canada :P (and the roadtrip)
Well we're here! We drove from Topeka (my mom's) to St. Louis (stayed for a couple hours), to Champaign/Urbana, IL (stayed for the night and toured the amazing campus with out hosts), to decatur to pick up my new front bumper from ebay, to chicago for a couple of nights, to indianapolis for a few hours (was nice! would like to go back), to dayton, OH for a couple of nights (super nice buildings/houses, but half of them were abandoned!) to a long long long drive all the way to jersey city to meet up with annabelevil that I haven't seen in two years! we spent a couple of days exploring manhattan and jersey (so much better than I was lead to believe....to a long long drive where we drove through hartford, stopped in Montpelier, VT (lovely!) and finally made it to the border of Quebec before stopping in Sherbrooke for the night with Patrick's old friend. The next day was driving home to Lac-Sergent where we are staying with his family.
Along the way we had a couple of mini-disasters. First: in Champaign/Urbana I pulled out my camera and it slipped out of my hands...I watched, unable to do anything, as it bounced four feet to the edge of a bridge and twenty of so feet down into a creek. :/ I ran down into the water and grabbed it (only in a couple inches of water) but I was worried that it was on when it went into the water. And of course I hadn't taken my ethiopia pics off it yet (and the card could have been fried if the camera was on when it went into the water. So we stuck the camera on the dashboard and tried to dry it out as much as possible and vowed not to turn it on until we could get some teeny screwdrivers and open it up to make sure it was completely dry. (to be continued)
Second, I had finally gotten a new bumper on ebay when were in Decatur, IL. I'd needed a new one for years because some drunk-ass hit my car while it was parked in Lawrence...I didn't want to deal with the insurance and so it had never been fixed. oh the new bumper looked so nice a perfect! and then I hit a raccoon in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania. Of course the bumper now looks worse than before!!! stupid raccoon...the only way to have avoided it was to not be on the highway at the time it crossed...it was fast! and now very very dead. oh well.
SO the bumper lasted a whole 5 days!! without an incident. It was just so horrible that all I could do is laugh hysterically about the whole thing. I'd never even hit an animal in my entire life....so bloody typical that it happens right after I fix my car and not before!
But the good news is that my camera works perfectly! It has a little dent where it hit a rock, but all the old pics are there and the display is fine...I can't believe my luck! I was sure it was dead.
There's a lot of snow here, but its starting to melt a lot. I really like it here and will be happy to make my life here with Patrick if that is what ends up happening (and not on some other continent)
Now I just need to learn French!
Along the way we had a couple of mini-disasters. First: in Champaign/Urbana I pulled out my camera and it slipped out of my hands...I watched, unable to do anything, as it bounced four feet to the edge of a bridge and twenty of so feet down into a creek. :/ I ran down into the water and grabbed it (only in a couple inches of water) but I was worried that it was on when it went into the water. And of course I hadn't taken my ethiopia pics off it yet (and the card could have been fried if the camera was on when it went into the water. So we stuck the camera on the dashboard and tried to dry it out as much as possible and vowed not to turn it on until we could get some teeny screwdrivers and open it up to make sure it was completely dry. (to be continued)
Second, I had finally gotten a new bumper on ebay when were in Decatur, IL. I'd needed a new one for years because some drunk-ass hit my car while it was parked in Lawrence...I didn't want to deal with the insurance and so it had never been fixed. oh the new bumper looked so nice a perfect! and then I hit a raccoon in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania. Of course the bumper now looks worse than before!!! stupid raccoon...the only way to have avoided it was to not be on the highway at the time it crossed...it was fast! and now very very dead. oh well.
SO the bumper lasted a whole 5 days!! without an incident. It was just so horrible that all I could do is laugh hysterically about the whole thing. I'd never even hit an animal in my entire life....so bloody typical that it happens right after I fix my car and not before!
But the good news is that my camera works perfectly! It has a little dent where it hit a rock, but all the old pics are there and the display is fine...I can't believe my luck! I was sure it was dead.
There's a lot of snow here, but its starting to melt a lot. I really like it here and will be happy to make my life here with Patrick if that is what ends up happening (and not on some other continent)
Now I just need to learn French!