And I'm Off

I'm packed. My car is fueled up as am I with coffee. I'm ready to join the other million people on the road today. Grrrr, I have my game face on. Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving! :)

My plan is, since I have never driven on any of the roads or through any of the cities I am about to, I am just going to enjoy the trip, traffic, rain and all. I get to drive through Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri. Wow! Us Texans are not used to being able to cross that many states in under 24 hours. This should be an experience.

According to the Weather Channel I will only be driving on one of 10 Most Congested Roads and that is right here in DC and I drive on it many times a week. This will be breeze! :)

Pray for my safety and give me a call. I am sure I can only handle so many hours of audio books at once.

Farewell lovely Virginia. I will miss you!

Where is Harry when you need him?

I could use Harry Potter this morning. I really need someone to magic all my things into suitcases and into my car with the swish of a wrist. I don't wanna pack!!!!!!!!!!!


I purposefully did not pack this weekend, leaving it all until today but now I'm not feeling it. I will get over that soon because I am leaving tomorrow morning whether I am packed or not and I would rather be packed. I just needed to whine a little to the blogging world. I usually do not mind packing for a trip but packing all my things is a totally different story.

I also don't wanna pack because I am sad to leave. I have had a wonderful weekend with my wonderful friends here and it was hard to say goodbye. I enjoyed my favorite place in the city, ate yummy food, laughed, worshiped in Spanish and in English, ate more yummy food, and I feel so blessed and supported. Thanks to all of you for making my time in DC amazing. It is amazing how attached I can become to a place and to people in just three short months. I think my mission here is accomplished. :)

Adios DC

What I do have to look forward to now is seeing my family. I have not seen any of them since August and I am excited to visit St. Louis where my brother and s-law live. We are going to have a wonderful time relaxing and eating. That's what T-day is all about right?

Hello St. L

So what do I need to do in order to see them soon? Pack.

Ugh. Here I go....

Best Way to Travel

Road-tripping alone is not exactly my idea of fun, even road-tripping with friends is not my preferred method of travel, I would rather fly, but sometimes its gotta be done. This is one of those times. Tuesday I leave the lovely metropolis of DC and my lovely friends of DC and head back South by way of Ohio and Missouri. Not exactly a direct route but it will work.

The first two days of travel, with the end goal being St. Louis, will be done alone. Two days in the car by myself. Ick. How do I survive? Only by the invention of audio books.

When I started traveling a lot, especially between Texas and Colorado, I discovered audio books. I think the first one I listened to was Little Women. I soon discovered that some of the classics I felt like I should enjoy but could never work up enough of an attention span to read, I could listen to. You see, since I was already bored in the car and had not much else to pay attention to (besides driving of course), it was actually quite entertaining to listen to authors like Jane Austen, Emily Bronte and Jack London. They became wonderful stories that kept me alive while driving for so long alone.

My list of books I have listened to has continued to increase as the miles have increased. I have not only read classics, but mainly. I have listened to My Antonia, Call of the Wild, Emma, Mansfield Park, Wuthering Heights, and Brave New World and I am in the middle of listening to War of the Worlds.

Since I am about to depart again I have returned to my trusty provider of free audio books, Librivox. This website takes books that are in the public domain and uses volunteer readers and provides free audio books that you can download straight to Itunes. It is an amazing deal. If you do not like older books then you might look into buying audio books or visit your local library, as they usually have a decent selection.

This trip I am going to attempt to finish War of the Worlds and also The Scarlet Letter and Uncle Tom's Cabin, none of which I have ever read. Although I am sad to leave DC and am not looking forward to two days in the car, I am quite happy with my listening choices. I will let you know how it goes!

Here is my basic route according to Google Maps. Know any good places to stop?


View Larger Map

Again

I bought my plane ticket to Chile AGAIN today. That is right, again. I bought it a few weeks ago, canceled it, got refunded, did some more research and bought it again. It is a long, complicated and boring story but the end of it is that I now have a plane ticket to Chile. Ahhh! This has been so long coming. I feel so many varied emotions it is amazing I am able to think straight.

I am thankful the ticket is bought, that I have the funds to buy it, that our team received good advice on buying tickets, and that I now have one less thing to worry about getting done. No matter how prepared or unprepared I am, I will be flying to Chile on January 13th. Can you believe it? I almost cannot.

Pray for me. Pray for my team. Pray for everything we need to accomplish between now and January. Pray for us as we say goodbye to those we deeply deeply love. Pray for Chile.

Questions I get a lot

As a soon-to-be missionary, I get asked a lot of questions. To be more specific, I get asked a lot of the same questions over and over again. I really do not mind being asked these things because I am usually just so thankful that people care enough to engage me in conversation about what I am so passionate about. I also understand that my plans and what my teammates are going to do is a little confusing so it is good to clear some things up. Here are some of my regular questions as of late.

When do you leave?
I leave Washington DC right before Thanksgiving to spend the holidays with my family, the month of December in Texas getting ready to go and spending time with my home church and then I hop on a plane in mid January 2011.

Do you speak Spanish?
Eh, kinda. I have studied Spanish off and on for years but I have never become fluent. I can get around but I have so much to learn. My teammates and I will start language school as soon as we get to Chile and study for at least 6 months.

Where are you going to live?
Not sure yet. (Ha! I love telling people that) I will first live in Santiago for language school and the missionaries there are helping us figure out where to live, either in furnished housing or with a family. From there, I will travel to Conce (short for Concepcion) to find a place to live there. No, our whole team will not live in the same house but hopefully we will live close to each other.

What is the weather like in Chile?
Well, you need to be more specific. Chile is a really long country and has varied weather but in Conce it is quite mild. It does not get out of the 80s in the summer and does not get below freezing in the winter. I does rain a lot.

Are you going alone?
Nope, I have six wonderful teammates. Check out their blogs!

What are you doing now?
I have been living in the DC area for the past three months getting to know my supporting church family here. It has been wonderful.

How long are you going for?
At least five years.

Chile...isn't that where there was like a big earthquake or something?
Yes, in February there was a large earthquake but where are there not natural disasters? This is just a new one for me to learn how to live with. I survived the tornadoes of Oklahoma, the blizzards of Colorado and the hurricanes of Texas. Maybe I will be the next Bear Grylls. :)

Any other questions?

Violated

I got hacked!

I feel a little violated.

My old yahoo address sent out some strange link to everyone in my contact list. It was really strange and I see no evidence in my account of anything happening but it must have because I promise I did not send that out myself. I promise!

I have been working to fix the problem. It would make sense to just delete the old account and I would except that I am using that email to play in two yahoo fantasy football leagues and I might not be able to get back in. Wouldn't that be a sad day! After the season is over though that account is gone!

So, I did as much as I could. I deleted all of my contacts and all old emails saved there. I changed my name and my extra email address. I changed my password multiple times, so many times actually that when I tried to sign in this morning I forgot what it was. Maybe if I can't remember it then the hacker won't be able to either. :)

Hopefully the email world is safe from strange emails from this chica for a while. I apologize for anyone that received something strange from me.

Mini-Vacation/Roadtrip/Retreat

Thursday I took a quick trip out to the Virginia countryside and had a wonderful Mini-Vacation/Road-trip/Retreat that I did not even know I needed. Marilyn, one of the women I live with, has a country house out west of DC and she graciously let me visit for a night.

Can you believe someone lives here and sees this every day

I was able to take long walks, spend a lot of time in prayer, eat lots of yummy food, read and just enjoy the quiet. It was seriously amazing how quiet it was out there. No sounds except the crickets and the occasional gun shot from the neighbor. I also was able to see the stars so brightly. I had forgotten that I cannot see them in the city and I really enjoyed gazing at them, despite the cold.

I could walk/run here everyday

Marilyn took good care of me and gave me free reign to do whatever I wanted or needed. She provided yummy meals, gave me a great tour of the little town near by and took me to a delicious dinner at one of her favorite restaurants. We had a lovely time.

Beautiful contrast of green fields and colorful leaves

The drive to and from the country house was spectacular. Seriously, the leaves changing here looks like the trees are on fire. I saw some beautiful aspens change in Colorado but they do not compare to the color variety here. Amazing! There is everything from yellow, to orange, to red, to purple and every shade in between. There are even some trees with all of these colors plus green on them and those just make me so happy. I did not know that was possible.

I love fall and I love Virginia

I don't really consider myself a country girl, I prefer the mountains or the city, but knowing that country can look like this (and not just a dry farm like in Texas)...my eyes have been opened. Thanks for a wonderful time Marilyn!