sunday, july 29th-richmond to seattle

up and out of the house early and on to the plane easily. it was a small 3 seater jet, and it was cold. i am NEVER cold. switched planes in o'hare to alaska airlines which was very nice...headrests, blankets/pillow. i flew, however, with a massive headache, and spent most of the plane rides suffering.

seatac airport was confusing and we had to take a train to the baggage. picked up the car (toyota corolla, the only one they had) in the lot. i had made reservations in the union station parking lot for the baseball game, and it was pretty much a breeze getting to safeco field. we had time to walk over to the infamous ujimaya asian market-pretty overwhelming! there were so many things to look at and they had hot chestnuts for sale outside the store. i had never seen hot chestnuts! inside they had a food court along with the regular market. austin had sushi and ginger, i had udon noodle soup that they cooked on the spot. pam was up for trying new stuff and ate pickled seaweed, eggrolls and ginger with austin. other things of notice in the market were the manpuc buns, ducks and various meats hanging up. we didn't have a lot of time to do much there, and when we go back to seattle, i will definitely take a more leisurely visit there.

the market was literally across the street and down the block from safeco, so we joined the crowds and headed to the game. we walked around the entire length of the stadium to will call to get our tickets. we had great seats and it was a great field! it was 70's retro day, with people dressed up and lots of skits and things between innings and at the 7th inning stretch. each of the players had been assigned a song to represent him, and they had taken their pictures and "disco'd" them up and projected them on the huge stadium teleprompter thing at center field. seeing ichiro susuki was great. he got his 1500th hit which was great! he also had a bloop over the pitcher and stole second and third base! seattle finally beat the athletics in the 9th. reitsma almost gave the game away. we also got to see mike piazza DH for the athletics. JJ closed.

leaving after the game should have been easy, and would have...if there had not been a game. unfortunately, my carefully planned avenue of escape was blocked due to traffic, both foot and car, from the game. as a result, we got all turned around and finally just winged it up 4th avenue. i had been studying the seattle map for awhile and had some clues about where to go. however, i wasn't paying a whole lot of attention and was apparently not driving in the right lane. a fire engine was coming up opposite of us and he finally said on his loud speaker "move to the right!"
which amused austin and pam to no end!

from there we had no problems getting to ballard, which is a quaint, older section of seattle near the docks. shelley and bart were great! i had some apprehension about meeting them and staying with them for 3 days. after all, i had never physically met them over 10 years! their house is an older house from back in the day, but they have just done a massive renovation to it, adding a full basement and deck, which bart is working on. they have beautiful flowers everywhere, and great landscaping! this is true for all over ballard, not just their yard! their house has all sorts of neat things, and all modern conveniences for appliances. their bathroom has a sunken tub, cd player and television, and the toilet has a bidet with water shooting up and it is heated!

shelley got out the massage table and did reiki on me. the headache pretty much took me out and took a lot of joy off of the day for me. i feel asleep, and then got back up for dinner, which she had made up of all of our favorite foods! she had made chicago hot dogs, bangers (sausages that are scottish), three bean salad, lemonade tea from trader joe's, artichoke dip on bread! after dinner we went out to a place called sunset hill to see...you guessed it...the sunset. it was quite pretty and we took pictures of the sun coming down over the mountains across the water. we then went to the locks and watched the sunday boats come in. they had a salmon fish ladder there and an funny silver octopus sculpture which we took pictures of. the salmon were HUGE! there was also a beautiful garden there leading to the locks and everything seemed to in bloom and GREEN! real grass, not weeds! :) we parked right near the lockspot, which is the bar where they filmed AFTER THE CATCH, which was the post THE DEADLIEST CATCH roundup of all the captains and some of the crew. (the deadliest catch and after the catch are on the discovery channel and it is a reality show about crab fishermen in alaska, although some of them are based out of seattle.)we didn't go in, but i did have my picture taken in front of it.

austin slept on the pull out couch downstairs and pam and i were in the guest bedroom on a murphy bed that pulls down out of the wall! there is no need for air conditioning here as the temp is a cool 7o degrees and NO HUMIDITY! (there has been nice sunshine here, which i didn't expect as you always here of seattle being rainy and gloomy! ) they have little fans in the windows the provide something of a breeze. the computer is in this room, and austin has already gotten hooked up courtesy of bart, who is a big gamer. austin was a happy camper! bart gave austin his copy of AGE OF EMPIRES III which austin had not played yet. we also were introduced to sluggo the cat, who is a maine coon. he has a round thing with a ball inside the middle that he can bat around and that was pretty amusing.

Planning and Prepping for the great adventure!

In November 2006 I won a R. E. B. Teaching Excellence Award and was given $8,000 to pursue an educational dream. I chose to go “off road” and see America as John Steinbeck did in his non-fiction book TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY. In the summer of 2007 I did Part I of this adventure, driving 4,372 miles… in 10 days…with my best friend Pam and my son, Austin from Seattle, WA to Chicago, IL. I am splitting the traveling over two summers and this coming summer we will be traveling from Seattle to Albuquerque, NM over a three week period.

Planning for a trip of this size takes a lot of time, and the first lesson I learned was DON’T WAIT UNTIL TWO WEEKS BEFORE TO GET TO THE LITTLE DETAILS! I had the airline tickets and rental car taken care of in January, but I didn’t get around to really doing the day to day stuff until about 10 days before we left. Mistake! Not because I had difficulty booking things; my mistake was that when I finally had it all done, I was exhausted! Not the way you want to start a big vacation! Sooo...first thing….Plan over time!

Planning the Trip

1) Research on the Internet and get books and find out what interesting things there are to see in each place. In my case, I wanted to see funky, wacky, off-the-wall eccentric things, and I did! There is a book, ECCENTRIC AMERICA by Jan Friedman which is a beginner's bible. I also cut out articles from magazines or newspapers when I ran across them (we had an article on Missoula from our local paper). But the best place and the most fun place is on the Internet at roadsideamerica.com. People write about off the wall, crazy stuff, like Chatty Belle, the World's Largest Talking Cow in Neillsville, Wisconsin.. Finding these off the road places and having your picture taken there is just fun and silly! I also made great use of Readers Digests’ THE MOST SCENIC DRIVES IN AMERICA (120 road trips). We Xeroxed off several of them and were not disappointed.
Books can be expensive, so check them out from the library if you can and Xeroxed pages that you might use. When I couldn’t find certain books, I ordered used copies from Amazon.com. This kept down on the expense of the books.
The Fodor’s and Frommer’s guidebooks to specific locations (especially large cities) are a good purchase if you want suggestions for food, lodging, entertainment, transportation and general knowledge about the city. Be sure to get the most up to date versions. Both usually have a detachable street map in them.

2) Write to the state tourism departments and local chambers of commerce for maps and travel information. In a lot of states, we really didn't know much, and the guides helped us decide where to go and what to do. I also asked for state maps from the actual states, and they were much more detailed than the Rand McNally Road.
3) Research eating possibilities. When in Rome, do as the Romans do! Find out what specialty foods are native to the areas you are going to be traveling in and eat local! we tried to eat local specialties or things we hadn't eaten before and likely wouldn't get a chance to eat again (pasties in Michigan, bison burgers in Montana, etc.) I went to a great Internet spot, roadfood.com, for tips about interesting eating spots across America. There is also a book by Jane and Michael Stern, EAT YOUR WAY ACROSS THE U.S.A. that gives some good restaurant suggestions. Doing this research has allowed me to eat in some great places with great food that I wouldn't have ordinarily known about! When it came time to eat, we had choices.
4) Car Picnic! Buy a cheap syrofoam cooler and packing stuff in it and eat roadside. It saves money and can be a nice switch from dining in a restaurant for every meal. We found ourselves only eating two meals a day, generally in the mid-afternoon and later at night. We bought some interesting snack stuff at Trader Joe's in Seattle and literally ate it across America!
4) Join AAA. I got a lot of really useful maps from them, and I also got discounts on some hotels and other things. It was nice to know that if the rental car broke down, I would be able to call someone to help us out. Besides, you can use it all year long.
5) Pay for everything you can up front and save yourself a lot of time! This makes it really, really easy to check out from a hotel if you do this, and you don't have to pull out the credit card. I never had any hold up, and a lot of times just turned in the door card keys and left.
6) Anything that involves a ticket, buy ahead of time. In all of the cases where I bought the tickets ahead of time, we just showed up with the receipt/online ticket and flashed it and got on. It was really less stressful knowing we didn't have to wait in line, didn't have to risk not going when we needed to go time wise, and I didn't have to dig for the credit card. Things to book ahead of time? I bought my ferry tickets (Port Angeles, WA/Victoria B.C., Mackinaw Island, MI, and Edmonton/Kingston WA), my parking space (in Seattle at Safeco Field) as well as my baseball tickets, and my tours (Chicago Architectural River Tour and Butchart Gardens in Victoria).
6) Going to National Parks? Buy a National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Annual Pass! The price is $80 a year and if you go into a couple of parks in a year, you will have paid for the pass! It admits 4 people to a national park, not including children 15 and under. Having the pass saved time, as we went to a special kiosk when entering the parks and didn't have to wait in the lines to get in.

Flying the Friendly Skies

What I learned about booking airline flights is that the sooner, the better, and you better look around. I went through the various discount Internet sites until I found the one that could book me cheapest and at the times I wanted to fly.
1) Times and flight offerings can differ a great deal from site to site, so be careful.
2) Booking via the Internet isn’t always the best choice. I decided at the last minute to keep my son with me on the trip, so I obviously had to book him home with us. I couldn’t do it on any of the Internet sites. However, when I called the airline directly, I got a seat. Granted, I paid more for it, but I would have done that anyway as we were booking a flight under two weeks in advance.
3) Print off your boarding passes/tickets and MAKE COPIES OF THEM. There are no lines to stand in and you don’t have to get a seat assignment.
4) Check in to the flight via the Internet before you fly. Some of the airlines allow you to do so 24 hours in advance of the flight, and this again expedites the boarding process.
5) USAIR boards by ZONES. Most airlines board by rows, but USAIR has invented a ZONE system. Your zone number (1-5) will be printed on the bottom of your ticket. However, if you don’t know this, you may spend a lot of time waiting for your row to be called (because it won’t be if you are in rows six and beyond). There is no explanation about this, so you are left to guess at it on your own.

Hotels/Motels

1) Using the “on-line travel agencies” like Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Travelocity.com , Orbitz.com and Priceline can be a boon or a bust. Unquestionably, using these sources saved me both time and money. However, you have to know where to go and where the hidden pitfalls are.
Priceline is the place to go if you don’t care exactly where you stay and just care about the price. Once your offer is accepted and you have paid for your room, only then you will find out where you are staying. If you do not care about location, this is fine. However, once it is done, you are stuck with it. Some sites, such as Travelocity and Orbitz, charge you a “processing service fee” which is cleverly folded into to the taxes and other fees. Generally that fee is $10.00 and non-refundable. Expedia does not charge this fee. Compare and contrast these sites. There is generally a lot of duplication of offerings and one site may have a hotel listed whereas the others do not. However, the prices can vary. Therefore, once you settle on a specific lodging, you need to check it on all of the sites to see where you can get the best deal. Also be aware that sometimes you can get a better deal by making a reservation directly with the hotel.
2) Read the hotel reviews on the booking sites and pay attention to what people have to say about them. The reviews are written by people who have stayed in these actual hotels and they record their pluses and minuses about that hotel. I found this to be very helpful because the little details mentioned made the difference in making my choices. The most expensive isn't necessarily the best. As a result of doing your homework, you likely won't book into a fleabag motel. Every one of the places we stayed in was clean and nice.
3) Make sure that there isn't anything major going on where you are going. I spent over two hours researching and trying to find a hotel/motel around Rapid City, SD. What I DIDN'T know was that the 67th annual Sturgis Bike Rally was that week. Hence I was fighting for hotel room reservations with 700,000 of my closest motorcycle riding friends...had I known that up front, I would have just skipped Rapid City and moved on to another location.
4) Smaller, non chain motels are often better than the chains. We stayed in the Super 8 three times, and while clean, they were not exactly super. The best place we stayed was the Travelodge in Spokane, which, while it is a chain, isn't a huge one. Several times we stayed in places that were mom/pop run, or smaller/lesser known chains. Those places were more likely to have nicer continental breakfasts and easier Internet access than the chains. Go figure. They also were better kept up. My assumption is that most of us gravitate to the known entity. As a result, everyone goes there, and they get run down faster.
5) make sure that when making reservations, you give special instructions. Include information such as that you will be checking in really late (in case you do), that you definitely want two beds, and if you have problems with walking up stairs, that you request a ground floor room. I did this, and never had a single problem and was always accommodated.
6) Save money: look for the place that serves some sort of breakfast. They ranged in quality from place to place. The Super 8 in Austin, MN had a toaster, some bread and bagels, orange juice and coffee. The Travelodge in Spokane had a waffle iron and lots of choices. Depending on what you want, it varies, but again, it is part of the deal, and saves you time and money.
7) Laundry facilities in the hotel? Some hotels have them in house and this can be a godsend. Ask ahead of time. If you are traveling to a different place each night, approximate the location where you might need to do laundry and find a motel/hotel that has facilities in house in case you need the option. This beats having to find a laundry mat in a strange town and sitting in it for hours.

Rental Cars

1) Priceline is the way to go if you are not doing a one way trip. I have put in some of the most ridiculously low prices for rental cars and gotten them. However, they don’t do one way rentals.
2) It is about $200-300 cheaper to rent a car going WEST TO EAST vs. east to west. I presume this is because everyone is going west, but no one seems to be going east. If you have the flexibility of doing this, obviously it will save you money.
3) Once you have gotten a rental car, find out what your car options are. The rental agencies will give you a list of possible rental car models. However, you will have to pick from the options they have available on the lot, and some of the options may not be available at that time. Point: research your car choices and ask for the specific one you want. If you know about gas mileage and size of the various choices of cars, you can pick wisely. I found out that the Toyota Corolla LE averaged 36 MPG, and good gas mileage was my top priority. In my case, there was only one Toyota Corolla on the lot, and I got it, but I did have a second choice just in case.
4) Consider trunk room when selecting your car. If you are traveling for a week or more as I did, you will likely need it. I found that the economy cars didn't have quite the room I thought I would need. Considering we added my son to the trip at the last moment, I am glad I went with a midsized car. Basically, we got the gas mileage and the size without paying significantly more.

ORGANIZE YOURSELF!

1) ORGANIZE EACH DAY. No one has ever used the word "anal" to describe me, but Pam did when it came to the planning of the trip. What I ended up doing was buying little cheap report folders that had the inside pockets and 3 hole binder things inside. I had several different colors, and put white labels on the outside of each folder. On the label I put the day of the week as well as the date, and the starting destination and the final day destination. Inside each daily packet I put the map of the day in the left pocket, and then I put Xeroxes of all information sheets that I had on the places we were going IN ORDER THAT THEY WERE TO BE VISITED, with the last Xerox being the one with info on the hotel reservations, including directions to the hotel. I put seven days worth of folders in one plastic shopping bag, and kept the following week in a separate bag in the bottom of a suitcase. That way I only had one week at a time to deal with. At the end of each day, we put the gathering of brochures, information, ticket stubs, etc. inside the file folder and put it away. Each morning, after I reorganized the car, I handed Pam the packet for the day for her to look over and to use to give out information as the day progressed.2) Get the directions to EVERYWHERE before you leave. I went on Mapquest and got directions to every hotel and those were printed on the back of the reservation confirmations. I also got directions to all of the places we were going. This is especially important in the cities. In Seattle I actually plotted out the route from the airport to the parking deck (where I had already purchased a place and paid for it ahead of time) and then from the parking deck to our host's house. Because I had done this, I was able to improvise, as the traffic was rerouted and streets were closed as a result of the ballgame. We had to go to plan B, and having already perused plan A, I knew pretty much where we were going. We never had any difficulty finding a hotel or getting to a location, and by doing this before we went, it saved us a lot of possible difficulties later on. This is an especially great thing to do when you are showing up at 11 p.m. to a hotel. No one wants to be trying to figure this stuff out when you are tired.
3) Run off copies of everything you need...TWICE. Give one copy to whomever you are traveling with and keep one for yourself. I had duplicate copies of the ferry boat tickets, airline reservations and every night’s hotel reservations.
4) Pack outfits for each day. I put underclothes, a top and shorts together. Then I roll them up really tightly with the edges of the outfit clear on the end so I know what the whole outfit looks like. I then line them up in the suitcase really closely. This method also makes dressing in the bathroom a snap, because you have it all rolled up together. Plus, if you iron ahead of time, it more or less keeps your stuff from getting balled up and really wrinkled. And, Boy does this save space in the suitcase! It also saves me time (I am not hunting for underwear or trying to color coordinate an outfit) and it saves me the frustration of trying to decide what I am wearing that day. Also pack more outfits than you need. That way you don't have to wear Wednesday's outfit if it just doesn't suit your mood. It also makes not having to go to a Laundromat an option.
5) Take an extra suitcase, even if you don't think you will need it. You will, especially if you are gathering junk as you travel. I found the best combination is to have one large suitcase which has a handle and can be wheeled, and have another large roll/zippered Duffel type bag with a strap. The second bag is good because you can stuff lots of stuff in there, sit on it and squish it! You can also sometimes roll up the soft bag and put it into the actual stuffed suitcase when you are packing to go on your trip.
6) ) pack a small little bag and put 3/4 days worth of outfits, toiletries, and any other things you would want in the hotel room in this bag. You won't have to lug a suitcase into the hotel room at night. I put dirty clothes in a plastic bag, which was transferred eventually to a larger trash bag and then to a suitcase in the trunk.
7) Pack for the car. I packed various sizes of Ziploc bags, two large trash bags (for dirty laundry), a plastic fork, spoon, and my Leatherman knife with all of the tools in might need in case of some sort of mechanical need (I got an off brand at Home Depot for under $10 and I packed it in the checked in luggage.) I took a plastic lidded drink cup and a bunch of powdered drink one packets. We picked up some condiment packs (sugar, sweet n low, salt, pepper, etc.) as well as napkins when we got there. I also packed some plastic shopping bags for garbage collection in the car and general use. I bought a half gallon of iced tea when I first got to Seattle, and then kept the container to put water in to use during the trip.
8) What you forget, need or lose, Wal-Mart has! I was amazed at the fact that there seems to be one everywhere you go, and that turned out to be a comfort! We always seem to need something, and Wal-Mart covered everything from food to digital cameras (we actually ended up buying two of them, as we managed to break the ones we brought!)

Electronics/Gadgets and Mechanical Stuff

1) Buy all the in-car electronic gadgets you think you will need BEFORE you leave. What I ended up buying, AND USING, were the following:*ipod converter for the car. This saved me from having to haul a ton of CDs with me. I recorded a ton of music on the Ipod and when I wanted to listen to it, especially when we were in places that had virtually no music, we used it. I got converter from the Internet and surfed around to do it. It worked fine.*cell phone charger. You would be amazed how fast the batteries on the cell phone wear out when you are in the middle of the boonies. We found out that you could charge the phone while sleeping or driving, and someone always had a charged phone.*AC/DC converter. I didn't think I would need this, but I did to charge the digital cameras. It worked great. It also could be used to charge the cell phones as well. Well worth the purchase and with one of these, you may not need a separate in-the-cigarette-lighter cell phone charger.I kept all of these electronic devices in a plastic shopping bag in the glove box, or I kept the device most likely to be used in the recesses in the dash or ashtray, out of sight.
2) Internet connections: make sure you computer is properly set up to use on various wireless networks. Test drive your laptop BEFORE you go on your trip and make sure it is set up to pick up wireless from a variety of sources. One of the criteria that I had in choosing a hotel was to pick ones that had an Internet connection. Some hotels don't have wireless because they are older, and you may have to go to plan B. The Valu-Inn in Missoula, MT gave us an Ethernet box and that made everything run fine. In some hotels we had to go to the lobby for access, but most often it was easily accessed from the room. Also be aware that some of the larger hotels charge for Internet connectivity. And be aware that when you are using free wireless like this, you are more vulnerable to having your financial information perused. Not a good time to charge things on your credit card via the Internet! 3) Keep the digital cameras charged! If you have the car hook up, you can easily do this while traveling. Don’t wait until the camera dies!
4) Pack jump drives and the attachments to transfer your pictures to your computer. We took a lot of pictures, and we actually filled up the memory cards with pictures. Once you've done this, you have no options other than buying another memory card or clearing the card. I moved the pictures to a folder on the hard drive of the laptop, and I backed it up by copying the same pictures to the jump drives. This way, you can save money on the memory cards and have a backup if something goes wrong. After I had copied the pictures to both the laptop and backed them up to the jump drive (and checked carefully to make sure they were really there), I deleted the pictures from the memory card and started using it again.
5) Make sure you have a backup memory card in case one fills up. I kept the extra memory card in the camera case. You can also option to buy a 2GB card which is more expensive, but holds approximately 800 pictures. You don't want to run out of space when the bison finally show up next to your car!6) Make sure before you leave that you have the software for your digital camera installed on the computer. Also note that some cameras don't need a Pict bridge to hook into the computer, and that if you have two cameras, you can use one camera to make the transfers and just exchange the memory cards. That way you also can just use one software program. Cameras don't care what kind of camera took the picture. They all use the same type memory cards. Also pack more than one jump drive if you have it, even if they have a lot of memory space. Pictures take up a lot of space, and the jump will fill up. You may find that if you don't have enough jumps, you won't be able to back up everything.

one for the money...NOVEMBER 13, 2006

THE JOURNEY BEGINS...



first, you gotta get the money...and i did...$8,000 from the REB Award for Teaching Excellence. this was a long term process that started back in the spring when my friend and co-worker, jen chambers, nominated me for the award. i was one of 131 nominated. from that i was chosen as one of 37 finalist who would get to compete for the big money - $2,000-$10,000 to pursue and educational dream. one i got past the first cut, i was already a winner of an unrestricted $500!



to get to be a finalist, i had to complete some paperwork that included an outline of my dream educational pursuit and then a complete budget of what it would cost. during the first week in october i went to an interview with the 15 committee members. they asked me questions about my teaching career and other things, and then i was a wait and see game. i thought i had done well...i made them laugh.



no one knew who the big winners were until monday, november 13, 2006 when the awards ceremony was held at the science museum of virginia. the first lady of virginia, ann holton, was the guest speaker and she also handed out the final 14 cash awards to the big winners. i was the last alphabetically, and the last to go. they announced the $500 winners from each county first, and when my name wasn't announced in that batch, i knew i had won. it was a bit hard to believe!

pam and austin went with me to the awards along with jen chambers. my principal and his wife also attended, as did the school superintendents from all 4 of the school districts involved. i was one of 4 from hanover to make the finals, and one of two to get the big money. the other was a teacher from hanover high school. he is going to be backpacking around greece. along with the money they gave us a nice crystal book that was engraved with our names and the date of the award. for a local teacher, this is the best you can get recognition wise. i am very pleased that i was selected and now on to the planning! :)