I started off the year as a recent college grad who was holding down three part-time jobs and trying desperately not to become hopelessly discouraged. Looking through iPhoto it appears that, besides working a lot, all I did from January to April was cook and eat. Which makes sense — I had no money and the Boyfriend was still in school — what else are a poor post-grad and a senior college student supposed to do in the cold Upstate NY winter? During these first few months of 2010, I did make scallops for the first time, jump back on the bacon bandwagon, and enjoy several lunches on our back porch, but aside from that there was nothing particularly new and noteworthy in the early months of the year.

April is when it all turned around for me. On the evening of April 1st — April Fool’s Day, mind you — I got a call about a job I had interviewed for in February. The interview had gone so well and I’d immediately clicked with the team, but funding fell through and so did the job. This phone call, however, signaled the rebirth of the job and the hiring of one very thankful Page girl! I’m currently exploring the Development side of non-profit work and I find it suits me well.

This spring brought me a new job and it brought a college diploma for The Boyfriend. And in keeping with the Spring Whirlwind, the Boyfriend, Roommate and I had to deal with the end of our apartment lease in May. The Roommate made plans to abandon us and move downstate to live with her boyfriend, taking Sid, her fabulous cookbook collection, and all of the clothes I used to borrow with her. Meanwhile my boyfriend and I struggled to find a landlord who was willing to rent us an apartment even though we have a dog. Yes, even dogs as cute as Jack are unwanted by landlords.

The stress of not potentially not finding a place that was okay with Jack’s size and overall canine-ness wore away at us throughout the spring until we finally found a gorgeous place in a quiet neighborhood:

I really love our apartment — the location, the size, the style. It’s really perfect for us and our growing zoo.

In June I turned 23 for the first time with the help of my family and some sombreros.

Compared to Summer 2009, July and August were fairly quiet. The gang made a trek north in August to do a little camping — our first group trip together.

And by “camping,” I mean eating, drinking, boating, swimming, eating, kayaking, campfiring, drinking, S’moresing, eating, and sleeping in real beds.

(Jack only went swimming twice: once when he fell off the boat trying to rescue the Boyfriend and as seen above when he ran into the water trying to rescue the Boyfriend and I from our kayaks. That’s puppy love.)

October was a banner month: the Boyfriend got his EMT certification, had a birthday, and carved his first Jack o’lantern.

Jack is so proud he’s fighting back tears.

My big moment in October was the 17th, when my sister and I took a supersecret trip up to Saratoga Springs…

…to get tattoos!

I was incredibly nervous, but it’s been a wish of mine to get a tiger lily tattoo for a few years now. Tiger lilies bloom in the summer right around my birthday and my dad brought my mother a bouquet when I was born.

The pain is not as bad as you think. The actual art of having someone draw on you is far more impressive than the sting of the needles. (By the way if you’re in the Capital Region and looking to get a tattoo, go to Needlewurks. They are professional, friendly, talented, and clean!)

My sister got a Linnea flower after her name.

As the months turned colder and cuddling became more necessary, I began to greatly miss my pudgebucket, Sid. So in November I dragged The Boyfriend to the animal shelter where we found Penny:  

Who, like her doggy brother, is an odd mix of lazy and crazy.

“Excuse me, are you gonna eat all that?”

To round out the year, in December the Boyfriend and I celebrated our anniversary on Cape Cod.

And finally, Santa topped off the year nicely by bringing me one of these for Christmas:

(image courtesy of gdgt.com)

It’s love.

No, not for this again. Sadly…

No, we were in Saratoga on a top secret mission.

I can’t reveal any details since we made a sisterly oath to keep mum on the subject. All in good time, friends.

On the way home we stopped to take in the sunset over the Rexford Bridge.

It’s a beautiful time of the year in Upstate New York. The weather is still warm but the leaves are starting to turn orange and yellow. Boots are back in season but it’s still not time to put away summer skirts.

It was a peaceful way to end the weekend.

Okay, maybe this rule only applies to me. And my sister. Who celebrated a very snowy birthday last weekend with lots of yummy eats.

We met up in New York for some sisterly birthday celebrations, which entailed walking, talking, and eating. All day long.

Most of the day was spent tooling around Soho and the Village, but my sister absolutely insisted that we go uptown for Absolute Bagels. I’m not one to turn down a good bagel, so I agreed.  

We split a plain bagel topped with Tofutti (non-dairy “cream cheese”), which turned out to be tasty and not a bad compromise for you lactose intolerant folks out there. If you’re around Broadway and 108th (or go to Columbia University), I, in all of my intimate knowledge of the bagelries of New York, recommend Absolute Bagels. Personally I’m just gonna buy some Tofutti next time I make homemade bagels.

I had wanted to take my sister to Crumb for some birthday cupcakes, but they were closed. (For being the city that never sleeps, New York sure feels pretty drowsy on Sunday evenings). We were saved by finding a Magnolia Bakery stand in the dining concourse at Grand Central.  

I bought us each two cupcakes. The birthday girl tried red velvet with whipped vanilla frosting and a pretty purple-topped white cupcake.

I went with the Hummingbird (banana and pecan cupcake with cream cheese frosting) and a chocolate cupcake with vanilla frosting.  

I am a true lover of cream cheese frosting, so the Hummingbird was the winner of the cupcake competition. It was like a moist slice of banana bread covered with cake frosting! So good.

We shared, just like Mom always told us. Even so we ended up with leftovers when we parted ways in Grand Central. Yum!

By the end of this post you will note that, even though I spent the day in fabulous New York with my fabulous sister, I have pictures of neither. To this I say: a beloved sister and a pretty city are forever; cupcakes and bagels are fleeting.

At any rate, here’s a charming photo of the two of us from yesteryear:

Leaving St. Louis was a hassle because 64 was closed where we needed to get on, we got lost in the land of Outrageously High Speed Bumps, and we were both yelling at the GPS (“I can’t turn here, stupid! Stop yelling at me! If I turn left I will drive off that ramp! IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?!”). We both suffered from heartburn, backaches, and atrophying limbs from sitting for hours on end (ahh, this is the charming part of fun car trips that they forget to tell you about). My bones turned brittle and my intestines abandoned me for living on a diet of coffee and microwaveable noodle bowls. To motivate ourselves, we took unnecessary inspiration from the radio (“But we’ll try, best that we can, to caaaaaaaaaaaarry on!”).

Basically when you’re two native New York girls driving through a state that is nothing but flat farmland dotted with signs like “Jesus is Lord of All! Pornography Destroys!” and “You Are Now Entering the Hometown of Kansas’ favorite son: Bob Dole,” things start to feel desperate. “Where, oh where, are our spectacular red Utah cliffs, our breathtaking Colorado mountain views, and our welcoming western blue skies?” we lamented. We had left them for Middle America, the land of conservative Christians and fast food (and aggressive advertising schemes for both). I stopped taking pictures of the landscape and started taking pictures of interesting or bizarre signage.

Needless to say, we were thankful for the urban oasis that St. Louis provided. Sadly, the city was completely wasted on us. In numbers, this is our experience in St. Louis:

• 5: Time we woke up Monday morning in Colorado Springs.
• 8: Time we actually got on the road due to the Garden of the Gods and delicious breakfast detour.
• 10: Hour at which we decided Poptarts would be an excellent addition to the morning.
• 10:10: Hour at which we both suffered extreme heartburn from extreme eating.
• 15.5: Number of hours on Monday spent driving through Kansas and Missouri
• 3: Number of times we filled the tank on Monday.
• 114: Number of CDs we played (approximately)
• 11:30: Time we arrived in St. Louis Monday night.
• 30: Number of minutes we spent talking to my roommate’s cousin (our host) before the three of us passed out.
• 7: Hour at which we were planning on leaving the house Tuesday morning.
• 9:14: Hour at which we actually woke up Tuesday morning.
• 10:36: Hour that morning at which we took pictures of the Gateway Arch from the car as we sped out of St. Louis.

Tuesday we drove through Illinois (which, to my credit, I thought would be more populated than it was!). The Illinois landscape looked enough like New York to make me both homesick and painfully aware of how many hours and miles and days and gas stops we had to go. At least when we crossed from Illinois into Indiana, we finally entered our home time zone!

Tuesday night we spent in Columbus, Ohio, stocking up at Trader Joe’s, sitting in our hotel’s steam room, and enjoying the feeling of standing on the ground for an extended period of time. And then came: THE FINAL DAY ON THE ROAD!

Signs of civilization:

Home, sweet home

But the delay, like the one that took us through Zion National Park, was well worth it.

We spent the night in Colorado Springs with family. Colorado Springs seems like such a lively place: everyone is out for a morning stroll or jog.  The locals tell us it’s a very active town because there’s so much natural beauty to admire, despite the urban/suburban setting.

My roommate and I woke up in her aunt’s house at 5am, showered, and prepped for a 6am departure time.  Our schedule was pushed back so we could see the house that my roommate’s aunt and new husband are renovating at the foot of Pike’s Peak.  You can literally enjoy your morning coffee with one of the most spectacular views in the country.  All along my roommate’s new uncle had insisted that we not leave Colorado Springs until we had been through the Garden of the Gods, so we threw our departure schedule out the window and obliged.

Thank God we did:

Imagine this is your backyard...

The rock formations all have names, like Kissing Camel...

...and Balancing Rock

Afterward, our tour guide was generous enough to take us out for a leisurely breakfast before hitting the road.  For breakfast we found ourselves at another cultural cross-roads: Western Omelette Restaurant, a Mexican diner serving breakfast with a spicy kick.  (Seriously, if you like spicy in any meal of the day and you’re near Colorado Springs, check it out).  Normally I’m one to order the hot chili, because in New York the mild or medium barely have any kick.  But at Western Omelette, mild was respectably spicy.  They have regular breakfast fare, too.  It was super tasty, as you can tell by the fact that I’ve spent just as much time talking about this place as I have about the unbelievable splendor of the Colorado landscape.

Sadly, I did not stop any snap any photos of the breakfast joint or of my meal, mostly because a) I have not gotten my blogger feet completely wet yet and I felt weird photographing my food, and b) I was too busy eating to bother with the world outside my plate.

Hands-down, Colorado won the Favorite State of the Trip Award.

]]> http://notesonapage.com/2009/09/colorado/feed/ 1 http://notesonapage.com/2009/08/new-mexico/ http://notesonapage.com/2009/08/new-mexico/#comments Mon, 31 Aug 2009 14:34:03 +0000 Page http://notesonapage.com/?p=211 My roommate and I were equally excited to get back to New Mexico.  She was born in Farmington, which is in the northwest corner of the state, and hasn’t been back since she was about a year old.  My New Mexican experience was a trip about ten years ago to Sante Fe with my father and sister.

New Mexico is an intriguing and culturally-rich state.  As our host put it, it’s “tri-cultural,” blending American, Native American, and Spanish traditions.  I imagine that this tri-cultural climate shifts and favors one tradition more as you travel toward the Mexican border, the New Mexican urban centers or the Indian reservations.

Farmington is near the town of Shiprock which plays host to part of a Navajo reservation.  Our host in Farmington is a former teacher on the reservation and she drove us all through it.  The concept of reservations is certainly a tricky one, and there is tangible tension between the residents and the people in the neighboring towns.  The white New Mexicans seem to doubt the competence of the Native Americans on the reservations, what with the high rates of alcoholism and poverty; on the flip side, the Native Americans no doubt resent the American government for a lack of control.

Shiprock, so-named because it just kinda sticks out in the desert

As with the rest of my tour of the Southwest, New Mexico is stunning.  But this was the first opportunity we had to experience real life in the state we were visiting.  My night in California included a couple of bars and a stop at the Golden Gate Bridge — basic touristy stuff.  Las Vegas is something out of this world, hardly a glimpse into the life of the average American.  And Utah and Arizona were excellent, but they were for scenic purposes only on our drive.

There’s a lot of life in New Mexico: the site of culture clash tends to be a real hub for traditions to flourish and morph (think New Orleans, Louisiana).  We stopped at a flea market on the reservation to peruse the goods and pick up some much-anticipated fry bread.  Fry bread looks like fried dough, but it less crispy, more chewy, and very delicious.  The woman we bought our bread from was selling dough for a buck right out of the trunk of her car.  She was kind enough to let me take some pictures:

She began by tossing the dough back and forth between her hands.  When it was flat enough, she put it in a skillet over a fire right by the car and fried it in some oil, all in a matter of minutes.  As an alum of the Altamont Fair in New York, I was expecting some powdered sugar to go with my fry bread, but she handed us salt instead.  Different taste buds, but YUM! My roommate and I split a piece then helped our host finish hers as well…

Fry bread: well-worth the empty calories and the time it would take you to drive to New Mexico.

There is, of course, a chance that I love the Southwest so much purely out of delusion. My body has somewhat given up on me because I have not treated it to a full nights’ sleep in a real bed for over a week now. I’ve been eating whatever crap I can find out of our Box O’ Food in the backseat, and it’s not always nutritionally sound.  Days full of traveling in enclosed, air-conditioned spaces have resulted in a permanent pink tinge to my eyes. But my eyes can’t help falling in love with every red rock they see.

I’ve probably looked better, but I’m on this permanent rush. There is so much to absorb that it’s hard to worry about napping in the car or calling home or stressing over concerns outside this trip. It’s an incredibly liberating and selfish feeling, and I know I’m lucky to be here on the road.

However, I fear at heart I am just a narrow-minded New Yorker, because Utah blew me away.

I mean, come on, East Coasters, what do we really know about Utah? We know that Salt Lake City is there and that’s supposed to be cool. The Olympics were kind of a big deal in 2002. If you’re into polygamy, it’s the place to be. Utah is part of the Four Corners and when you’re 11 it’s really fun to wave to your sister from Utah when she is three feet away in Arizona. But who goes to Utah?

Everyone. Or they should, at least.

We really weren’t supposed to be in Utah at all. We left Las Vegas Saturday morning, headed for Farmington, New Mexico. We later found out that the fastest route would have been on 1-40 through Arizona, but our GPS set a route for us that dipped into Arizona, wound through Utah, back into Arizona, and into the New Mexican corner that houses Farmington. Typing this out, I see that it sounds silly and we should have looked at a map and known better. Kids, this is what happens when you rely solely on technology.

As we wound our way through Utah, we found ourselves approaching a sign that read: “Entering Zion National Park. $25 Fee for All Cars Passing Through.” When you are financially-strapped New Yorkers, paying an extra $25 for anything in Utah seems unreasonable. But we drove on:

 

I shouldn’t have complained so much about California.

We drove across the border into Nevada late Friday night. Our destination? Las Vegas. The drive was very long and full of traffic jams and bad drivers. Eventually we left the palm trees and smog of California and headed into the empty Nevada desert. Around 1:30 A.M., my roommate nudged my sleeping self in the passenger seat and said, “Look! It’s Las Vegas!” and in the dark distance you could see a patch of electric lights. Our Vegas, however, turned out to be fake, a mirage, a trick of the desert! This oasis of lights was only the Nevada Welcome Center, modeled to look like the famous city. We had trouble comprehending this fact with our fuzzy minds. Nevada is pitch black at night, especially around Vegas. We finally did make it to the city, with the same effect: slowly a group of lights moved toward us. Once you enter Las Vegas, the desolate desert is forgotten as you are caught up in the chaos of the casinos and hotels. We stayed at the Excalibur which is, you know, a castle.

Las Vegas is crazy. We made it to our hotel at two in the morning, cleaned up, and went downstairs for some drinks, site-seeing, and people-watching.

Compared to the red rocks of Utah, the canyons of Arizona, the Colorado mountains, and the sprawling farms of the midwest, Nevada left a little to be desired. It was s destination on our trip, and probably worth seeing, but overall I wasn’t blown away by Nevada’s landscape. In my eyes, it was time to drive on to the next state.

1. My legs were sore and in need of some serious stretching.

2. I hadn’t seen my roommate in a month and a half and she was waiting for me in the station.

3. For the past 2 hours I had been riding illegally on the train. I was supposed to get off in Sacramento, but Emeryville is closer to San Francisco and they wouldn’t let me change my ticket in the station. So a little before Sacramento, I slipped out of my seat, chucked my seat ticket, and hid in the cafe car.

Adventure! Seeing my roommate again was absolutely spectacular. We’ve lived together for years and never been apart for so long. Plus, our reunion marked the beginning of the second portion of my travels: road tripping back across the country!

We hung out in Berkeley, CA that night, saying goodbye to her friends from Berkeley, and hit the road around 2pm the next day.

My time in California consisted of about 30 hours and was limited to the following: walking through Berkeley and hitting a couple of bars Thursday night, going to the Golden Gate Bridge and driving through San Francisco Friday morning, getting caught in some horrendous California traffic, and driving through the Mojave Desert in the middle of the night.

  

  

Most of this was only mildly enjoyable, so I won’t make many remarks about California since, frankly, I’ve had better. Compared to the fun of Chicago and the beautiful landscape surrounding Denver, the San Francisco left a little to be desired. I was ready to get on the road and explore new states.