Austin to Baltimore, via Albany

This post is about a month overdue. But better late than never!

In the middle of September, I made my third cross-country drive this year.

My friend Rachel (my BFF in Albany) flew to Austin to make the long drive with me. She had about another month in Albany, so I had to take her back there. Originally we planned to take this random southern route (so I could hit more state capitals), but decided that adding 10 extra hours of driving on really didn't sound appealing. So the night before, we rerouted ourselves on a more direct route.

We left Austin on a Friday morning (Sept 18). I did a bad job at taking pictures on the trip. We made it to Memphis that night. We explored Beale Street (So much live music out in the streets! So fun!) and ate dinner at a Memphis bbq place called the Pig 'n' Whistle. (Memphis/Southern bbq is different than Texas bbq. It's pulled pork, as opposed to brisket and such. I've mentioned this before.)

Saturday was loooong. We decided that we wanted to make it to church in Albany Sunday morning, so we went as far as we could. We even ended up skipping dinner at the Cracker Barrel in Erie, PA because we didn't want to lose time. That tells you something.

But we did make a stop in Frankfurt, KY so I could add capital building #24 to my list.

We arrived in Albany Sunday morning, just in time for church. (Well, a few minutes late, actually, but I was booking it as fast as I could on I-90 across New York while avoiding getting pulled over.) We weren't supposed to arrive until Monday, so we surprised people. (Except the Porters; I was staying with them, so I had talked to her the night before, and they knew we were coming then.) Some people's looks of surprise made it especially worth it. :)

I stayed in Albany until Wednesday and had such fun! Monday was spent relaxing, having lunch with a friend from church, having dinner with Nathan, and then playing ultimate with the Albany gang. So fun! Except it got dark a lot faster than I was ready to be finished playing. And the light on Bill's frisbee seemed to be burned out, so we couldn't keep playing too long after it got dark.

Tuesday was probably the most adventurous day of the trip. It warrants an entire blog entry of its own; but I won't, mostly because I feel confident most of you don't want too many of the details. Anyway, so my friend Rachel works on an organic farm. Tuesday they were processing chickens, and she invited me to come along.

After some deliberation I decided that I wanted to do it for a couple reasons: (1) as a meat eater, I probably shouldn't feel queasy at the thought of slaughtering chickens; (2) I would feel more justified in eating meat if I've actually participated in the process (not that I've ever felt unjustified in it before), and it would make me feel slightly more "socially responsible;" (3) we know it's all about the story, and this would be something I would like to HAVE done, but in order for that to happen, I actually had to DO it. And when was I going to get the chance again?

So I did it. Like I said, I'll spare the details, but the experience didn't make me sick or want to become a vegetarian. In fact, I felt the entire thing was rather educational. And I did feel more enriched and socially responsible afterwords. And they even gave me two chickens as a thanks for helping. (Though not one of the ones we processed that day...rather, two that they had in the freezer from a previous time. I have eaten one of them, and I honestly thought it did taste better than a store-bought chicken. The flavor was much richer.)

Me decked out and ready to go!

Okay, sorry if this grosses you out, but I seriously could not resist putting this picture on here. (Don't worry, they're already dead.)

Here's Rachel and I on the farm later that afternoon, after the chickens were finished, everything cleaned up and we all had lunch.

From the farm, I went home and showered, then went to SUNY to pick up Nathan. We went to see this traveling display advertising Disney's new A Christmas Carol movie. The line to get in to see it was like 2 hours, but we managed it. But it was interesting. They had lots of things from the movie (like costumes they based the animations on) and different rooms explaining different aspects of making the film.

Then we went back to his place to eat Texas waffles! Back in June after he drove back to Austin with me, I bought him a Texas-shaped waffle maker as a thank you present. So fun! Texas waffles really are the best.

What a great time. Next day I headed down to Baltimore, and well....you know the rest from there.

The Weekend

This last one was among the best of my Albany weekends. My reasons are as follows:

0. I had the house to myself! The Porters were celebrating their 40th anniversary with a weekend trip to Canada, so I was left to hold down the fort.

1. Swing dancing Friday night -- I haven't gone dancing since I've been in Albany. I found out that they only have dances once a month, on the first Friday. So I donned my dancing shoes and headed downtown. There was a live band, and to put it mildly, the dance was an awesomely fantastic time. I don't think I've EVER had so much fun swing dancing before. I was worried I'd be a bit rusty, but it all came back after the first dance. I often worry that I'm not very good, but a lot of the leads I danced with seemed to really enjoy dancing with me. Two of the best dancers there asked me to dance THREE times (each!) and another guy (who also danced with me three times) kept telling me how wonderful I was to dance with, and he was delighted when I said that I lived around here (meaning, I'd be back next month...and believe me, I will!!). I danced a lot, I was completely exhausted by the time I got home. But it was the most dancing fun I've had in a long time.

2. Major workout Saturday morning -- I had a great cardio workout and went to a weights class (that's Body Pump, for you fellow Golds Gym-ers) and it felt great! Yay gym!

3. Saturday afternoon in Albany -- My friend Nathan showed me the Capital Plaza downtown; we went to the top of the Corning Tower (tallest building in Albany), and walked down to the river. Turns out downtown Albany does have some nice spots. Next Saturday we're going to the Tulip Festival in Washington Park.

4. I made my first pot roast -- Sister Porter invited people over for dinner Sunday afternoon before plans were made for them to be out of town. So I played hostess, including making the pot roast. She gave me a lesson Friday morning, and set everything out for me.* (Even the whisk in saucepan on the stove!) She really does think of everything.

And it actually turned out pretty well (even the gravy!) and people seemed happy eating it. (Sorry, didn't manage to take a picture of the finished product and the happy people eating it.)

5. CES Fireside Sunday night -- Elder Bednar. Need I say more? I think not. (But I will.) There was a mingle beforehand...here we are "candidly" socializing. Holly and I were probably having a discussion about Freaks and Geeks. I had lent her the DVDs** at church that day, and when I saw her at the fireside (a few hours later), she come up to me and said, "Oh my gosh! I am in love with this show. I've already watched a couple episodes." Yay! Another convert! :)

6. New shoes -- Saturday night I realized that a Kohls gift card that I had expired that day. So with half an hour left before they closed, I ran over to Kohls and looked around. I ended up buying these shoes. At first I thought they were kind of ridiculous, but kind of awesome. (Now I just think they're totally awesome.) I was debating them in the store, wondering if they were too bold. As I was putting them back in the box (still unsure as to whether or not I should get them), a woman who was nearby while I was trying them on said, "I like those shoes." I said, "Me too! But I don't know if they're too bold." She said: "Oh no! They're great. You should buy them." I bought them. I also bought a long necklace that matched pretty well. I wore these shoes with the outfit in the above picture. (I wish they'd gotten the shoes in that picture!)

7. Maybe less fun, but I actually got my grading done. Yay end of semester projects and papers! (Such a big stack of grading!) Monday I gave my final, so I'm done teaching and now 100% thesis. (Well, after I turn grades in.)

8. Barefoot Ultimate -- Okay, so Monday night isn't the weekend, but for FHE on Monday night, the group from church played Ultimate again! It wasn't raining this time, like last time, and a few of us took our shoes off to play. I was a bit cautious about the no shoes idea at first, but it was great! My feet were filthy by the end, and it was so fun! (And I even survived crashing into my teammate Dan as we both went for the frisbee, an incident that ended with us tangled up on the ground.) (My friend Cathy took a picture of my feet, but I don't have it yet. Otherwise I would have posted it here. Oh well.)

The greatness of the weekend will be hard to top. Of course, this next weekend has a good shot. Tulip Festival Saturday, then I'm taking the train to NYC to spend Sunday and Monday with my sisters Sue and Julia! (They're flying out from SLC along with one of Sue's friends.) (But no shuttle launch in Florida on Tuesday that week...sad. I canceled my plane ticket to Orlando because NASA moved the launch up one day. Boo!)



* Lest you think I made the gravy from the brown gravy mix there, let me set the record straight. She set that out in case I (a) messed up making it from scratch; or (b) ran out and needed to make more quickly.
** We traded off. I let her borrow my beloved Freaks and Geeks DVDs and she lent me her prized Arrested Development DVDs. It's like we're holding each other's stuff hostage, so we'll be sure to get them back.

Pumping Gas

You know how sometimes when you get gas, you like to do something else while it pumps? Like clean your windshield because it is extraordinarily dirty and hard to see out of due to all the dirty road slush that has splashed up on it, and this is your only chance because it's so cold outside that your windshield wiper fluid is frozen and hence can't be used. (You know...hypothetically speaking.)

Well, turns out in New York, you can't do that. Nope. "Continuous flow" on the pump is not possible, as the gas pumps don't have that thing that lets you click the gas nozzle on while the gas is flowing. Rather, you have to stand there and hold it until it's finished.

And don't even think about rigging something up with your gas cap....

The Albany Life

I have been in Albany for about 3 weeks. Here's how my life and routine is shaping up.

I arrived in Albany on a Friday night. Julia flew back to Utah Saturday afternoon. I was going to live with 2 cool girls from my branch (read: my local congregation at church). After being in Albany for roughly 48 hours, my living situation changed. At my first Sunday at church, the branch president (the leader of the congregation) wanted to meet with me to get to know me. As we chatted and I told him I was here to write my dissertation, and he invited me to live with him and his wife. I moved in Tuesday morning.

The branch president and his wife are great. They live very near the same place I was going to live (which is about 15 or 20 minutes from campus; that's half what my commute in Austin was). Their kids are all married and gone, and they have a big house. I have the entire basement to myself. I am set to live the ideal life of an academic hermit.

Here are some pictures of my new place of residence.

This is the driveway.

I park my car next to the house in a smaller driveway off the main driveway.

The backyard. (Very woodsy.)

These are some pictures of the basement, where I live.


My room.

I have two offices on campus at Siena. One is a shared office with other adjunct faculty. Since I'm teaching a class (intro astronomy for non majors), I have a spot in there. I work there sometimes, mostly when I have office hours. The other is actually my adviser's "outer office" (his office has two rooms). That's where I work most of the time. It's just me, my laptop, and a big table. This office is really cold. I usually have a blanket on my lap (or around my shoulders) and a space heater roaring next to me almost non-stop.

This is me in my office, working on my laptop, drinking hot chocolate.

Besides sleeping and working, I am also finding my gym routine again. I tried the gym on campus at Siena, as I get to use it for free. The college is small, which means the gym is small. It was a few steps up from an apartment complex work out room. Although the weight room was pretty decent...I tried it out, and was the only girl among like 20 guys (who are all like 19, by the way). That kind of thing doesn't deter me though. The funniest part was as I started my weight lifting, the radio in the room was blasting Beyonce's "All the Single Ladies." Ha! Anyway...

Nothing can replace Gregory Gym in my heart, but this didn't look like it would be able to replace it in functionality either. I needed more.

So I went to check out Gold's Gym. (I would have also looked into 24 Hour Fitness, but sadly, they don't have any up here.) The nearest Golds to my new place is a 10 minute drive. There's another on my way to school, about 5 minutes out of my way (in Latham). I checked out the one up in my town. It was pretty nice, despite not having a swimming pool (but there's a pool on campus). I got a multi-club membership so I can use that one or the one in Latham on my way into or out of campus. The one nearer my place is a lot nicer than the Latham gym, but it's nice to have options. I've worked out a couple times at each place, and feel fairly neutral about it. But it seems to be doing the job, so I'm satisfied.

That's about it. I am not completely a hermit though, I regularly attend activities (namely FHE every other Monday and Institute every Thursday) with the young single adults from the branch. (All 10 of them.) They're a great group. This weekend I'm going out with a few of them to a regional YSA conference in Ithaca (where Cornell is; about 3 hours from here). That ought to be fun.

In the meantime, I better get back to work.

Capitols and rental vans

I don't have a car while I'm here in Albany. But I did get to rent one this last weekend, so I could drive around and check out the area a bit. It was great, especially because I had a GPS, which was so helpful in getting around a city I don't know. After General Conference on Sunday, I went and visited the New York state capitol grounds, which was cool. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera. But if I did, the picture of the capitol would look something like this:

(Though not as much blue sky...it was pretty overcast and nearing dusk.)

It was so nice having a car to get around, but I was sort of annoyed with the rental car company. Despite having made a reservation, when I got there, the agent explained to me that there was a huge number of reservations this weekend and all they had left were "two mini vans." (Apparently there's a Seinfeld episode about not getting the car you reserved?) I'd already been standing in line at least 15 minutes while she explained this to the woman in front of me and then accompanied her to the counter of every other rental car company in the airport to see if any of THEM had cars because she didn't want a van. Meh, I just wanted to get home by that point. So, I took the van. It got me around sufficiently, and this weekend I felt one step closer to being a soccer mom. (But the van is no longer with me. I had to return it this afternoon.)

Siena College

I took some pictures of campus to share with you how beautiful the campus is here. Siena College is a small liberal arts college in Loudonville, NY, right by Albany. There are roughly 3000 students. It's a private Catholic college, founded only about 70 years ago by 7 Franciscan friars. To this day, there are friars that walk around campus. The college president ("Father Kevin") looks like Friar Tuck from Robin Hood.

This is a big rock at the entrance of campus. The plaque explains the signifigance of the spot....it marks the spot of the first building at Siena. The significance of the rock? It's big. And it's a rock. There's no significance. They could have just as easily marked that spot with something else. I don't get it.

Evidence of the Catholic-ness of the school. There are a few of these around in random places.

Camera timer on the ground. Yay! (I left my tripod home.)

This is the view right outside the door of our building.

Campus is small. There are a lot of pretty trees and buildings on campus. It's a pleasant place to walk around.






We eat most of our meals in the cafeteria in Serra Hall. The food is actually good. No really. Best cafeteria ever.


Siena is a nice place!

Going to Palmyra

I love church history. Even so, I have been to very few church history sites outside of Utah. Albany is about a 3 or so hour drive from Palmyra (the area where the Church was started), which is practically next door. I planned to go over there at some point during my visit, but got lucky. Turns out there was a multi-stake young single adult (YSA) activity near Seneca Lake this weekend (Friday night and Saturday), about 30 minutes from Palmyra. This meant that YSAs from several areas of New York would be there to socialize, dance, eat, and such things. The YSA group from Albany planned to carpool out, though intended to leave a bit early Saturday morning to see Palmyra. I was in favor of this. It also meant that I didn't have to rent a car to get out to Palmyra, or make the trip alone.

We left Friday night about 6:00pm arriving at the activity about 9:30. It was held at a camp owned by the church, that had some really nice cabins (which we used, since it was overnight), a nice mess hall, and access to the lake. (Though because of the weather, nothing on the lake was part of the schedule.) Attendance at the activity was a bit of a disappointment, but we did have fun in our cabin playing Nertz and Phase 10 until 4:00 in the morning. (It was like we were at girls camp again...) I'm very serious when it comes to Nertz...

The camp site was beautiful. And as you can see, the leaves are starting to turn.


We didn't stick around for much of the Saturday YSA festivities because we wanted to get over to Palmyra. Our first stop was the Hill Cumorah. The church has built a big visitors center at the base of the hill. Inside you can learn about the church history of the area, the other nearby sites, and they also show the Joseph Smith movie. (The same one they show in Salt Lake.) We saw that and then hiked to the top of the hill.

What a beautiful view from the top!


There's a monument on the top of the hill of the Angel Moroni.

And here's the hill from the bottom.


Next stop was the Smith Farm. The original farm house no longer stands, but they've built a replica.

More importantly, this is where the Sacred Grove is located. This is where we believe Joseph Smith received a vision of God the Father and Jesus Christ, which started the restoration of the Gospel.





I mentioned that the leaves are starting to turn right now. The path in the Sacred Grove had many fallen, colored leaves on it and it looked like a rainbow!

In 2000 the church dedicated a temple in Palmyra, which overlooks the Sacred Grove. We didn't stop there, but could see it.


From there we headed into town. We toured the E.B. Grandin print shop, which is where the first copies of the Book of Mormon were printed. In that printing, they had 5000 books printed. They had replicas of the press that was used (the original is in the Church museum in SLC), as well as things set up in the way they would have been at the time the Book of Mormon was being printed. It was neat.



Since we were in town and nearby, we also went looking for the site where Alvin Smith (Joseph's older brother that passed away while the family still lived in Palmyra) is buried. The original headstone was replaced with this one (and by the looks of it, rather recently), but the original is actually preserved in the back of the new stone. (It says the same thing.)


Next we saw the Martin Harris farm. Once Joseph Smith had finished translating the Book of Mormon, Martin Harris mortgaged his farm to pay for its printing. There's not much there today; his original house isn't there, and the one that is there now is a private residence.


Last stop on our Palmyra tour was the Peter Whitmer farm. (Though technically it's 20 or 30 miles from Palmyra, in Fayette, NY.) This was the location of the official organization of the church in 1830.

The church has built a nice chapel in 19th century style, and one of the wings is the visitors center. The missionaries that gave us the tour said that 1980 (the 150 anniversary of the organization of the church) General Conference was broadcast from this building, rather than the Tabernacle in SLC. (I think that's pretty cool, though want verify it or find out if it was all the sessions or just some, etc.)

The farm. Again, the beautiful fall is upon us.

This was the Whitmer home where the church was organized. (Well, a replica at any rate.) It's small. Though there were officially 6 people that joined the church that day, there were 50-70 actually in attendance. (Oh, and the door is open because the missionaries were locking up.)


From there, we drove the 3 hours back to Albany. I was very satisfied with the trip, as I made it to all the sites. Maybe there are a few ways I can think of to have made the day better, but since I don't see it likely that I can ever get Susan Easton Black on a church history tour with me (though you never know), I'm content with it as it was.