Washington

After a day of traveling yesterday, I landed in Seattle. I had driven to the airport with a friend who is also going to Seattle (and later China), but on different flights. Somehow at the bag check, our tags were switched so that my bag ended up going his route, and wasn't in Seattle when I got there. A few hours later when his flight got in, he found my bag at the baggage claim along with his, so my cousin and I drove to where he was staying and I fortunately have my things. Other than that, the flights were good and I even got to sit in the Economy Comfort section on one.

Salt Lake City

I'm now on the train to Bellingham to see my brother. It's a really enjoyable ride, and I even saw the USS Nimitz as we went by.

one trip!

A few years ago, after a graduation previous to my most recent, I received this card from my parents:

This card is good for one trip, anywhere in the world. For a long time I could not make up my mind. Of course I have a list of places in the world I'd love to see, but I held on to it while I had other things going on, namely a few more years of school. With one more graduation come and gone, I am finally ready to take some time off from it all. So where did I choose? Just about as far as I can possibly go-- a small area in Qinghai, China located in Golok Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.

It's not exactly known as a tourist destination and this is the only photo I could find somewhat close by:

Fortunately, I'll be staying with friends there. Also fortunately, even though I don't know any Chinese beyond 'hello' and 'I love you', I do know some Tibetan. I've have been practicing the local dialect, which is different from what I know. Everyone I've spoken with from the area has been incredibly helpful in preparing for this venture, so I'm ready to be there.

games and such

We've got a little less than a week until our exhibit will be officially ready for the public. Luckily, our team has been organized and we are pretty much done! I'm really happy with the way things turned out, and am especially surprised at how similar the real exhibit is to the sketches I made.

 The entry

 We have four pedestals, each with a specific game theme: board games, cards, puzzles, and word games

 group members giving the chess game a go

 we even have hopscotch

field trip

My nutrition class visited two of our anthropology professors' homes this weekend, one just for fun, and the other to see how an all-organic farm works with grass-fed and pasture-raised cattle.

 First stop: ponies! He has one eye, but likes to have his "brain tickled" (scratch inside his empty socket... weird I know, but it was clear he enjoyed it)

We spent a few hours in the evening rounding up two horses that had escaped.

a little sunshine in the morning

 

 

Mom & baby

 hair sheep (not wool)

lovely porch at the farmhouse

We enjoyed some hamburgers & headed home before the tornadoes could get to us!

happy birthday to me!

A quarter of a century. I can't believe it! (My goal is 93 years)

It was a wonderful day for a birthday, although I have no real plans besides finishing some work for classes. I was surprised at work today when one of the teachers told me I had a package from one of the students I worked with last semester, who is now back in Korea. I was not expecting it, and toted around the box all day, and when I got home, I found this:

I LOVE wind chimes! I don't remember if I even mentioned to her anything about them, but it was a perfect birthday present, along with all of this:

Luckily, there were a few other gifts for some of the teachers, and we can all munch on the sweets together. How very thoughtful of her! 

I remember when I was much younger, my mother gave my sister and me each a decorative ceramic cup with our birth months on them. For some reason I was disappointed because my March cup showed a little girl stomping around in a mud puddle on a rainy day. It always seemed so gloomy to me, but since then I've come to really love spring time and I'm now content with being born in this season!

I see all the tulips and daffodils on campus, or the grass growing tall in the soccer fields and automatically my mind jumps to thinking about how much a horse would enjoy that nice clump of thick grass. Not to mention, once the thunderstorms start, you can look forward to much warmer weather and the amazing sights of the clouds (and perhaps an occasional tornado).

our next and final stop: Union Station Chicago

I thought I'd never hear those words, but here I am, finally in Chicago.

I was ready to go at 5 am in Lawrence, got to the train station, and waited. The train seemed late, but it wasn't until another passenger called for an update that we found out the train was more than 4 hours behind schedule. I piled my bags back into the car and got an extra hour or so of sleep at home, sent in a job application, and remembered to pack my umbrella before heading out again.

The second time around, the train came flying down the tracks at 10:32 am and I thought it wouldn't be able to stop in time. It did, but not long enough for me to even sit down before it was moving again. In the seat across the aisle was a young mother and her 5-year-old son, who had unfortunately waited at their stop in western Kansas from 2 am until they actually departed at 7 am.

Mississippi River at Fort Madison, Iowa

When we got to Kansas City, this woman and her son went off the train for some fresh air. They weren't back by the time we got moving again, but I figured they were in the observation car or cafe. About a minute later, the train stopped and we heard an announcement that we would be waiting a few moments longer. After that few minutes, the woman and her son appeared in their seats, flustered. Apparently the little boy had gotten sick during their fresh air break, so she had taken him into Union Station to clean him up. She told a train worker, who said she would hold the train. Clearly that did not happen. They ended up taking a ride in a tiny railway cart on the adjacent track to catch up to our stopped train. 

After that, we luckily did not have any other major delays and we each got handed "emergency" snacks, which were quite good, but still ended up getting into Chicago at nearly 8 this evening. I found the hostel after walking farther than I needed (right through "Greek town"-- shouldn't I have realized that's where the "Parthenon Hostel" might be??), and enjoyed some gyros for dinner. Museum-ing tomorrow.

It's spring!

 All the flowering trees are looking beautiful, even against grey skies.

 Who knows what flowers these are? The leaves remind me of mum leaves, but the flowers do not.