My friend Alex S. had been inviting me out to visit for a while, and the 2 weekends off a month combined with a overly frugal (cheap) lifestyle just never had me get my rear in gear and go. It's a nice house, very Victorian with much nice woodwork.
He had his weekly marital arts class in Harrisburg that night with his friends and I tagged along. I missed the Bartitsu cane fighting class at Steampunk World's Fair which he was helping teach with the instructor. So I got to learn a little about a different way of hitting people with sticks.
As Alex and several of his friends are in the SCA having a different type of training reminds me of the upper level black belts who go out and learn other forms. I think this will be of great use to him on the listfield.
It was a bit intimidating because the instructor was teaching an intermediate class, and I was a beginer. So Alex probably got less out of the session than I did.
This is Alex taken from SPWF. I did not take any pictures that night.
I will also mention that it was on the ride back that the windows were open, it was warm out, and the smell of the grass and cow manure reminded me of all those night drives to Pennsic. It was a good early summer night, and it was nice to finally feel like I was on the road.
There were times througout that I regretted not having the motorcycle. But it was obviously that when the car was packed, and the day to leave had come that even with the preperations I did do that it would not have all fit well on the back of that small bike. I was not really prepared, and the hubris of "Getting the skills" on the road might have led to catastropic failure. Wether or not I decide in the future that the risks of riding outweigh the benefits of something that I truly love will be determined in the near future.
The food was eaten, the fridge unplugged and baking soda put in to dehumidify. All the power and the stove gas was turned off. I remember that my Dad would unplug the garage door openers so that someone could not use a hacking tool to get it to open. The advantage was that I could lock up my apartment and there was nothing really to take care of, no lawn to mow, pipes to freeze, and so much else. The rush to get the house, white picket fence, and so forth means that such trips become more difficult. If the white picket fence is where I am heading.
I expected...I don't know what I expected. I tried to approach this with an open mind and know that i was going out of my realm of prior experiences. I think I filled many pages of that journal with expections, concerns, and worries. Most of them which never came to pass. Several which by being prepared I was ready for.
Maybe that is why I started the trip up to Barb and Allen's. I took a different route, the route I got lost on the first long trip I took by Motorcycle up to their house, past the various back roads into NYS. I remember riding Skyline Drive with the bike, the big wheelchair van, the green car, and now on my way out. I thought it was a technical road and tricky to ride, but I did not know what I was facing in Colorado, California, and Wyoming yet.
View Larger Map
As usual the backroads take 1.5 to 2X as long. But there is a lot more to see. It was only a 100 mile or so day, and it was going to somewhere I knew. It was a good start and a sunny day. I found my self in the "Black Dirt" section of Orange County. It was the first of many farms I would see on this trip.
From NY to Chicago
I spent the weekend doing things, was it to keep my mind off the fact that I was leaving on this distant trip? Suprisingly I was nervous but not anxiety ridden like before some of the larger events I cooked. I felt ready, like luck was a factor but all the worse outcomes were prepared for or elminated by not taking the motorcycle.
It was partially because my two friends now have a small child with the accompanying lack of time to do things. Barb's father passed away three years ago and being retired did much of the day to day maintenance on the two houses in the woods. The two things that went through my head about moving upstate was the amount of time needed to do upkeep as well as the isolation from all my other friends.
At this point my idea of "The middle of nowhere" was very different from where it is now after experienceing remote British Columbia and the Yukon Territory.
Allen was fustrated that many people come over but the place is a mess afterwards, with few people helping. This hit several thought proccesses of mine after being in the SCA where you have 200-300 people come to an event but a minimal amount of people actually helping run things. It's been more difficult because of the child, and two of the people who did much of the prep and cooking have had work conflicts, and one of them moved away.
They also rescued a snake from a member of my SCA household when he died unexpectedly, and the person who had immeidately after became pregnant. I'm glad I did help get the snake a new home, because there is so much I gained from knowing these people. Especially in the dark years when I was feeling so isolated. It also taught me that there are people who you need to define what you are doing for them and what you need from them, and not to be too fast to offer up help. It's an expensive animal to feed, and I feel I should give back for taking it off of my friends 7-8 years ago.
So I spent the weekend disassembling destroyed things, cleaning up things that needed to be cleaned up. Part of it was dissipating nervous energy. Part of it was making sure that things were better for my friends. There have been several projects that several of that group have promised to do and it has not happened for a variety of reasons. I am looking forward to once I am finished with school getting to do at least one of them.
Maybe I read LOTR right before I left, and have a friend who has the books almost memorized. Or I read Cambells "Hero With a Thousand Faces." Or it sometimes a beatup old gate is just a beatup old gate is just an old gate. But there was the feeling that I had not left yet. That I was still much in my comfort zone. To quote a friend of mine, Alex from PA like the beginning of LOTR with "Hey camping is fun!" before things get serious, and the barrow-wraiths capture them.
It was nice thought to start out with a surrounding of friends, food, and a jovial attitude on my journey.
Early tuesday morning I rolled out and headed south west to Lancaster PA through rural Northeast PA. I have a classmate that lives in the Poconos and commutes to Hackensack Medical Center every day, and another friend who grew up in Hazelton PA. It's an area that has a combination of natural resources (coal) and a lack of practitioners. It's also in the 200 mile radius from NYC.
As I may have mentioned but since this is not the first chapter, my Mother, Sister, Brother in Law, and any potential Nieces or Nephews are going to be on Long Island. The recent loss of my Uncle who I think I saw 10 times in his lifetime makes me want to be more involved and more available. Getting onto the island takes without traffic about 1 hour to go the 60 miles, with traffic it can take 3-4. I wish I was joking on this.
So There is a large amount of eastern PA in there, as well as Philly.
So I went on the backroads and exploring. It's rural, but similar to upstate NY and Ohio. There like much of upstate is not a lot of industry, but the whole area seems healthier than southern and middle Ohio. Saw some abandoned mines and the first of many gigantic wind turbines.
One of the places I wanted to goto was Centralia PA. Based on one of the large coal seams in the area, someone set the town dump on fire. This ignited the coal sometime in 1962. It's not much to look at but the fire will probably burn forever.
Past that I saw a small working steam engine which I took some pictures of prior to heading south to Lancaster PA. My friend Alex S. had been inviting me out to visit for a while, and the 2 weekends off a month combined with a overly frugal (cheap) lifestyle just never had me get my rear in gear and go. It's a nice house, very Victorian with much nice woodwork.
He had his weekly marital arts class in Harrisburg that night with his friends and I tagged along. I missed the Bartitsu cane fighting class at Steampunk World's Fair which he was helping teach with the instructor. So I got to learn a little about a different way of hitting people with sticks.
As Alex and several of his friends are in the SCA having a different type of training reminds me of the upper level black belts who go out and learn other forms. I think this will be of great use to him on the listfield.
It was a bit intimidating because the instructor was teaching an intermediate class, and I was a beginer. So Alex probably got less out of the session than I did.
This is Alex taken from SPWF. I did not take any pictures that night.
I will also mention that it was on the ride back that the windows were open, it was warm out, and the smell of the grass and cow manure reminded me of all those night drives to Pennsic. It was a good early summer night, and it was nice to finally feel like I was on the road.