sharkycharming

Don’t go on a rainy, cloudy day like I did. We could barely see Lake Michigan, let alone things that were far away! But it was still fun to be up that high. I love skyscrapers, and I LOVE CHICAGO!

My friend Dyan emailed me a couple of weeks ago and said, “I think we should go to Montreal in July and see Wilco.” I emailed her back and said, “I’d love to go, but I doubt Chris [my bf] will go for it. I will ask him, though.” I sent Chris an email (we live together, but were both at work at the time) and he never mentioned it. Days and days went by, but since I never thought he’d agree to go in the first place, I didn’t really think about it. Suddenly, last Tuesday he emailed me at work and said, “We could probably do this if we figured out the finances.” One day later, we had bought Wilco tickets and booked a hotel room for the three of us, July 8-14.

If Portland weren’t so far away from my family and my hometown, I would definitely move there. I have been there six times and I never get tired of it. There’s so much to do, it’s beautiful, and it’s really clean and kept-up compared to east coast cities.

When I was 10, my girl scout troop went to Charleston for the weekend. We slept on an aircraft carrier called the U.S.S. Yorktown and took a boat to Fort Sumter. I am not at all into military things but I had a good time in Charleston because it was very pretty there.

We took the tour of the Maker’s Mark distillery on the morning of Monday, August 8, 2005. Our tour guide was Donna and she was so sweet. The tour is somewhat interactive and completely charming. The drive to Loretto was really pretty, too—go on a day when the weather is sunny!

We liked Louisville so much on our recent visit that we’re considering moving there!

Granted, I am a big library geek, but I think that the Libary of Congress should be at the top of every D.C. tourist’s list of destinations. The guided tours are fascinating, and the main building is beautiful. If you live in the area, it’s worth getting a reading room card so that you can do reasearch at LOC or at least impress your friends with the important-looking ID. I got a special behind-the-scenes tour once, because I work at a university library and my coworker has connections. But even if you just do the public self-tour, you can see the contents of Abraham Lincoln’s pockets when he was shot. That’s pretty cool.

What impressed me about Minneapolis (and the natives laugh when I say this) was the public transportation—compared to Baltimore, the buses were so clean and seemed safe. I had a boyfriend for about six months who lived there, and we carried on a difficult, jealousy-addled long-distance relationship. I visited him twice. It was cold, of course, and snowy, of course, but there were a lot of neat places to shop. I had some good coffee, too. People were friendly there but I felt out-of-place because everyone was blonde except me. I saw a bit of St.Paul, too, which was nice. Oh, and we went to the Mall of America. That’s not what I was referring to when I said “neat places to shop,” but I did think it was funny that they had a store devoted solely to holograms. That’s too much damn mall, you know? Anyhow, Minneapolis is worth visiting, as most cities are.

I had a huge crush on this boy I met on a train from the east coast to Montana. I went to college in Missoula and he went to college in Bozeman. I went and stayed with him and we were both so shy that neither us could make a move, even though in retrospect it’s obvious that we liked each other. Stupid! Oh well—he’s probably married now, and I am practically engaged. That was a long time ago, but it’s sure fun to remember things like that. Bozeman is a cool place to buy used books, and the scenery is unbelieveably pretty.

I love crumbling old ghostly cities. Butte is a shadowy, odd place. It’s the kind of town where I’d love to rent a room for 6 months and write a book. You’ve gotta make your own fun there, people, so if you’re bored by your own company, don’t bother. But I love the place. Send postcards to all of your friends.