...Mourning

I sincerely apologize to all of you for my silence of late. The truth is, two very prominent figures in my life have passed away over the past week, and I've been having a little trouble focusing.

Last Thursday night George N. Parks passed away from a sudden heart attack. He was a man of grace, passion, and most of all, pride. I had the great fortune of spending two high school summers learning from him at his Drum Major Academy. It was because of this man that I was able to develop my leadership abilities, and his teachings still ring strongly within me whenever I am faced with an opportunity to lead others. Rest in Peace, GNP. With Pride.

Myself, George N. Parks, and my co-Drum Majors Sean and Ryan at DMA 2007

Last night I received a call from my father. He was regrettably informing me that my grandmother had passed away. You all remember, I'm sure, my recent post about her museum of a house and how I so enjoy being there with her. Due to complications while in the hospital, MeeMaw contracted an infection that spread from her lungs throughout her body, and is now no longer with us. She was a wonderful and loving woman, and I never heard her say a harsh word to anyone. Her love of life and her family will remain with me always, and I hope she finds peace in her eternal life. With love, MeeMaw. Doobie doobie doo!

My father, myself (holding Ranger), MeeMaw, and my brother Ian, in Texas for Christmas 2009

 

...Cow Palace Parties

I had made it all of the way through Tennessee. Through the grasslands and over the foothills I marveled at the golden-green that surrounded me. Tall grass shifted in a rain dance as I stopped for a picnic lunch of biscuits and pineapple jelly that Barb had wrapped up for me before I left McNairy County. She really is the loveliest woman.

She sent me off with a hug and a smile. Alex, smelling like tobacco and hickory smoke, gave me a friendly pat on the shoulder. They walked out to the edge of the driveway to give me the traditional Robinson farm send off as the dogs chased my car down the pavement. It is with love and regret that I put my back to that old farm house. The one with the oak tree in the front yard. But there is so much more to see, and so little time in which to see it. I must press on.

Destination: Gate City Virginia. Of all of the sights that were seen and things that were done this summer, I will always have the fondest memories of those who saw and did along side of me. One of those marvelous fellows was Kevin. A William and Mary student, he is one of the smartest, kindest souls that exists in this world. He has a grizly smile. Lopsided and endearing, he was always in a bright mindset. Over the ten weeks and several adventures we spent together I began to put together the pieces of his home-world.

He lives on a farm. A horse farm, nonetheless. His father sells tractors and his sister competitively trains and rides Quarter Horses. Even if that was the end of it, he was already living in my dream world. But oh, what a life he lives.

Kevin Cox lives in paradise. His house sits atop a throne of green and oversees the goings on of two barns, two riding rings, and several acres of pastureland. The plot next door is also owned by the Coxes. On this small (read: several acre large) chunk of land sits a smokehouse, spring-house, and farmhouse, all built in the days of Daniel Boone. By a friend of Daniel Boone. A close friend. There were carvings in the wall from the turn-of-the-century and beyond, some including stories of hands that were lost in machining accidents. Kevin recalled ghost stories that had been passed down through generations of Coxes. As he touched on the tale of a small girl who has a tendency to make ghastly mirror appearances, a grizzled old man walked through the door and said, "Boo!"

Pa, Kevin's grandfather, had recently turned 90 and celebrates his life by hitting on young women (in the most adorable-yet-creepy way) and flipping over riding lawn mowers. I wish I was exaggerating. Pa is what I imagine my Paw Paw would have ended up had he lasted a bit longer. I realized, however, as Pa laughed at his own joke, where Kevin got that smile of his. This old man was so full of life, so full of the love of life. He is the kind of man that could sit across from you, not saying anything or even acknowledging your presence, and you still learn something. He emanates wisdom. The kind that can only be gained by an open mind and a wide open heart.

With Kevin's girlfriend manning the wheel I was taken on a golf cart tour of the backside of the Cox family land. We visited the river. Well, we almost drove into the river, to be precise. Who knew that the golf cart had no breaks? Catie didn't, apparently. Nor did I, however, so I will point no fingers. After pushing that cart back up the hill we headed for the crown jewel of the property: the Cow Palace.

You see, the Cox Family Farm, much like the Robinson farm, used to be a working Cow farm. Unlike Wayne's little chunk of cow pie, however, the Coxes ran a dairy operation. The Cow Palace was the central hub of business: the milking barn. A shotgun building, The Cow Palace rests above all of the other buildings and appears rather unassuming. One step inside, however, proves that it is anything but.

The main room contains a pool table, a ping-pong table, and a big screen tv. Couches litter the free space, and the walls are covered in maps and posters. Shutters hide the kitchen and bar from view when children are involved in the revelry, and are thrown open when more mature crowds are around and are demanding bloody Marys. All I could think about as I stood in awe was how much my Uncle Bobby would appreciate this hideout.

Each farm I have stopped at on this trip has further fanned the flame in my heart for my own piece of this planet. A place to call home. While yes, I pine for a farm with some horses, at this point in my life I would be satisfied with little more than 300 square feet to call my own. It's hard, you know, to have to move every 9 months. It's hard to finally become used to a location, to fall in love with its creaks and crevaces, and then to have it ripped away right under your nose.

All I ask for is to stay in one place until I feel like moving. Not until someone else decides it's time for me to leave. Is that so much to ask?

Bis dann!
Love, love, lusting-for-home love,
Amy Plunk!

...Train Hopping in Tennessee

Ok so the title of this one is a little misleading, for I've never been train hopping. But my cousin has. My "redneck cousin Alex" as I like to call him.

Alex Reeves. Grandson of my great aunt Barbara and great uncle Wayne Robinson. The three of them live in a Tennessee farm house in Bethel Springs, right outside of Selmer. They share their property with five dogs, a herd of guinea hens, a couple peacocks and peahens, and, once upon a time, some cows.

Unfortunately, my time with the Robinsons was short during this visit, so if you will be patient with me for a while, I will reminisce a little.

From a young age I have been going to "The Farm" once every few years or so for a Plunk Family Reunion. "Liberty" happens every year during mother's day weekend. All of the Plunks and branches of the Plunk tree gather for a potluck fit for twelve kings in the yard of Liberty Church in Selmer, Tennessee. Plunks of all shapes, ages, and sizes, mingle amongst the graves of our ancestors eating barbecue, coleslaw, and corn.

The kids, however, were never satisfied with this boring, old person activity. We don't care about talking and family history. We care about adventure. As soon as there was a break in introductions (and this is your second cousin three-times removed on your grandmother's side...) we would head for the woods. We headed for the spring.

Tucked away in the forest behind the church is an old freshwater spring that Plunks have been visiting for generations past, and will continue to visit for generations to come. We know this because of the trees that surround the little spring. The trees in this forest glade no longer have trunks that are full of bark. Instead they are full of history. Names, dates, hearts, declarations of love, all of these litter the trunks of the big gum trees that lend their shade to us small adventurers. My name is on one of those trees, as is my brother's. It is next to our father's name, which he carved when he was our age. One day, whether or not the Liberty Reunion is still happening, I will take my children to that little white church and I will hand them a pocket knife. Above all things, they will know that they are Plunks.

After our little get-together, the Plunk-Robinson clan (the siblings of my Grandfather, and their families) head back to the Robinson family farm. This has always been my favorite part. When I was younger, the place was a working cattle farm. My uncle Wayne would raise cows and sell them for meat. I will always remember one particular cow, of course. His name was Spark Plug. The little guy had lost his mother during childbirth, and Wayne was raising him by hand. He would hold a bottle full of milk between his legs and Spark Plug would go to town, loving all of the one-on-one attention he was getting from Mr. Farmer. As he got older and was weaned, the little guy still followed Wayne wherever he went, sometimes even sucking on his fingers. That calf was the sweetest little piece of livestock I have ever met. But, of course, Wayne was running an operation, and in the long run, Spark Plug was just another cog in the machine. A yummy, juicy, grass-fed cog.

Uncle Wayne has always been an animal man. Another Robinson critter that will always remain etched on my memory was Precious, the three-legged deer. When Precious was just an infant deerling he liked to spend his days laying around in the tall grass with his loving mother. Now, this is all well and good until it became time to cut the long grass. When it's time to cut the long grass, you must do it with a very large machine. A large, loud machine. A machine that can easily run over a mother deer, killing her instantly, and take the leg of a baby deer that was mercifully off to the side.

Of course, when Wayne realized what had happened, he was mortified. He was able to save Precious, however, and the little three-legged Bambi would roam around Wayne's farms for a few more years until he died of health complications.

The last time I saw Precious was several years ago - almost a decade I believe. That was also the last time I was on Wayne's farm when he still owned cattle. As the years dragged by and Wayne got older it became harder and harder for him to maintain his bovine business. And so he retired. Life goes on.

But just because there are no longer any cow pies to fling does not mean we don't have a good time when my branch of the Plunks gets together with the rest of the family. Every year after the Liberty gathering there is a night of revelry. A night of pit-bbq pork. A night of horseshoes. A night of Oh Hell! (A card game invented by my great aunt Woozie) A night of family stories, from that of PRT to the time that Alex hopped a train to Birmingham (he was 13).

Of course, the moral of the story is to befriend the older generations of your family. They are a goldmine of information and good times. Even now, when Wayne is almost gone "upstairs," his eyes still lit up when he saw me. He gave me a big (although weak) hug, and he said "Welcome home." My eyes glistened a little at the sentiment. It's nice to know that wherever my wanderings may lead, I can always find a place to lay my head and call home.

Here's to you and your home,
Love love, cow pie flinging love,
Plunk!

Progress across this country of ours

A) Boulder, CO
B) Cheyenne Wells, CO
C) Lubbock, TX
D) Austin, TX
E) Baton Rouge, LA
F) New Orleans, LA
G) Vancleave, MS
H) Meridian, MS
I) Bethel Springs, TN
Total mileage so far: 1,977

...Mississippi Goat Farming

"What do you do with your goats?" I asked my great-uncle Ben as we bumped around his pond in a Gator.

"I keep 'em." He responded slowly.

"Well, yes, but I mean, do you keep them for meat, or milk? You should make some goat cheese." I really do love goat cheese.

"I just keep them. Sometimes I sell a few to market when the herd gets big. I just like to have 'em around." With this he looked away into the field, as if indicating that that was that.

My Uncle Ben lives a great life. He and my Aunt Bess live in a house that is nicely tucked away on a hill. They have one dog and... who knows how many cats. All of the animals, however, live outside. Except Butterbean. He's the oldest of the cats and gets special treatment. Baron III, Ben's doberman, lives in the lower garage with Tom Cat. They live comfortably with heat in the winter and AC in the summer. Baron gets about three-thousand treats a day and has the waistline to show it. He also has the personality of a bunny rabbit. That is the sweetest scary-looking dog I think I have ever known.

Of course, even with all of these suburban comforts, Ben's greatest joy comes from his goats. My Aunt Bess is one of three Harris siblings. Bess, Hallie (my grandmother) and their brother Tommy. Many years back the Harris family land was split between the three children; Tommy got their mother's house in Laurel, MS, Hallie received a piece of lakefront land in Mississippi that is now a frequent vacationing spot (more on The Camp later), and Bess got the farm in Newton, MS. Now, Bess is not the type of woman to maintain a farm. She, at the time, was a school teacher, and much preferred a life of reading and being inside. Ben, on the other hand, has turned that farm into his home away from home.

Every afternoon since Ben retired he has driven 45 minutes from Meridian to Newton to see his babies. Every afternoon as he pulls his truck up to the gate close to 100 goats (and 4 donkeys) come running toward the fence. Situated on the farm are three structure: the farm house, the garage, and the barn. The farm house is just that - a rustic building that no one has slept in for well over three years. The only use it has gotten is from Ben storing meat and beer in the refrigerator. The beer, of course, is for the hardworking farmer's own refreshment.

The meat, on the other hand, is for the hardworking farm dog. No, I'm not talking about Baron. He's about as hardworking as a sloth. Sandy is a large Wheaton Terrier, but she'd never fit in at a show. She is dirty, smelly, and distant. Unlike Baron, she would never rub up against you for a pat. Her job is to protect the farm, and she does her job well. As a reward she receives ham, chicken, turkey, and a sausage. It pays to be a working dog.

The four donkeys I mentioned are named Mary, Joseph, Hannah, and Little Bit. All four of them come up to about mid-waist height, and Ben refers to them lovingly as "Jesus Donkeys." What he means, of course, is that they are all Nazarene Donkeys - the kind which Jesus was told to have ridden into Nazareth on. They are there to be loved on and fed, and they pretend that that is their sole purpose in life. However, they hide beneath their loving facades a vicious streak a mile wide. A Nazarene Donkey, if it smells or sees a fox, will not rest until that fox is miles away from the herd, or dead. Foxes like to eat baby goats. Donkeys like to stomp on foxes. Donkeys protect the goats. It's a wonderful cycle.

It was so nice to be out on the farm with Ben. The community there, while small, is one that I could see myself living in if I were willing to live a simpler life. All of the people we encountered at the local feed co-op were bright-eyed and friendly... and muscular. Very, very muscular. The Farm is situated on a land with two ponds - one for swimming and one for catfishing. Above the catfishing pond hovers a deer stand with a rickety, unsafe ladder leading into the branches of the tree. Of course, I had to climb up there. From the top of that tree you can see all of the land my family owns in that area, and it takes your breath away.

I've always wanted to live on a farm, and this farm is everything I ever imagined. Except that it is in the middle of Mississippi. The middle-of-nowhere Mississippi. I don't know if I could quite survive with that little human contact.

But Ben, he has the best of both worlds. He has his home with his wife. The hospital where he used to work is down the road one direction, and his son is down the road in the other. He has about a bajilion cats to pet, and one pushover of a big dog. Then, he has the farm. He has peace and quiet, animal comforts, a fishin' hole and a fridge of beer.

Honestly, Uncle Ben's got it made.

Until we meet again,
Love, love, goat-slobberin' love,
Amy Plunk!

Progress across this country of ours

A) Boulder, CO
B) Cheyenne Wells, CO
C) Lubbock, TX
D) Austin, TX
E) Baton Rouge, LA
F) New Orleans, LA
G) Vancleave, MS
H) Meridian, MS
Total mileage so far: 1,759

...Museum-esque Homes in Mississippi

Good morning and good-bye, New Orleans. It was a pleasant stay. Being awoken to bignets and street musicians is truly magical. My time with you has been short but sweet, and I must part with you as I continue my eastward journey.

Saturday, August 14 saw me leaving New Orleans, LA to end up in Vancleave, MS and stay with my MeeMaw - my father's mother.

The drives both from Baton Rouge to New Orleans and from New Orleans east pass by some of the best landscapes that the country has to offer. When most people think of swamplands I'm sure that they envision muggy cesspools of mosquitoes and alligators. Well, yes, I guess that is completely true. But if you stay a respectable distance from the ankle-consuming muck, say, 100 feet away on the highway, then it is a breathtaking sight to behold.

It might just be me, but I can think of few trees that are more beautiful than Cypress Trees. Their enormous knotted trunks rise and twist around themselves. The bumpy roots that are lovingly called "knees" emerge from the algae covered water. The Spanish Moss that thrives amongst their branches drapes like a green wedding veil meant to mask the scarred wood beneath. For miles and miles both before and after New Orleans you see nothing but Cypress on either side and all you want to do is go take a nap on that soft-looking moss. Or, at least, that is all I want to do. Just watch out for the chiggers!

The Cypress drive, however, was just a means to my end. And that end was in Vancleave, Mississippi. Vancleave is, and has always been, home to my grandmother, Peggy. I don't know if I've ever called her Peggy, however, for she has always been "MeeMaw" to myself, my brother, and even my mother.

For as long as I can remember I have enjoyed visiting MeeMaw's house, for it is like no other house I have ever been in. More than anything it is a museum, a tribute to times past. Even the bathrooms are decorated with vintage tin signs advertising porcelain toilet bowls. Next to the tub is a stepped box containing at least thirty different bars of vibrantly colorful soap. Her kitchen has dishes and bowls of all shapes and sizes, and even has little appetizer plates from Delta Airlines. She has frames containing sheets of turn-of-the-century dollar bills, and costume jewelry from the days when she was a model. There is never a lack of something to explore when you are in MeeMaw's house.

Of course, all of these trinkets pale in comparison to the main attraction in the Plunk House of Wonders - the old Dees'  Post Office. You see, Peggy Plunk was once Peggy Dees. I'm going to have to ask my dad to point out any butchered facts that I give, but let's see if I can get at least some of the history right.

She lived on Old Dees Pl across the street from the Vancleave General Store, which her father owned. The store sold just about anything you needed, and contained the town's post office. The post office was a large hexagonal wooden structure with just about enough room for one person inside. There were numbered slots that acted as P.O. Boxes and a bulletin board wall where wanted posters hung next to lost child and dog flyers.

Unfortunately, sometime before I was born, the general store burned down. Just about everything was lost, and I don't think that they rebuilt it. The only thing remaining to uphold the Dees legacy is that old Post Office. It now resides in my grandmother's living room, just as it was right before the fire. The wanted posters are miraculously still in tact, and some of the P.O. Boxes even have mail in them - although I wonder how many of those letters are from the time, and how many were put there later by my thrifty MeeMaw.

As always, MeeMaw was a gracious host, and I had an excellent time staying with her. We ate marinated crab fingers and crab stew for dinner, drank some of her homemade sweet tea, and we explored her vintage jewelry collection. I came home with a crazy-cool watch made of pennies and a necklace made of animal bone. Win for me, I'd say.

In the morning I gave a big farewell hug to my grandmother (who was toting along a purse my mom once embroidered for her) and set off north to venture into the Mississippi farm lands.

As I write this, you all should know, I am sitting in the Bangor, ME public library. You should all be excited for the post that is coming out of my trip up here. As a teaser... there will be photos!

Until then,
Love, love, super thrifty vintage love,
Amy Plunk!

Progress across this country of ours

A) Boulder, CO
B) Cheyenne Wells, CO
C) Lubbock, TX
D) Austin, TX
E) Baton Rouge, LA
F) New Orleans, LA
G) Vancleave, MS
Total mileage so far: 1,608

...Braving the Humidity of Louisiana

After locking myself out of Sherwood's hotel and having to call him at an ungodly hour to wake him up, Ian and I set out once more. Leaving from Austin, TX we aimed east, and planned to make it to Baton Rouge, LA before dinner.

Throughout my life I have had the fortune of being able to visit with many different branches of my family tree. I have met many generations of relatives on both sides of the family, but have spent more time with one particular branch than with the rest of them combined.

My mother's mother and brother both live in Baton Rouge, LA. Bobby lives with his wife and their kids, my cousins Kelsey and Brandon. Well, to be totally clear, neither Kelsey nor Brandon lives at home any more - Kelsey is a junior at LSU and Brandon now works for a prestigious bank in Florida. Bring in BANK.

Uncle Bobby very generously offered to put Ian and I up for our time in Baton Rouge, which, of course, was regrettably short. Ian was only able to stay one night - he had the time to visit with the family and go out to dinner with our Granny before he had to hop on a plane and make it home in time for an afternoon meeting on Thursday, August 12.

We ate dinner at City Cafe that first night, and it was delicious, as it always is. I had the shrimp and grits and was in heaven. Good southern food can just never be beat. We spent the dinner talking to Granny. Ian described the work he's doing for Volunteer Alexandria. Apparently they are currently organizing a Volunteer Day on Sept. 11 where they are going to travel around Alexandria and offer volunteer help as well as raise funds for the troops over seas. Go little brother! Of course, Granny also asked about my summer research, but I was more than happy to let my little brother do the talking - I've grown weary of explaining my project!

After sending the little Plunk home on an ungodly early flight, I made my way back to spend another day in Baton Rouge. Dinner was had at the sushi restaurant where Kelsey works... and it was delicious! The chef if very good friends with my uncle Bobby, and gave us a sampler set of his favorite Saki. Who knew there were so many different kinds? And the sushi was just delectable! We had salmon and eel and crab and shrimp... mmmmmm just talking about it makes me miss it that much more. Good thing Uncle Bobby was paying, though ;-)

I spent that night at Kelsey's brand new Town House. Good lord what a nice house. She lives there with her roommate Devyn and their kitten... I forget its name, but he was adorable. All white and a little devil. Kel had her friends over that night, and we spent it playing Cranium and watching a meteor shower. I believe that we saw at least 7 meteors while lying on the hoods of the cars off of River Road. It was magical. My legs were tingling with delight. ...orrrr they were tingling from the MILLIONS OF MOSQUITO BITES I received that night. Either or.

The next morning I set out with Kelsey in tow to spend a day and a night in New Orleans, LA. It hasn't been that long since I've been to NOLA; I was there this past January for Kelsey's Debutante Ball. However, this was the first time in a long time that I was able to explore the city during the day. Yes, nighttime New Orleans is an experience that everyone should have, even if just for a few minutes. The streets are teeming with drunken twenty-somethings holding hand grenades in their sweaty fists. Every once in a while you see a tourist family clinging to their children and staying to the middle of the streets so as to avoid the cross dressing hookers and to shield their childrens' eyes from the numerous windows filled with scantily-to-not clad women.

During the day, however, New Orleans is a wonderfully cultured place to be. We made our way through the French Quarter stopping at such shops as Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo, where you can find a charm or a fetish for just about anything. Just don't touch the shrine! We also found a new favorite artist, and browsed his gallery for close to an hour while lamenting at our lack of money. Craig Tracy paints women and then photographs them, using no photoshop or trickery of any kind. The result is a gorgeous, surreal representation of the female (and sometimes male!) body. I'm in love.

We stayed in the lovely Chateau Bourbon courtesy of my Aunt Susan, and spent the night curled up in bed watching The Princess and the Frog and eating cupcakes from Bee Sweet on Magazine Street. The Red Velvet cupcake was absolutely divine!

In the morning we had bignets at Cafe du Monde and spent an hour in awe at the Insectarium. Think aquarium, only for insects! They had swimming beetles, all sorts of stick bugs and leaf bugs, and more butterflies than you knew existed! If you're ever in the area for touristy things as opposed to drunkenly things, I highly recommend you stop by and say hi to the tarantulas for me!

After a sorry goodbye to my cousin, Aunt, Uncle, and Granny, I left Baton Rouge to go spend some quality time in Mississippi. There is never enough time with the people you love, but at least I got to spend some of my summer with them.

Tomorrow: adventures in Mississippi!
Love, love, butterfly filled love,
Plunk!

Progress across this country of ours

A) Boulder, CO
B) Cheyenne Wells, CO
C) Lubbock, TX
D) Austin, TX
E) Baton Rouge, LA
F) New Orleans, LA

Total mileage so far: 1,505

...Surviving Texas

And when I say "surviving," I mean just that.

On Monday, August 9, my brother and I left Colorado. It was a sad goodbye. I did fall in love with the state, if you couldn't tell. My plans are to be back as often as I physically can. January, ski trip? Summer, more research? Sooner than is comfortable, grad school? One can only dream.

But as we left that lovely state, and spent about ten minutes in the panhandle of Oklahoma, we made our way into Texas. Texas. The state that takes three days to drive across. Texas. Surprisingly enough, the scenery did not change much in the three days during which we drove across its expanse. Of course, we stayed mostly to the eastern edges, and did not venture toward the New Mexico or Mexico boarders, but I suspect that those reaches of the Lone Star State would not have very many novel sights to offer.

Texas is full of flat, brown farmland. It is full of goats, both alive and dead. It is full of 75mph two lane roads, and it is full of friends and family. At the time when we were passing through, I knew at least four people in the state; my lovely Aunt Oney and her family live in San Antonio. My friend from high school, Sherwood, was spending the summer working for IBM in Austin. Two friends from the program this summer live in Texas: Sabrina in Dallas(?) and Travis in Austin.

Unfortunately, I would have died of some crazy Texas disease had I stayed at all of their houses for a night or two. So I had to pick my destinations wisely. I've heard rumor of Austin being one of the coolest cities in the country, and I've been to San Antonio before, so I decided to drop by Sherwood's for a night. Unfortunately, Austin is about 14 hours from Cheyenne Wells, and there was no way I was driving that far in one shot.

The problem? I know no one in northern Texas.

The solution? CouchSurfing.com

CouchSurfing is a wonderful project geared towards the low-budget traveler. It allows people to create profiles and explore others with the aim of connecting weary travelers with a free couch to sleep on. At first it sounds shady, yes. But if you go deeper into the infrastructure of CouchSurfing you can find ways to protect yourself. For one, there is a verification system that allows users to confirm that they live where they claim to live. Another method to create a safer environment for Surfers is that you are encouraged to vouch for people you have either stayed with or hosted.

This was how I found my way to Ashley's house in Lubbock, TX... a halfway-ish point between Cheyenne Wells and Austin, TX.

We walked in to be greeted by (luckily not all at once) six dogs, three cats, and two snakes. Oh, and Ashley and her mother. They were beyond wonderful to us - providing us with chicken tacos, chocolate fudge cake, and Comedy Central. All of this they handed over with smiles on their faces. We were allowed to sleep in a good-sized guest bedroom (on a bed! not a couch!), and left in the morning feeling a little better about humans as a whole. There really are good people out there.

Day three of road tripping. Destination, Austin, TX.

I found a goat farm. I found a goat farm with a crazy goat farmer. A goat farmer that, apparently, when one of his goats dies, cuts its head off and hangs it on his barbed wire fence. It proceeds to dry in the sun and look like a turkey breast with ears. It was surprisingly awesome. But still gross. Don't get me wrong... it was definitely gross. Awesome and gross. I expected no less from Texas.

Austin, however, was in no way gross. It was just awesomeawesomeawesome. We did not get to spend much time in the city... for we were tired and ready to just settle down. Or at least, I was tired. Ian, on the other hand, spent the entire day napping in the passenger seat. Thanks, little brother. Thanks a lot.

But the part of Austin we did see was wonderful and covered in trees. Dinner was had with Sherwood at a Tex-Mex restaurant that had wonderful avocado salads and green-chili burritos. And fajitas. So many fajitas. I do love me some o' them.

Sherwood was actually staying at an extended stay hotel for his summer working with IBM (yes, it's small, but maids clean it twice a week!). So we hung out and watched movies on his PS3. Don't be fooled. Just because AntiChrist has Willem Dafoe in it does not mean you want to see it.

Sleep was had, and the next morning we set off towards Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

I will leave you lovelies with that, and will sign off for the day.
Love love, major Texas-is-a-huge-flipping-state love,
Amy Plunk!

Progress across this country of ours

A) Boulder, CO
B) Cheyenne Wells, CO
C) Lubbock, TX
D) Austin, TX

Total mileage so far: 992

...Exploring the Plains

One wonderful thing I learned this summer is that I have family all over the country. Well, let me clarify that and say that I have family all over the country... south of the Mason-Dixon line.

One place I did not previously know that I have family is in Colorado. Not only do I have a cousin who lives in Cheyenne Wells, Colorado, but I have another Cousin who lives right smack-dab in the middle of Boulder. Needless to say I spent some quality time with Adam and his family. I did take a picture with his little girls before I left the city, so you all will get to see at least one piece of graphical proof.

Below are myself and my brother, Ian, with Erin (on his shoulders) and Anna (on my shoulders). Aren't they just adorable? And they are so smart!

After leaving Boulder on that Sunday afternoon, we made our way down into Cheyenne Wells, Colorado. Our family there includes my cousin, Truett, and his mother, Shanda, and Step-Father, Danny. I wasn't sure what to expect out of Cheyenne Wells, all that I had heard was that it was a bump-in-the-road in southern Colorado (claimed my mother). Well, that was about right.

Cheyenne Wells has a high school (Truett says there are about 15 kids per class) a hotel (The Trail In Motel, owned by Shanda and Danny) and several bars. That's about it. The town is surrounded by farm land, so the motel gets a surprising amount of traffic... as it usually puts up the summer laborers.

We were extremely glad to see Truett and Shanda, as it has been about ten years since either Ian or I had seen them. Danny, we had never met before, and he turned out to be a lovely addition to the family. He's a cowboy through and through, and you can tell that Truett looks up to him and he's a good dad to the kid.

Truett... that boy is HUGE. He's a football player now - he spent much of the summer at an LSU high school football camp, and apparently got noticed by one of the coaches. Here's to hoping that when he's applying to colleges he gets recruited, or at least red-shirted for the team!

Their hospitality was wonderful... not only did they put us up in one of their hotel rooms (it was so quaint and cute!) But they fed us dinner and breakfast and tolerated us riling up their little Yorkshire dog. She attacks pillows (as trained by Truett, of course) and protects Shanda as if she were the dog's own pup.

Overall, as small as Cheyenne Wells is, it was a pleasant visit. If you're ever driving through that area of the country, I'm going to point you towards Cheyenne Wells. Just go to the Trail In Motel and tell them Amy Plunk sent you. I'm sure you'll at least get a discount :-)

Tomorrow, we shall discuss... Texas!
Until then, I love you all!
Plunk!

Progress across this country of ours.

A) Boulder, CO
B) Cheyenne Wells, CO

Total mileage so far: 195

...Road Tripping

As some of you know or may have guessed... I've been a little internet-free for the past three weeks or so. Thus I have a lot of updating to do.

Before you all get super excited about the pictures I am going to post, I'm just going to let you down easy. There. are. no. pictures.

What?! How can there be no pictures. You, Miss Plunk, are a picture taking machine. Yes, yes I know I am. However. I made a pact with myself this trip to not take a single photo. Why? Why did I do this? Because this was my trip. It wasn't any of yours. If I had spent the trip with a camera in my hand then, knowing me, I wouldn't have been thinking "oh how wonderful this view is," I would have instead thought "oh, how can I get a good picture of this view to show others."

I did not want to be compromising my limited time with the sights I would be experiencing, and thus, I did not view them from behind a lens, but with my own two eyes.

However, now that the trip is complete, there is nothing wrong with going back over the wonders in my mind. I have yet to decide if this will take up one post or several, so bear with me as I memory-dump on you.

Let us begin slightly before the road-trip started... with my brother's arrival to Boulder on Wednesday, August 4th.

Do you know my brother? He's a good kid. Chances are, if you know a 17 year old boy, you've essentially met Ian. He is tall, he is handsome, and he is smart. For the most part. The kid can do some stupid things, but don't hold that against him, will you? We all do stupid things.

After circling Denver Airport for an hour (what airport doesn't have a cell phone waiting lot?!) I was finally able to embarrass my little bro in front of hundreds of strangers by giving him a big hug and a kiss... in public. I am obviously a terrible sister. But I made it up to the little one by taking him to the best pizza joint in Boulder, Beau Jo's. I'll make another post on that later... but just know that we had the Luau Pizza... garlic sauce, pineapple, spicy chicken, and lots and lots of cheese. Myyyyy favorite.

The next three days were a whir of me working on my final paper and presentation, him sleeping until approximately two, and us going out to all of the best restaurants in the city.

Ian was forced to spend all day Thursday learning. I asked him to come see my final presentation, which is all well and good, but to do so he had to sit through 15 other presentations of student research projects from the summer. I don't know about him, but I found most of the projects very interesting. The topics ranged from large scale (astronomical) spectroscopy to atomic clock research to computational physics.

Of course, I did my presentation on the Liquid Crystal research which I had been working on all summer, and according to my peer reviews, I did quite well. I am, however, glad to be done. While the research was interesting from the outside looking in, I just couldn't get into it. Next summer I hope to return to CU Boulder, and if all goes well will be working in an optics lab or a nano-tubes lab or something of the sort.

But to return to the subject at hand: my time in Boulder with my brother. He got along swimmingly with my friends... but who wouldn't love the little charmer? So we spent nights getting food at Shirpa's (it's run by Shirpas! From the Himalayas!), and then dessert at Glacier's Ice Cream. We walked around Pearl Street and saw the street performers... and we stayed up way too late on peoples' roofs or in the middle of the soccer field, looking at the stars and asking existential questions. It was a wonderful way to say goodbye to Boulder.

After staying on a friend's couch Saturday night, we set out on the road Sunday morning with our noses pointed south.

This post has already reached epic proportions, so I will conclude it here, and continue to write so that I will give you all a post a day about all of the different places I visited.

Looking forward to talking to you all again,
Amy Plunk!

...Experiencing Colorado

One week left in Colorado... and all I can say is that the end is far too near. For my last weekend in paradise, I am going out to Aspen to climb up Castle and Conundrum Peaks with four of my favorite people in the world. Both mountains are 14ers (at least 14,000 ft. high) and look like a lot of fun. While I won't be carrying my camera (it's a bit large for a lightweight hike) I will certainly be mooching off of my friend's much smaller point-and-shoot. For now, however, feast your eyes on the view I will be seeing tomorrow morning, and be jealous.

Get excited for hearing all about it later on this weekend...

Love, love, super apprehensive but excited love,
Plunk!

...Making the Most of Limited Time

When you only have two weekends left in Boulder, there is nothing better to do than to fill them to the brim with exciting things to do. When I realized this last Friday, I knew that I could not allow myself to be needlessly idle for any part of what was shaping up to be a gorgeous, cool, sunshine-y weekend. And therefore I did not.

Saturday morning I started things off with a bright and early ride out to Rabbit Mountain on Lacey. Can you say "best-trail-ride-of-my-life-omgoodness-amazing?" Because that's about how I felt. The first several miles of the ride were flat and filled with grashoppers. I'm serious. If you've never gallopped through a field and had millions upon millions of grashoppers flying in every direction around you, you really haven't lived. We didn't actually make it up the mountain... due to time restraints and a sore hiney. As much as I absolutely adore riding bareback... it really leaves a... lasting impression, if you know what I mean. Most of the ride back to the farm was spent sidesaddle to give my bum a break.

But out of this ride came one of the most beautiful views there is...behold, freedom.

Just ignore the barbed wire fence in the foreground. Really, in the next 30 seconds after this photo was taken Lacey reared, took down the fence with her deathly hoofs, and we galloped off into the distance. Or... we just kept walking along the fence.

Anyway. After we got back to the farm, I had about a half-hour to kill while I wated to pick up Lisa from her morning bike ride. So what did I do? I set Lacey loose in a field and I layed down to take a nap. Only to be woken up a few minutes later by a curious pony snuffling in my fanny pack and drooling on my face. That's love for you. Then one of the barn dogs came over to cuddle with me as Lacey kindly ate all of the grass that was tickling my legs. Heaven, I tell you, it was heaven.

After a shower and a quick cleaning of my room (finally) I met up with a friend under very strange circumstances. He lives in Western Mass, very near Mount Holyoke. We've been talking all summer, getting excited for when we can finally hang out in August. Randomly he had to do some work training in New Mexico (oh, the Military), so we were, for once, in the same time zone. Huzzah! But wait! There's more! There's a mountaineering shop in Boulder that he's been dying to visit, so he was going to be in town for a few hours. Obviously it was time to go putz around Pearl Street for a while.

We watched a banjo band for a while... well, to be specific, a banjo/washboard/uke/fiddle/guitar/tambourine band. They were great. And shirtless. Win win for me, I think. There were your typical jugglers and magicians... flaming knives and unstable ladders... you know the drill. We stopped at my favorite little deli (inside Haagen Daas) and grabbed a T.B.A. (turkey/bacon/avacado) sammich. Yes, it is as delicious as it sounds. And then he was gone, almost as quickly as he appeared. It was a fun visit, and I can't wait to go hiking with him back on the east coast come fall time.

Speaking of hikes, that's what I did for the rest of the weekend. Well, hiking and camping that is. Brian, Aaron, Emily, Lisa, Prateek and I packed up and left civilization mid-afternoon, and spent about two hours offroading to get up to a camp site in the Indian Peaks. It was already getting dark by the time we got up there, so we quickly cut down a few trees (you don't think I'm serious?) hauled them to the site in the back of my pick-up (heck yes!) made a fire, and put up camp. That night was a night of were-pika stories and reeses s'mores. What more could you ask for?

Well, you could ask for a morning of the best hike I've ever been on. It was relatively flat, we only gained about 1200ft of elevation. Of course, this put us up around 11,700ft at our highest point. Yes kids, thats more than two miles above sea level. We hiked along an old abandoned mining road, complete with crumpling bridges.

We eventually made it out to Kings Lake, a glacier-fed looking glass lake in the midst of the most beautiful mountains I've ever seen.

We spent maybe an hour just hanging out at this lake. Emily did yoga on a rock in the center of the water, Lisa and I slept on rocks by the glacier waterfall, Prateek, Brian, and Aaron had their man love time off in the wilderness together. It was surreal.

6 miles of hiking, 1200ft of elevation, half an hour where I could not feel my fingertips. Why was this, you ask? Because I'm really terrible at glissading, and had to use my hands to stop myself from plummetting to my death at the bottom of a glacier. You see, glissading can be thought of as skiing down a glacier. The difference, however, is that you aren't wearing any skis. You are just on your feet, pointed straight down a mountain of ice. This mountain of ice to be specific:

Believe me, it was fun, it was terrifying, and it hurt. But I would not hesitate to try again if I were given the opportunity.

Sadly, we all had work the next day, so we had to leave this wild paradise to head back to our urban one. Exhaustion won over, and after watching Velvet Goldmine for the first time (a movie which I now highly recommend), I collapsed into bed for sleep. Thus ended my magical weekend.

Stay tuned for further information on my research, some pretty bomb videos of printing onto thin films, and further discussions of such things as Bands on the Bricks.

Love love, finger numbing glacial love,
Amy Plunk!

...Living Communally

Before this summer my only real experience in living in a group of people has involved dorm life. Don't get me wrong, I am absolutely in love with my friends and extended family at Mount Holyoke. I love having late night hall hang-outs where we talk for hours about nothing. I love being able to walk into the Abbey-Buck dining hall at two in the morning and finding at least half-a-dozen of my friends there. But this summer, this living experience, has brought it all to a whole new level.

I have found that there is a secret formula to communal living. It involves some combination of a lack of homework, an abundance of kitchens, and access to a large number of ridiculous free activities. This secret formula, if used correctly, can lead to a life of potlucks, camping trips, sporcle, blues shows, and more!

What we will focus on today is the potlucks. I wish I had taken more pictures, but unfortunately (for you) at all of our potluck dinners I have been too busy eating delicious food to snap off some photos. And yes, I did say *all* of our potluck dinners. As in, we have had more than one. As in, we have a potluck every Thursday night.

If you were to walk onto the second floor of my apartment building around 8 on any given Thursday, you would find three or four tv stands stacked next to each other in the hall. They would be surrounded by twelve-ish bar stools and covered in a motley crew of food.

At first we thought that we should put themes on each week. Of course, this was until we realized that it was so much more fun to see what people came up with on their own. I doubt that I can remember all of the food that we have eaten, but the general rundown of a potluck might look something like this:

• Fruit salad
• Chicken curry
• Lentil soup
• Garlic cheese grits
• Stuffed cucumbers
• Upside-down cake
• Pasta salad
• Baked mac n' cheese
• Pie

We've had potlucks that included an array of foods from Mediterranian to Indian to Southern. I've made Kentucky Derby pie, grasshopper pie, garlic cheese grits, sweet potato casserole, and red beans and rice so far.

Every week after the potluck we all sit around in food comas for a while. I wish I could say I was exaggerating, I really do. But I'm serious when I say that for approximately half an hour after the food stops coming, we just sit there. We sit there, we giggle, and we usually come precariously close to falling off of our stools. Well, at least I do. After that... things go one of two directions. Of course, if you throw a bunch of 19-22 year olds together in a small amount of space, there will be gin buckets. Gin buckets and everclear jello shots. Luckily, last night was not a night where we realized the collected potential of all of our college-age stupidity.

Last night, instead of drunken shenanigans, we participated in a Sporcle marathon. Oh? You don't know about sporcle? What a shame. Sporcle.com is a website that has saved me on many a boring work day. It is a website filled with trivia quizzes that cover topics ranging from the "Winningest managers of NFL teams" to "The 200 most mentioned characters in the Harry Potter Book series." Needless to say, I did much better on the latter of those quizzes.

Sporcle is a great way to get a bunch of overly-smart kids into a room, all shouting at the same time at one flustered person who is furiously trying to type as fast as us yellers can think. You'd be amazed at how good we are at forgetting all of the countries in the world that start with the letter 'c'. Of course, when one of us finally emerges from our flood of over-thinking, the line "Canada! Canada is a country" is shouted, and we all fall over in laughter.

After we had exhausted our communal knowledge bases for the night, we went our separate ways for a few hours before bed. Some went on a long walk. Some went to stargaze. Some became incredibly domestic, and spent the night embroidering and watching Lie to Me on Netflix (yeahhhh that would be me and Lisa, how did you know?).

Thus ended my Thursday night and began my Friday morning.

Today was the last day for me to work with Sam, my undergrad lab partner. It was sad to watch him leave. To go on to bigger and better things (Law School at UTexas? Whaaaaa?) And now I have to do all of my work by myself. Should be interesting.

The good news, however, is that I was able to get water printing onto a thin film of our liquid crystal. We have been trying to deposit tiny glass beads onto the thin film using water... and finally we have been able to get them on there. The problem now is just that the film usually breaks after a second or two of having the glass beads on its surface. One must try and try again.

Three posts in approximately three days. Y'all best be giving me a long distance pat on the back... this is a huge new record for me. And now I must leave you, for I should be working and not blogging. But I promise that I love you all, and miss you terribly.

Sending loads of inappropriate love your way,
Plunk!

...African Marimba Music

Have I mentioned that I'm in love with Boulder? Because I don't think that I have emphasized it enough. Really. No sarcasm here.

Only in Boulder can you make your way into downtown on a Wednesday night and find yourself smack dab in the middle of both a farmer's market and a Carribean Marimba Concert. I'm serious, this is legit, dancing-in-the-street type madness. Right. Let's back this up a titty bit, shall we?

After work today I popped over to visit Lacey and go on a relaxing ride. We ran along side of a Coyote for a few minutes, jumped back and forth over a creek, and I layed on her back while she grazed in the shade of a gorgeous willow. Heaven. After I put her out to pasture, I wrestled with two of the farm dogs for a while, and got nice and muddy. Really, kids, it's the best way to be. Don't let your parents tell you anything different. A good tussle with an overgrown huskey was all that I needed to unwind from the ball of stress I had become at work earlier. And now, loose as string of yarn, I was ready to go deal with my mess of an apartment.

The truth is, we have been kind of lax about keeping up the cleanliness of our humble abode lately. It's been really bothering me, but I'm never home long enough to do much about it. Ces't la vie, right? Today was no exception. Almost as soon as I got out of my (very lovely and relaxing) shower, I was on my bike and zipping off to downtown.

There once was a place in downtown Boulder. A magical place of delicious aromas and inspiring sights. This place was, and still is known as the Boulder Dushanbe Tea House. A magnificant facade hides an even more magnificent fountain, and the most wonderful thing a tea house can offer: cheap, delicious, excellent quality tea. Approximately $3.50, give or take a few cents, will get you a pot of any tea on the menu. The 7 Chakra blend is a personal favorite of mine... a spearmint tingle with a cinnamon aftertaste. How wonderful.

Anyway. The point of all of this, is that I ate dinner there. Grant (my adorably awkward Chemical Engineer neighbor) and I grabbed a bite to eat before wandering into the depths of Pearl Street (more on that later). Want to know what I had? Stuffed eggplant. "Stuffed with?" you ask. Stuffed with lentils, ricotta, spinach, tomatoes, and magic. That's what.

After an hour and a half of good food and even better company, we made our way over to the Pearl Street Mall. For those of you who know DC, think King Street, but having no cars present. For those from Western Mass, think Northampton, again, with no cars. This is one of the cultural hubs of Boulder. Any night of the week you can go there and be guaranteed to find at least a half of a dozen street performers ranging from a "bronze" cowboy to a man who knows every zip code in the world to a man juggaling fire on a unicycle.

Wednesday nights are particularly busy on Pearl Street. Band on the Bricks is a summer concert series where local artists are showcased weekly. So far I've seen a local Jazz singer, a Samba band, and this week, a Zimbabwean Marimba Ensemble. So much crazy dancing! A quote from their website, so you can get an idea of this ensemble:

"Kutandara fuses ancient African music traditions with Latin, jazz, gospel, classical, and world folk influences. Our exuberant and hi-energy polyrhythmic performances manage to be innovative and deeply-rooted at the same time."

I've been really trying to concentrate on not being self conscious in public... and all of this dancing in the street is really doing a number for my confidence :-) It helped that I was with Grant, Eric, and Tess. The latter two being two of the world's more beautiful creations. Both in mind and body, these two are just wonderful, and every time I see them, I just can't help but smile.

As cheesy as that sounds, it's true. I am finding some of the world's most wonderful people here in Boulder. There's no wonder this city has so many implants, you just can't help but fall in love with the atmosphere, and the kind of the people that are attracted to it are just the kind of people I would love to spend the rest of my time with.

Sadly, I have none of my own pictures to give visual reference to these words, but I'm going to yank some photos from online, just so that you all will have an idea of how beautiful my life here is.

Good night and dream well to you all! Although I can't imagine leaving this place, I miss you all terribly.
Love love, wonderful soul-dancing love,
Amy Plunk!

...Updating my Blog Regularly

Yes, yes, I know I am a terrible person. My mother keeps reminding me to update this blog, and I keep pushing it back. So here we go. Let's see how well I can catch you all up on the last month without boring you half to death.

Unfortunately, my research has remained slow and not-so-steady, but alas, thus is the nature of research. But we have made some progress. We were able to induce a current flow through our needle, and to view some liquid crystal being deposited onto the tip of the needle. However, the needle became clogged, and is now in Texas for repairs. I've been practicing making thin films for the past few days, and trying to print onto them using an inkjet printhead. The film keeps breaking, but eventually I'll get the voltage right. I hope, at least.

I've been biking a lot. A lot a lot. I climbed my first mountain! There's a town called Jamestown about 17 miles from Boulder, up Lefthand Canyon. It's a gorgeous ride, but a strenuous one. I've tried a few different climbs since them... all of them harder than Jamestown, but each more beautiful than the last. I love being in a city where you can get to Sunshine Canyon in 20 minutes, a looking-glass lake in half an hour, and beautiful mountain top towns after several miles of a long ride.

For the fourth of July weekend I went with my hall-mates, among others, to spend two nights camping outside of Rocky Mountain National Park. I made fire! Legitimate fire! Using flint and magnesium... and a paper plate. It was two days of hot dogs, s'mores, and huddling around the campfire. Magical.

On the first morning we took a long hike up to the peak of the closest mountain. The landscape near the top was eerie... sandy and barren, with ghost-like tree corpses lying around our feet.

The views from up there were gorgeous. We went up to a lower rise to watch the sunset, and see the stars, and I don't think I'd ever seen a more beautiful night sky.

When we weren't hiking, we were playing t-rex football and frisbee, climbing trees, and wrestling each other.

Oh, wait, you've never heard of T-rex football? Think about it this way - T-rexes have tiny arms. Not very useful. If you mix a T-rex with sporting goods, this is what you get. Meet Miguel, the king of T-rex sports.

Once we tired of T-rex football, it became "anything but hands" football. Sam won. Hands down.

And as I leave work for the day, I will leave you with two beautiful shots of the view from the top of our hike on that morning. This week will be a week of ponies, biking, and delicious food. Hopefully I can motivate myself to update more often. Hopefully.

Love you all bunches!
Amy!

...Research

Well here it is, the moment of truth! Now is the time that I tell all about the lab in which I am working for the summer. As some or all of you may know, I was accepted to work as an REU student in the Liquid Crystals Materials Research Center (LCMRC). Sounds fancy, eh? I thought so too.

And I thought my research project sounded, at least, tolerable. In my acceptance email I was given this project description:

"The focus of the project is on observing the dynamics of small islands floating on freely suspended smectic liquid crystal bubbles. In this NASA funded project we use video microscopy to analyze the brownian motion of the islands to extract diffusion constants, and lase trapping under LabView  control to measure the interactions between pairs of islands. This project involves obtaining video data, developing LabView code, and analyzing the results using IDL and Python routines."

Alright, alright, I could get into that. I was a little disappointed that I would be using LabVIEW, a programming language that, while powerful, is very tedious to use. Of course, I didn't want to have a tedious summer, so I emailed my professor, Joe MacLennan, and was assured that there would be plenty of hands on experimentation throughout the summer. Have no fear, LabVIEW will be the least of your worries. Well, at least he was right about that.

 As an aside, I would like to point you all toward this epic picture of my professor. Yes, he still has that moustache, yes, he is as awesome as he looks, YES, he has an accent. Basically, he's bomb.

Unfortunately, however, he is currently on vacation for three weeks. So I do not have the pleasure of getting to know him for at least a little while. In the meantime, I'm getting to know my labmates.

My grad student, well, his name is Zoom. Z-O-O-M Zoom. AWESOME. Well, his name is actually Duong, but somewhere along the line he picked up this far more kickass name. He's pretty chill, and very smart. Win.

Other than Zoom, there are several other undergrads working in my lab. There's Markus, he has a mohawk. He also gave me a free copy of Plants vs. Zombies. I like him. Then there's Aaron, he's very tiny, and very smart. It took a while to get him talking, but now I think we're friends... at least I hope so, he's a good kid. Sam is the student I work most closely with, but he's leaving in a few weeks. Sad. He actually just graduated with his Bachelor's degree in Physics, and is in the midst of applying to law school. Whatever floats your boat, kid. There are two other girls in my lab; Tatyana and Cheney. Both are very nice, and less socially awkward than I was expecting.

Speaking of socially awkward, I seemed to have skipped an entire event in my time here! My first meeting with the other students in my REU. Approximately 12 physics students in one room.  4 girls, the rest guys. Only 12 students, and two, I repeat, TWO of them are named Vladimir. Only in physics. I connected pretty quickly with Eric, or, Beautiful Eric as we like to call him, and with Travis, the kid from UTexas (saw 'em off!). Also, there's Kevin, he goes to W&M and knows like, 8 of my friends. Crazy. I also made friends with Sabrina, who is awesome and rock climbs, and comes over to our apartment a few times a week. The rest... generally socially awkward. I was having lunch with Travis today (after Travis, Eric and I went to the Dream Theater/Iron Maiden concert last night!) and he was complaining that the physics kids at his school are always getting together to hang out and drink a few beers. Doesn't happen with this crowd. But in general, they are all very enjoyable people.

Back to my lab. I'm sure you all are *dying* to hear about my research... or so they call it. 

I was introduced to my project as being the "creation of a new technique to accurately deposit liquid crystal droplets on thin films." Basically, all of the research that is being done in our lab is being done on hope. "We hope that two islands will form next to each other and then coalesce," or, "we hope that a droplet will pop within two seconds of formation," or, "we hope that two droplets will form that are of comparable size."

Too much hope. So my job is to create a new technique to place drops of a determinate size accurately on a thin film.

I spent the first week figuring out how to tell a function generator to output a specific burst of voltage on command.

Once that was working (it took about two hours) my next task was to design a program using LabVIEW to control the function generator using the computer. This took a little more time. In two days, however, I had come up with this little beauty: 

It might not look like much, but that little program produces this:

And using that "front panel," as we call it in LabVIEW language, I can control the amplitude, frequency, and shape of the wave, as well as how many bursts to output, how many times to trigger, and how long to wait between triggers. Basically, I can tell the function generator to output just about any wave I want. Cool.

That program was finished last Tuesday, and my time between then and now has been spent in wait. Sam, one of the other undergraduate students, has been working on the hardware. Because this post has already gotten too long, and because I need to upload some pictures, I will leave this post at just the software. Expect to see another regarding the hardware soon!

Love to you all,
Plunk! 

...Living on My Own

Well hello again! Two posts in two days, I think this is a new record for me! Tonight will be a brief one, however, for I just returned to MY APARTMENT after watching a late-night movie, and I have to be working in the machine shop at 0800 tomorrow morning.

As you may or may not have noticed, I am SUPER PUMPED about living on my own for the first time in my life. No, mother, I don't love you any less, I'm just ready to be out in the real world. Yes, yes, I realize that living in a University apartment isn't exactly the real world, but cut me a break, will you? Baby steps.

Room 2215, Bear Creek Apartments. That's where all of you stalkers can find me. You can walk in my front door and maybe see me in the kitchen, munching on the abundance of meatloaf I now have after not realizing how ridiculously huge of a loaf my family recipe makes. Or maybe you will see me sitting on the couch, or one of the two chairs, oiling my bike chain. Perhaps you will see one of my two lovely roommates, Lisa and Emily, engrossed in their favorite TV shows online. Or, who knows? Maybe I'll be in my room. Although I doubt it. It's so much more lovely to be in the common space, enjoying the company of my new found friends.

The first morning that I was here, Lisa and I attempted a run around campus. They warned me about the altitude, but did I listen? We got maybe 3/4 of a mile before neither of us could take in a substantial breath. Walking it is. No matter, however, for there is more to see when one walks. The campus here is gorgeous. With tiled rooftops and red-stone exteriors, it's no classic Mount Holyoke, but it holds an appeal that is all its own. After a brief shopping trip to Target with the girls, we met up with some of our hall mates for dinner.

There's Brian, or Tall Kid as we endearingly call him, and his roommates Rob, who dates an actress, and Greg, the kid who's always smiling. The other room houses Miguel, the fiery Columbian, Tyler, the decision maker, and Daniel... tornado shooter extraordinaire.

I spend most of my time outside of lab with these kids... and I love 'em all. Whether they're tolerating me as I squeal while watching Glee, or accompanying us girls out to Pearl Street for dinner, they're a rag-tag bunch of really fun guys.

But it's not just my hall mates that have made this living arrangement so pleasant, it's the food! When you have an entire kitchen at your fingertips, and a lovely little Market Store a block away, you find the time to make some lovely dishes. I have so far dabbled in stir fry, quinoa, acorn squash, and meatloaf. I'm still a little rough on the portioning of said meals, and as exampled by the meatloaf, usually end up eating the same food for several days. But how lovely to be able to get back from work, go on a quick 8-10 mile bike ride, and leisurely cook dinner while watching Merlin online? Hopefully I will be putting up some recipes over the summer for you, my dears, to try yourself.

Like I said, I had to keep this brief, and hopefully I will get some pictures up tomorrow. But alas, I must turn in for the night.

Watch out tomorrow for a synopsis of my first few days working for the Physics Department of CU.
Love to you all,
Amy!

...Road Trips

This has been a week of heaven. A week of sunshine in the morning and thunderstorms at night. A week of quads aching in the best way possible. A week of mountains and lakes and new friends to share them with.

So let's start it off where it all began, the beginning. I'll try to catch up over the next few days.

My mother and I drove 2/3s of the way across the country, and it was an adventure, to say the least. We started off in the middle of DC at rush hour, and it took us more than an hour to get out of the metro area. Thank you traffic. But once we made it into Maryland and then Pennsylvania, the drive was quite pleasant. The Allegheneys are so beautiful... and I didn't even realize how they paled in comparison with the Rockies. We passed some lovely orchards... cherry I think? I thought the trees were magnificent.

See? Very pretty. Well, at this point we were still following the paper directions, and they took us an interesting little route off of the highway.

Not to say it wasn't absolutely beautiful out there - I love me some small mountain towns for sure. But when it started getting dark, and we started finding ourselves on dirt roads, we knew it was time to pull out the cellphone/gps from the FUTURE. Too bad I couldn't get a signal.

No big deal, right? We have a compass, so I followed my mother's brilliant and obvious advice, and pointed my nose northwest. Off we went. After several miles and even more U-turns, we found ourselves smack dab in the middle of Meyersville, Pennsylvania. I think that the best description of Meyersville came from one of the old folk we encountered at the "Pit Stop," a road side icecream trailer. The man said, smiling, "You can't get lost in Meyersville, there's nowhere to go!"

But again, we pointed our noses toward the already-set sun, and found our way to I-70. Three hours and one speeding ticket later, my lovely mother and I set our weary eyes to rest in Sandusky, Ohio. The same Sandusky that we visited almost two years previously, but for the much more family-oriented reason of visiting Cedar Point.

Thursday morning was upon us, and we set out towards Muscatine, Iowa, where we were staying in a friend's house for the night. Unfortunately, our plan to get there by 7pm was thwarted by an unfortunate break down of my precious Pecos Bill at a Cracker Barrel in Indiana.

You see, I was enjoying a nice, familiar lunch at the Cracker Barrel, rocking chairs and checkers included. I had my usual... the Pork Chops with fried okra and green beans on the side. Grabbed a few clove candy sticks and was ready to go. Too bad my car didn't even try to turn over when I turned that key.

The lovely managers at this Cracker Barrel tried their hardest to get us on the road; we tried jumping my car from two different engines, from a battery pack, and even resetting the fuel pump. Nothing. So we called AAA and got a tow out to a local shop, in Gary, Indiana (birthplace of Michael Jackson?!)

See how nice they are in Indiana? I got a tow with a view! But for serious, people. The folks in IN were indeed some of the nicest I've ever met, but the actual place? TERRIFYING. I don't even have any pictures of Gary, IN because I was afraid to take my camera out of the shop. The only places within walking distance were a terrible Chinese take-out, a Dominoes, and a gas station. This is on a four-lane road, sided by condemned furniture galleries and sex shops. Never again will I spend 8 hours there.

But we eventually got out, and drove our last four hours to Iowa. The Ahmanns, my good friend's family, were so lovely to us. And their dogs are just adorable! It was nice to wake up to a real breakfast of cinnamon buns and tea. But sadly we had to be on the road before we could hang out more.

Friday came and was thankfully uneventful. We spent lunch in an "Amish" homestead in Iowa, but it was really just a big tourist trap. A pretty tourist trap, nonetheless:

There were pretty flowers outside of the deli in which we ate lunch, and all of the buildings looked authentic, even if they only held trinkets and cheap souvenirs. But we got some good chocolate, and had fun in the quilting store, imagining what life would be like if we had enough time to do all of these wonderful crafts. And then it was off again, to explore the rest of the Midwest.

The rest of the day was what you would have expected from Iowa and Nebraska: corn fields out the wazoo. Corn fields and windmills. I actually thought that they were very pretty, but they got to be almost hypnotic to drive through. Mom and I had to switch spots more frequently than normal, and I even pulled into a shady spot at a hotel to take one of my famed 8-minute naps. Then it was off into the wild, golden-yellow yonder.

That night, I really pushed myself. I wanted to make it to the Colorado border before sleep, and by George I did it. We pulled in to a Super 8 Motel just over the border between Colorado and Nebraska some time around 3 in the morning. The place smelled, and the beds were horrible, but they were beds.

So Friday morning was a leisurely drive to Denver, where we met with long lost relatives cousin Shanda and her Sophomore son, Truett. After watching the end of Truett's football camp, we ate at Chipotle (how classy!) and Truett marvelled over my snake-in-a-tupperware, and I fantasized about their horse ranch in southern Colorado. I will go there soon and there will be pictures!

After quick hugs and speedy-getaways, we made the 45-minute hop over to Boulder. I found myself moving into a beautiful apartment with an excellent kitchen, fully furnished living room, and a cozy bedroom, and have been here ever since!

Look for another post tomorrow about my first few days in Boulder, the days before my research began!

Ciao, lovelies!
Amy!

...Reality

Welcome, welcome, all who are visiting my little piece of the blogosphere. My own little reality for you to explore.

"Why now?" You ask. "What in the world do you have to contribute to the vast pool of information on the internet?" The second question will have to be answered with time. But the first, the why, requires a simple explanation. This summer I am doing an incredible number of things I have never done before. I will be living in an apartment away from home (in Colorado!). I will be working in a graduate research lab (in Colorado!). And oh yeah, I will be IN COLORADO (can you tell that I am excited to be getting out of the 703?).

During this time, I will be trying to experience all sorts of new things, and will be attempting to use this blog as a platform for discussion of my experiences. I plan on reading new genres, hiking new mountains, training for a (baby) triathalon, and daily exploring the interwebs for all sorts of crazy information.

And so, again, welcome! Please leave your comments and instigate discussions (not arguments!) so that I and others might expand our knowledge of reality into yours!