Holiday Season is Here!

So in the midst of my final fall teaching, I was also getting ready for the approaching holiday season. With Thanksgiving, I went with Mark and his family to their annual Thanksgiving dinner with family friends. The weekend previously was also his birthday, with all of the usual birthday celebrations, but we also were planning on camping in the Outerbanks of North Carolina in the days following Thanksgiving.

When the time came to head to North Carolina, we were both fighting colds and decided to cut our trip short by only going for a night and cut out the camping portion in favor of using free hotel points for a room (better than two sick people camping in the cold and rain). We did visit the Wright Brothers National Monument at Kitty Hawk, the giant sand dunes at Jockey's Ridge State Park, and Fort Raleigh National Historic Site (the location of the Lost Colony of Roanoke, on Manteo) before heading back to Williamsburg the next day. It was a good little trip and just the kind of mental vacation I needed going into the crazy pre-Christmas season. (photos: Mark in front of one of the many versions of the superstar monster truck, Grave Digger, at its headquarters, the "Digger's Dungeon;" the location of the first flights by the Wright Brothers (the metal track marks their flight path and the stone markers their landing spots); the monument to their achievements; and a statue of the famous photo of one of their first flights that visitors can pose with.)




(photos: The ginormous dunes at Jockey's Ridge State Park; just like why the Wright Brothers chose the Outer Banks for their flights, lots of people use the plentiful wind to fly kites; sunset over Albemarle Sound towards Manteo; the cold and windy ocean by our hotel; and some earthworks from one of the versions of the Lost Colony (but the colony's actual location is still unknown).)





After Thanksgiving, there were a few get-togethers with friends and also the annual staff Christmas Party. I joined an annual cookie-baking day with Mark's mom and her friends, coming home with about 10 dozen cookies. In the midst of all of this, I was still having to get shopping done before going home to Michigan. (photos: Tyler, Mark Summers, Matt, and (part of) Mark discussing Mark Summers' new congressional campaign -- since they looked the part, it seemed appropriate; and later, the staff escorting the candidate to his vehicle.)


The night before flying home, I got a call from Northwest Airlines informing me that they'd cancelled my flight and rescheduled it for a day later. I was up almost all night trying to get a hold of someone to see if there was an earlier flight out of Richmond, all fruitlessly. In the end, I went to Richmond the next morning to simply plead my case and look for a flight, which they quickly provided me an hour later (as opposed to the following day, when the airline had scheduled me). I was exhausted, but at last got to Detroit, and after a yummy German meal, got home to Lansing. (photo: A snowy Detroit gave me a glimpse of what I could look forward to back in Michigan.)

I had a few days before Christmas to help my family get all of their shopping and decorating done in the midst of my annual dentist/eye doctor/etc. appointments. Christmas Eve we had our annual snackfest at my grandma's house and went to bed with mountains of snow outside. On Christmas itself, we exchanged gifts, watched "Ironman" (which made Mom's day, she loved it so much!), and cooked like crazy before going to my grandparents' house for dinner. It was a laid-back and scaled-back Christmas, but still quite enjoyable. (photos: Grandpa, Josh, and I on Christmas; Uncle Dirk, Grandma, and Aunt Penny; and all of the cousins.)



The day after Christmas, we were supposed to go to Grand Rapids to have a get together with my dad's side of the family. However, that morning, I got quite sick and spent all day watching my mom's new copy of "The Tudors." Luckily, I was also trying to recover before my GRE test the next morning. Still coughing, I woke up early and went to the test, only to have the national GRE system crash part of the way through and have my test rescheduled a couple of weeks later. I was still sick for the next couple of days and took it easy, only venturing outside rarely (though the snow had melted just after Christmas). (photos: Dad (wearing his award) and Josh at Chuck E. Cheese for their fantasy football league's award session; my cousin Allison and Uncle Mike with some of the trophies; and Mom and Leslie with their goodies.)



Just before returning to Virginia, some of my friends from high school and I got together, some for the first time since high school graduation. We met at one of our old favorite restaurants, chatted, and some of us continued on to hang out more downtown. It was great to see everyone, with many of them either engaged or moved away. The next morning, it was up to pack before leaving for Virginia (and to fit the theme of most of my trip home, half of my luggage didn't arrive). (photos: Ryan, Janay, and Karli at our Cheddar's high school gathering; Andrea, Pattí, and Wendy; and Paddy, me, and Andrea.)



The next day was New Year's Eve. I relaxed and readjusted to Virginia for the day before going to Mark's house to help him prepare for his party. It was a small, but very fun party. Jack even brought caviar, which I'd never tried until then. The holidays were over at last, after Mike and Christine's nearly-gluttonous "A Christmas Story" Party a few days later. I didn't have much time back in Virginia before I was soon heading to New Mexico to visit my dad... (photo: Mark trying caviar, with gusto.)

End of Fall Teaching -- From Fairfax to Chincoteague

Photos to come...

After a month in Loudoun County, I actually was able to teach in other parts of Virginia (not that I didn't enjoy Loudoun...)!

First up on my schedule after Loudoun was Accomack County, the more northern of the two counties on the Eastern Shore of Virginia (the little dingy of land dangling off the eastern half of Maryland and often left off generalized maps of Virginia). I was quite excited for this since I had the fun schedule: though not a full week, I got to teach at Chincoteague Island (yes, the same island from the book, for those "Misty of Chincoteague" fans out there) and Tangier Island (the little Mackinac-esque -- i.e. no cars and mostly tourist-based economy -- island in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay). After a lovely drive across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel and past NASA's Wallops Island center, I arrived to the small tourist town of Chincoteague accessible by a causeway and small bridge undergoing expansion and thus tons of construction. Chincoteague is a small town, since not too many people venture this way in mid-November, but I was glad to not have too many tourists clogging the small streets. I went that afternoon out to explore the southern end of Assateague Island National Seashore, a 37-mile-long barrier in both Maryland and Virginia. I hiked to the cool brick lighthouse and along the shore, excitedly calling family so that they could hear the ocean without needing a seashell. However, it was pretty darn cold that close to dusk and during a snow-wielding cold front on the beach, so my walks didn't last too long. Being on the Eastern Shore, an area known for its seafood (one of the main industries other than agriculture, which wasn't too much in season in November), I felt I had to find some for part of my dinner, which I did with some ridiculous oysters rockefeller (or something like that) before returning to my hotel for my usual evening (while on the road) full of trashy television.

The next day I was up and teaching before a bit of afternoon exploration and some more fun at the National Seashore. This time, I found some of the loose wild ponies for which the island is known (every summer they make a herd of the ponies "swim" from the barrier island to Chincoteague as a re-enactment of when they used to take the ponies to market to sell). The next day, I was supposed to teach at Tangier Island, and to get there, I'd have to rendezvous with the marine police for an early morning boat ride to the island. However, the boat ride was weather-permitting and it became clear the night before that the weather, with that pesky cold front, would be too rough for me to go the day I was scheduled. I was given a small teaching assignment (two classes and a district visit -- a piece of cake day) and, after staying an additional day, would try to get to Tangier Island again. I did the additional teaching which was carved from the scheduled teaching of two other coworkers teaching the mainland schools in the county. The school we taught at shocked me when I found this school, in nearly a ghost-town of a community due to the dying railroad industry, seasonality of farming, and threatened fishing industry, had a school dentist just like most schools have school nurses (probably because this community both didn't have a nearby dentist and that most people in this community probably couldn't afford one). They were good kids, and after, I met with my coworkers also staying at my new hotel in Onancock (the town I was in a year previously with the ship and from where I'd catch the boat to Tangier Island the next day) and went to dinner.

The next morning I was again up early and down at the marina to meet the boat. The officer picked me up before we went to pick up the county DARE officer and a group of hospice workers who all go to the island weekly. Apparently, they were all surprised that we were making the trip due to the conditions of the bay, and the ride met the reputation. I was excited for a choppy ride, just as I'd always been excited when taking the ferry to Mackinac, and loved that the boat was bouncing all over as it hit each wave. After the delay of picking up my fellow passengers and the hour boat trip, we arrived to the small island. During the summer, it sees a fair amount of tourists (no where near as many as Mackinac since it's more like a quaint B&B destination in the bay and has plenty of golf carts for transport on the island), but most of its residents are watermen who rely on the reduced and threatened fishing in the bay and are thus hurting even more than most people with the economy. I wheeled my box of artifacts the quarter mile to the k-12 school where, due to time constraints, I had to combine the 3rd and 4th-grade programs (there were still only 12 students total, and that was with a student from each grade absent). After, I had lunch with the kids (cafeteria-style chicken and dumplings and canned beets) who were thrilled that I ate at their table and took repeated votes of who was the coolest historical figure we'd discussed and debated historical questions (I loved it!). Then, the DARE officer and I went back to catch the boat back to the mainland. The ride back was not quite as choppy, but with my hurried lunch, I felt the ups and downs a bit more and was grateful for the minivan drive back home.

The week after Thanksgiving, I was scheduled up in Fairfax County near Alexandria, where both Megan and I stayed. We had fun wandering through Old Town Alexandria (my first time there), having a fantastic dinner in an Irish pub, and finding all sorts of tacky inauguration paraphernalia. We taught together the next day and then set out for Arlington to the Drug Enforcement Agency's museum. The DEA museum was both free and small and gave us the history of both drug use and drug policy enforcement in the country, including such fabulous artifacts as a recreated 1990s meth lab, copious opium den photos, grenades and tommy guns from early 20th-century agents, and a pair of alligator-skin platform shoes from undercover agents -- fabulous! We explored the area a bit more before heading back to the hotel to discuss a possible hiking trip to England in May when we'll both have a month off. I taught at a different school than Megan the next day since she was heading home, but I met my friend Callie (who had just moved to Alexandria a few months previously) for dinner and Christmas Tree shopping. I was a bit sick the next day and ended up teaching just part of my schedule and returned home for some rest before making an appearance at the staff holiday party (covered in a different entry).

The next week I taught with Dorothy in Pittsylvania County (staying in Danville, just on the border of North Carolina) for a few days. It was a typical trip, but I did have fabulous classes and even met a friend's niece in one of my classes. We had some yummy barbecue one day and laid pretty low for the few days we were out there since the weather was pretty nasty every day we were there. On the way back to Williamsburg, we absent-mindedly missed our turn and were stuck on nearly flooded back roads the entire way back. I only had one other local teaching assignment, but spent every other day I was in the office preparing for staff training and getting things ready before my month off beginning at the end of the following week. It was busy, but everything got done and I was very much ready for some time off.

A Few Halloweens

So between working trips this fall, I've been trying to lay low and save money. However, there's been quite the run-up to Halloween as well. Some of us went to Busch Gardens' Hallowscream a couple of times. Also, Mark's friend Stephanie (fantastic name!) had a Halloween birthday party, where I debuted my costume as a lumberjack and Mark went as Superman (though I was worried it seemed to normal, but that just might be the Michigan in me, having seen people dress like this on a normal basis). The following weekend on actual Halloween night, we had friends over at our house to watch scary movies (including classics such as "My Bloody Valentine" about a crazed miner angry about Valentines Day parties and Jason 8: Jason Takes Manhattan) and dress in either costume or scary face paint. The day after Halloween, a coworker had a Halloween party at his house with the Lords of Misrule playing. I was pretty excited about my costume for this party, as you'll see below. There were some great costumes, including the second Sarah Palin of the season, a Dark-Knight-esque Joker, a pair of late-18th/early-19th century British military explorers complete with pith helmets, and a dead Alexander Hamilton. Here are some fun photos...

Halloween #1:

Mark taking in some quality literature between birthday party and karaoke (yes, in a Barnes & Noble in costume)

Lumberjack me and Superman Mark

Superman and Sarah Palin #1 (who sang her own version of "Redneck Woman" at karaoke, which a lot of Palin supporters loved and actually began talking politics with her to figure out if her song was a parody or a tribute)



Halloween #2:

Matt (he'd already partially taken off his costume) and Sally (covering up her makeup with her apparently annual tradition of stealing other costumes for photos)



Halloween #3:

Me (as Jack, complete with hedgehog) and Jack (thrilled to have his own tribute)

Scott's sister-in-law as Sarah Palin #2 and Jack

The Captain and Scott

Brian and Loren as Clint Eastwood and one of his movie cohorts



And a tribute to Mark Summers' costume as Alexander Hamilton (I couldn't pick just one):

Mark dueling with Jeff (rather gleefully)

Showing of his on-hand copy of the Federalist Papers

And if you didn't get it yet...

A Month in Loudoun

So after spending my first weeks this school year out in southwestern Virginia, I spent a lot of time over the next four weeks mostly in Loudoun County (the county in the northern tip of Virginia, west of Fairfax County, east of Harpers Ferry, and south of Maryland) with some day trips to Richmond sprinkled in there. After my time (at the same hotel, even), I became friends with the staff of the hotel, with them even lamenting my leaving since I'd become a friendly and "familiar face."

Over those weeks, I travelled with many different staff members and pretty thoroughly explored Loudoun County and its environs. My first trip was just an overnight trip and I barely had time to do much other than my job. However, during my second week, my friend Jeff and I taught in and around Leesburg. Megan and Dirk were also in the area and came to hang out on one of our first afternoons. We went to Harper's Ferry one day and wandered around quite a bit. It had been a while since I'd been there (ten years, or so?) and I enjoyed wandering the streets and seeing a lot of the little shops. We actually ate dinner in the Secret Six Tavern, named after the secret six Yankee backers of John Brown and his raid. (photos: The John Brown wax statue in the window of the John Brown Wax Museum (sorry, it just brought back memories of the manchild...); the armory building, focal point of John Brown's raid, with Harpers Ferry in the background; Dirk, Megan, and Jeff overlooking the junction of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers, with Jeff too busy with his camera to socialize; Megan's face of disappointment when the train didn't come on the track immediately next to her, thus crushing her dream to reenact a scene from "Stand By Me;" and the sun about to set behind Harpers Ferry.)





Later that week, Jeff and I heard rumors that Barack Obama was having a rally in town, though we thought it wasn't until the weekend. Come to find out, the Obama for America campaign staffers that were staying at the hotel were actually there prepping for a rally the very next day. Luckily, we made it out of the school, back to the hotel to change, and to the park where the rally was to be held (via walking, luckily avoiding the standstill traffic!) in time to wait in line to make it in to the rally. We didn't have front-row positions, but the rally was held in a hollow between several small hills, so we had a close and elevated position that gave us a great view. The rally itself was fantastic, though also just what I'd expected based on when I saw him in Virginia Beach and from what I'd seen on television. (photos: Waiting in line for the rally; looking back over the hill at the crowd waiting for the rally to begin; Barack Obama comes on stage (my camera didn't have a great zoom, sorry!); the back part of the crowd with those that didn't make it into the rally watching from beyond the security checkpoint; and a different view from the rally.)





The next week, it was Megan and I up in Loudoun. We had a few things up our sleeves, though also trying to lay low and save as much money as possible. One day we went to Harper's Ferry again to finish visiting what we'd missed the last time. We also visited a place just west of Leesburg called "Dinosaur Land." It's an amazingly tacking and enjoyable tourist trap (dubbing itself as an "educational prehistoric forrest") of lots of cement-ish dinosaurs in a wooded area, though complete with a giant shark, octopus, praying mantis, king cobra, and King Kong. Genius. (photos: More fall colors in the return trip to Harpers Ferry; the octopus (from behind) that strangely lives by a cactus; me and my new friend the pteranodon; and a very frog-like protoceratops.)




(photos: Some dinosaurs in their habitat, including some battling in the background; more battling dinos, though we think that the big one was just broken and they added blood to the carnivore to make the "battle;" yup, it's pretty epic; and me with the King Kong, terrified, of course.)




Megan and I finished out the week with pie and dinner with her parents. The following week, I was back traveling by myself for the first part of the week, including on election night (though I enjoyed myself by being able to watch it all and keep tabs on friends and family all over the country). I also found a little British tea shop after teaching one day, complete with British proprietors, delicious British tea, and wonderfully authentic bangers and mash. Once some of my coworkers arrived for a different teaching assignment, Mark S. gave us a tour of Leesburg from his former tour-guiding days at the Loudoun County Museum. Like anything he does, the tour included tales of duels, Revolutionary rebels, and Civil War anecdotes. I didn't go with Mark S. and Jeff to Dinosaur Land the next day (the stories of my and Megan's visit spread pretty quickly), and instead explored Middleburg, a small (and very wealthy) town in southwestern Loudoun with a distinctly British feel. However, despite how much I enjoyed my time in Loudoun, I was very ready to travel someplace else and to get a bit more variety by the end of my final week in the county. (photos: Jeff and Mark S. outside the courthouse in Leesburg on our walking tour of town; downtown Middleburg; I had fun taking pictures of leaves around Middleburg; and more leaves.)




(photos: Famous Americans from Loudoun County (in some way); Oak Hill, James Monroe's house designed by Thomas Jefferson and the place where Monroe conceived of the Monroe Doctrine; and another scene of leaves.)