Living in TN - Musings

I have lived in a few different places, Minnesota, Mexico, Indiana, and Ireland (I classify "lived" as by staying in a place, getting mail and doing laundry). But no place I have lived (besides MN) has been as permanent as my new home. I'm not sure what the significance of that is, but it seems very new and different to me. I really enjoy this new place and it's not what I expected.

When I think Tennessee, I guess, when I thought Tennessee before, I thought the area would be more country-bumpkin, with tons of country music and not a whole lot going on. I really wasn't a fan of the south (for a variety of reasons) and I'm very happy that my previous notions were wrong. At least Middle Tennessee has a lot going on, it's very beautiful with the hills and the weather. People are really nice, and that's not an exaggeration. Andy and I went on our first bike ride on the Murfreesboro Greenway (which is nothing like the Midtown Greenway) and his chain broke. Some random stranger rode past us as Andy was working on the bikes to ask if we needed help. That doesn't happen much in Minneapolis.

When you go to a new place do you ever think that your first day there feels entirely different from how you see it after awhile? This place certainly does and I'm starting to get my bearings. It's tough to get situated geographically with Andy though because he can never drive the same way twice. So I'm not entirely sure how to get around all the time, but I'm getting there. Overall, this place has been really fun and I'm very happy we've made this move. Life down here is a lot different than our life in Minnesota though, here are some examples.

Slow Pace: Granted government-run anything isn't quick but the time it took to get my driver's license was ridiculous. Especially since I spent a 1/2 hour watching some supervisor stand around in different positions and drink his coffee. Additionally they drive below the speed limit here. Earlier I mentioned that they drive the speed limit due to cops being very active. But I toe the line and I pass about 75% of those driving. I just don't get it.

Because 25 mph is just too fast

Horses, ect: On the way to work for Andy he can pass horses and cows grazing in the fields. I can guarantee you that didn't happen on the crosstown. When I was doing my job search today I saw someone riding their horse up to the stables on the "block" before you get to our townhouse development. When we drove to Chattanooga the other weekend we saw adorable cows with white tube tops on. I enjoy seeing the livestock.

Weather: When we left Minnesota, spring was starting. Spring is my least favorite season in Minnesota because it's so wet and mucky. I like to go outside and spend time hiking around but sometimes it's difficult to wade through the mud and stay on a path. Spring in Tennessee is like it should be. Stuff grows when it's "officially" spring time. Spring break comes at a logical time of year. Heck, as I write this I'm sitting on my front step wearing a tank top, shorts, and sunscreen with no shoes/socks. It's refreshing.

Dirt: Some of the soil here is red, which really throw me for a loop sometimes. We live kind of by a little cemetery (near where the neighbor horses are kept) and the fresh graves have piles of red dirt. It's just weird.

Music: Granted Minneapolis has it's own solid music scene, it's nothing compared to Music City! And I love that. Andy and I saw a bluegrass band play at the Station Inn last weekend. It seems that on any given day in any old bar there will be some form of a band playing there. And I like that. Even if it is country. Speaking of country, I haven't heard a lot of it since being down here. In our first couple weeks, Andy and I resigned ourselves to listening to country in the car because we didn't know where the good stations were. We've found a lot of good music stations since that I really enjoy. Plus, there are two public radio stations next to each other on the dial. That's just the checkers.

Off the Wagon, allegedly the tallest Bluegrass band in the world.

Out-of-doors: I would classify Minnesota as an outdoors-y state. I spent most of my life hanging around outside, reading, hiking, camping, canoeing, taking the dog out. There's a lot to do outside in Minnesota and I would say the Boundary Waters is one of my favorite places to be. However, generally you have to go aways from the cities to get to any fun type of country. And let's face it, Minnesota is pretty flat. Not just outside of Nashville! A couple weekends ago Andy and I went on a hike to Shake Rag Hollow and had a marvelous time traversing the hilly terrain. The road to get to the trail head stopped at cliff with no guardrails, just the hope that you'll be too much in awe to keep driving. There's going to be a lot of camping and hiking down here.

Vistas!

History: We're surrounded by history here. Everywhere we go there's a sign on the road for this battle or that. It's fun to be a part of an area where so much happened to shape our country. Even on Andy's way to work he drives by a Civil-War Era cannon, who can beat that?!

Crops: Much of out state Minnesota is devoted to the cultivation of corn and soybeans. Which makes for a boring road trip. Here, there's cotton! I've never seen (at least that I've remembered) a cotton field until now. And I'm more excited to see what it looks like in full and glorious bloom.

I was given a history of the Cotton Gin at this point.

I look forward to exploring more of what Tennessee has to offer. It's good to be wrong sometimes about a place and just taking a chance.

The Life and Times of My Feet: An intro

Ever since my mom bought me my first digital camera, pictures of my feet have been ubiquitous. I'm not entirely sure why I choose take pictures of my feet, they just happen. It might be like my way of saying "I was here." And my feet have been many places! They've been to many interesting places and it's kind of interesting to see all the things my feet (and me) have done.

My feet getting ready for my first 5K.

My feet in Tony's hammock tent in the Boundary Waters.

My feet following a path at Dublin Castle in Ireland.

Andy and my feet on a boat in Lake Superior.

My feet on their way to work at the U of M after a Spring Break snowfall.

My feet on tree roots on 5th Avenue in New York City.

My feet made their way to the top of a playground in Glasgow, Scotland.

My feet snowshoeing while orienteering in Theodore Wirth Park.

My feet on the sand at Dublin Bay.

My feet on a frozen and snowy Lake Nokomis.

My feet and the found plastic cow "Clinton" at the James J. Hill house.

Sometimes other people took pictures of my feet. This is Kim, me, Andy and Jon at the Scavenger Hunt.

My feet on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Fransisco.

My feet hanging while I sat on the soon to be wrecked ATV.

Andy got into the foot action on our first date over the Mississippi River.

My feet on the square in Rockville, IN.

Sometimes my feet get dirty sometimes, this is at a kegger to raise funds for the Student Associate for Non-profit Enterprise.

Sometimes my feet pictures are not stylish. This is at a party while wearing leg warmers and long johns. Tequila and beer make anything sound like a good idea.

Goings On

Recently I've been camping for the first time in the year and I've been to the Indy 500!  I have a few pictures from each event, but my internet is crappy and can't upload anything now.  Those will have to wait.

Andy and I went camping in St. Croix State Forest.  State forests are free to camp in, and if worse comes to worse, you can camp anywhere (not in a designated site).  Thankfully for us, it was high tick season, and most people stayed away from camping that weekend, we got our pick of sites!  Not after getting lost though.  St. Croix State Forest has terrible maps, intersections are not marked and exist and we were tricked into going on a path full of ticks that wasn't on the map.

The state forest is also home to lots of horse trails.  We encountered many horse riders along the trails and stood aside to let them pass.  It was really fun to see them around.  One rider asked us if we lost our horses.  Another rider told us that a beautiful, open campsite was not far away, and we got really excited.  The rider failed to mention that the beautiful site was across a 20 foot river, running with frigid water.  We had no horses to cross the river.

So we set off back the way we came, to look at a deciving map and figure out the next best campsite.  Turns out, the next best one was pretty awesome!  It wasn't too far from a marked intersection, it was down a little hill, on a curve in the river.  It was probably one of the prettiest sites I've camped on.  We were able to use our new water pump in the river and got cooking water.

It was a wonderful camping trip, no rain, nice people, a good 2 1/2 hour hike.  Except the aforementioned high tick season.  I've never gotten so many ticks in my life, in so many inconvenient places.  I felt like ticks were crawling over me as I slept, which they were and I thre them out of the tent.  It was probably the most insect-filled camping experience I've had.  This was a great learning experience on when and where to camp and not to forget the bug spray.  We high-tailed it out of that site as early as I thought decent to wake Andy.

Spring!

Spring has finally arrived in Minneapolis and it's quite an amazing sight.  It came slowly, with days above freezing followed by days below zero.  But now it's quite warm, most of the snow piles are fading into the ground, and there's hope in the air that maybe this weather is here to stay.

Spring isn't my favorite season, but here's what I do love.  I love the fact that in fall 40 degrees feels like freezing and we all bundle up in coats and scarves.  Then in spring, when it is 40 degrees we're outside in short sleeves and feeling hot.  I also love seeing people again.  I've seen more people out and about in my neighborhood in the past week than I did all winter.  When warm weather comes people start emerging from their homes and exploring outside.  That house down the street isn't actually a foreclosure, it's just a family of homebodies in the winter.

I enjoy seeing grass again. I can't wait until I can see buds on the trees and the first tiny leaves of the year.  We've been out and about on our bikes and we didn't want to die from the cold.  Warm weather is truly amazing.  It amazing me that I walked home Friday in the rain. That's the form snow takes when it's too warm to freeze.  In the winter I forget what it's like to live in the summer.  I can picture going to the beach and people wearing swimsuits and wonder why the heck people would want to wear so little outside.  Now that spring has started, I can image what heat from the sun feels like, and it's amazing!  It'll be swimsuit weather before long!

Andy and I are already planning our first camping trip of the season.  We're planning on going bike camping, possibly in May.  I look forward to planting things, my lavender has 2 sprouts already!  I'm really excited about eating fresh foods, tomatoes, corn, and trying new vegetables.  I plan on spending as much time as I can this summer outside, because this time is limited and everyone should take advantage of it while they can.

Camping!

This past weekend Andy and I took a trip down to Frontenac State Park for a camping trip! This was our first time camping together and it was loads of fun. We reserved a sweet cart-in site, where we packed up our stuff in a cart and pushed it about a 1/4 mile to our site. Think of it as one step away from car camping.

Andy being my pack ass. On the way back I carried the backpack.

The pooper wasn't too far from our campsite.

Only one other couple and their dog was camping in the same area as us, so it was really quite and nice. The site was nice too, except it was really muddy due to recent wetness. The first day we set up our site, ate a snack, and then took a hike around the area. We saw some large birds of prey, though we weren't sure what kinds of birds they were. We were able to get pretty close, until Andy stepped on a stick and scared them off. A bird book might be helpful for identifying the birds we see on future hikes. A tree book would be nice as well, so that we know what trees we're looking at when they start to grow leaves.

Andy enjoying a delicious snack.

Andy and I by Lake Pepin.

Birds! They have red faces, so I really don't know what they are.

After hiking Andy built a fire and we started cooking our dinner. I don't think I've ever been camping without some sort of camp stove and guaranteed method of cooking, so I was a bit nervous trying to cook without one. We planned on cooking brats and wieners; however, we forgot a utensil for taking our cooked wieners off the grate. In Wabasha we went to a very friendly hardware store and found this nifty clamping grate thing that we could stick in the fire and cook our dogs. It worked beautifully! Much to my surprise.

Cooking wieners.

The finished product! A delicious dinner.

After that there wasn't much to do and it was getting pretty cold. So we retired to the tent and Andy tried to patch his Thermarest, it didn't hold. My air mattress is in Indiana still, so I slept uncomfortably on the hard ground. It was terribly cold that night and I couldn't sleep because I hurt on all sides from the ground and I had to pee, but I didn't want to get up again in the dark. Finally when it was light I ventured out and relived myself. I was able to get back to sleep and wake up to the wonderful words, "Amanda, I got the water boiling!" Andy had managed to get the fire going enough to boil our water for our morning tea and oatmeal! It was a wonderful start to the day.

Andy enjoying his morning tea and oatmeal.

We then took a morning hike in the fog and started down the side of the bluff. It was a really pretty walk down and exciting to get closer to the water. On the way up the fog burned off and it turned out to be quite a beautiful day. After packing our stuff up and heading out, Andy and I stopped at the Whistle Stop cafe in Frontenac Station for lunch.

The foggy road.

These are the switchbacks that lead down the side of the bluff to Lake Pepin.

Me in front of the steep climb.

One of the few things that were actively growing.

My artsy reflection picture.

Camping was a lot of fun and Andy and I plan on doing a lot more. We've decided a blow up air mattress and a camp stove are two important things that we should get in the future. Hopefully since it's getting warming freezing to death at night won't be as much of a concern now. We've also discovered campsites that you can hike into that are 1 to 5 miles from parking. This is our next step as we get better at this whole camping thing.

I am a Consumer Whore

It's been done. I've done it! And I'm not taking it back (hopefully). I purchased an iPod today. A little blue Nano. I'm still thinking of a name. Lil' Blue didn't like my laptop, or my laptop didn't like the new iPod. So I've set it up on my desktop and everything works fine.

I have discovered the vast and fascinating world of PodCasts. So far tonight I've listened to Garrison Keillor tell me about what exciting things happened this day in history, and I've seen how to cook an asparagus omelet. It's quite exciting for me to discover these things. My reading might be slowed down now.

Speaking of reading! I've discovered a most wonderful author, Michael Chabon (possibly pronounced: Sha-bone). As of today, I've read 2 books and 1 novella by dear Michael, and I've loved, loved each one of them. It's so great! I'm also currently reading H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds and it's great as well! Books can be so invigorating.

Hopefully this little iPod will help me block out the annoying noise of people on the train and I can relax more on my way to work. I'm looking forward to listening to new and exciting Podcasts and possibly learning something new.

This week I have a Wednesday night bike ride planned, which will hopefully be well-attended and fun. Then over the weekend Andy and I plan on doing a little anniversary camping down south. Possibly visiting a familiar Red Wing coffee shop and getting our frequent buyer cards stamped. Good things!