Fay be damned, I wanted to get home!

I did it. I finally made it back home. No more driving. No more sleeping on couches. I never thought I would so happy to be back.

I did run into a little snag in getting home today. You may have heard of a little squall known as Tropical Storm Fay. I drove through it today. It was awesome. And by awesome, I mean terrible. Apparently I was driving straight through a region with tornadoes that you couldn't see because the rain was so heavy. Normally, I wouldn't drive when I can only see about 10 feet ahead of me but I was really desperate to get home. In the end, I'm safe and happy in my warm apartment.

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So here are the stats for my trip:

Number of states I've slept in: 10

Number of states I've driven through: 11

Speeding tickets: ZERO!! (yeah, that's right, five thousand miles and no tickets!)

Clinics visited: 5

Amount spent in gas: Unknown (I don't want to know, I might hurt someone)

Miles driven (this trip): 2278

Miles put on my car this summer: 5045

Total miles traveled: 7693

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So that's it, the summer is officially over. Now I have one day until I start my extra Oncology rotation. Time to get back to real life.

Back on the road and already committing illegal activities . . .

I realized yesterday that I hadn't been on I-95 in 3 years. I felt a strange sense of coming home when I saw this sign:I drove to Charleston to visit with my sister who haven't seen in a while. She only yelled at me once for my political views (which, in all honesty, are pretty minimal), so it was a good trip. The truth is it was actually a really nice visit. My sis and I haven't always been so close and I think we bonded a bit this time around. I also got to try a new drink from Starbucks (which I can't remember the name of but it's like a smoothie), so all around, awesome time.

I left at about 8:3o this morning to head as far north as possible. I'm set to visit a practice in New Jersey starting on Monday. So I drove . . . and eventually ended up here:

Ahh, nothing like cheap novelties to break up the monotony of the road. I went to the top of the big hat (can't beat the ticket price of one whole dollar!). And yes, I bought fireworks. My mother informed me that it is illegal to transport fireworks over state lines. I'm not so sure that is true but I like feeling like a rebel for the day!

So then I kept driving . . . and driving some more . . . and then I drove a bit more . . .

I ended up in College Park, the home of my Alma Mater, the awesome University of Maryland. I'm spending the next few days here to visit friends. Oh, and I also happen to have a date while I'm here too! There will definitely be more on that later!

I had a lot of time to think during my 850 mile drive today. I think I may be starting to figure out what I want to do after graduation. But I should write about that when I'm not simultaneously watching Futurama and my friend play Rock Band. Oh it's good to be back with college buddies.

Other slightly interesting news: I officially registered to take the NAVLE this past weekend. Freaky.

Down in the Louisianna bayou

I'm trying to see if I can make it through my whole iPod music library. There are 611 songs on my little nano and so far I've gotten through about 250 of them. I'll admit, I've skipped some, but those are the ones I'm not really sure why I put them on in the first place.

I made it across the Mississippi River and almost across the entire width of Louisianna. Not much to see on the road, just come cornfields and cows. I was surprised at how much more fertile Louisianna appeared to be compared to Mississippi. But still, not too much to see.

You may have noticed by now my little DIfferential Diagnosis book in most of my pictures. I'm using it to represent me since I'm traveling by myself and it's hard to find people to take my picture sometimes. PLuse, I don't like being in too many pictures. I don't think I'm very photogenic. It's a quirk of mine, I know. THis little book will be accompanying me to each externship. It's the only one that will be going to all 4 locations since it's the only one that I will be able to take on the place with me to LA (Fossum's is just too heavy).

So I made it to Shreveport and I'm only about 3 hours from Dallas. This city has a really cool boardwalk area on the Red River which I walked around for a couple of hours today. I also bought some presents for myself and my host in Dallas (I had to get her fancy pancake mix to go with the syrup). I would feel worse about it if I hadn't gotten everything on sale. The whole boardwalk is basically a giant outlet mall, which makes it super awesome.

I have to say, I was a little nervous before embarking on this trip. I don't know why. Something profoundly deep having to do with neomg pm ,u pwm amd wprlomg O'm sure. But once I got started everything felt better. This trip feels like the one I took when I graduated college. I spent 2 and 1/2 weeks tromping around Europe, staying in hostels and riding overnight trains by myself. I like traveling alone. You can basically do whatever you want. I don't feel like I have to keep anyone entertained. I can eat where and when I want and, most importantly, I can sing as loud as I want in the car. The only thing I really miss are my cats. It's weird, I know, I'm a cat lady. They're just so damn cute and cuddly.

Tomorrow I'm leaving early to try and get into Dallas before noon, which shouldn't be a problem. I can't wait to start my externship. I know it's going to be great.

Drive, drive, drive and then drive some more

I took that picture at 11:00am, May 27th before I left for my parent's place. I packed up the car with everything I could think of and threw in the kitty cats for a nice little 6 1/2 hour jaunt to the Atlanta area. I saw this sign as I got into Gwinnett county (where my parents are):




My dad will be happy to know that by living in Gwinnett he lives with success.

Trip miles: 355
Total miles: 355

I spent the next couple of days with my mom shopping, eating, hanging out, and, oh yeah, looking at houses. My parents still haven't found a house and after going out and looking with them I can see why. The houses are ridiculously overpriced and the newer ones are pretty but built like shit. Not to mention all the kitchens are impractical. I told my mom that it's because most builders are men and don't understand that you actually have to use a kitchen, not just look at it. Overall it was actually a really nice trip. I don't get to see my parents all that often. So now Lexy and Murry are settled in (and causing trouble) with my mom and dad for the summer.

This morning I left Atlanta and headed west to Meridian, Mississippi. The drive was okay. Truthfully, there's not much between Atlanta and Meridian. I stopped in Birmingham, Alabama to have lunch. I wasn't overly impressed, although there was a really nice park, Linn Park, and a yummy eatery called Zoe's Kitchen. The city seemed like it was inhabited mostly by young, business-type people, although, that may just be the downtown area where I was.



Then there was the drive between Birmingham and Meridian. I am basically traveling west on I-20 for the entire trip to Dallas. I've discovered that there is absolutely nothing in northern Alabama and Mississippi. Seriously, nothing. There was an exit every ten miles or so with a gas station, that was about it. I think the road is mainly just for trucks and people like me on road trips.

Meridian also leaves something to be desired. I drove to the downtown area and drove immediately back out. It's charming but definitely still being rejuvinated. So instead I decided to go check out a little historic landmark, Causeyville General Store. After getting ridiculously lost I found the little store. They grind their own corn meal there and make their own ribbon cane table syrup. The woman who owns it was pretty interesting. She's an elderly woman and does all the mill work pretty much on her own. She used to have several employees but when Katrina hit she had to have the roof re-done on the store and she was forced to let everyone go. She's still paying off the roof. I bought a jar of the syrup that they make to give to my host in Dallas.

Now I'm just chillin' out in my hotel room. I'm exhausted and can't wait to get to sleep!

Trip miles: 364
Total miles: 719

My next adventure

Senior banquet, graduation, the end of classes . . . its all come and gone. I still can't believe I am officially a senior in vet school. Just the thought of it seems ridiculous. In one year I will be graduating. Weird.

Since the end of classes I've been alternating between being incredibly lazy and incredibly productive. I finally got all of the information from Open House together to pass on down to next year's committee. I also met with the clinician and resident I'm doing research with to talk about where we're going (I'm doing a super cool retrospective study on our use of the VAC bandage). I've also made great strides on my cross-stitching project. (I've been working on the damn thing for about a year and a half.) Alright, maybe the last one doesn't quite fit into the productive category but I like it. The flip side of my vacation has been that I've been sleeping a ridiculous amount (almost as much as my cats). I think I've just been catching up from my lack of sleep this semester.

All of that doesn't matter that much to me though. Tomorrow the real fun starts.

I'm doing 4 externships this summer and I leave tomorrow. I'll first be driving to the Atlanta area to visit my parents and give them the kitty cats for the summer. Then I drive to Dallas for two weeks. After that I fly out to LA for another two weeks and then fly back to Dallas so I can drive back home (which is about 850 miles). I'll be home for two weeks before driving up to New Jersey for two weeks then driving to D.C. (the best city on the planet) for two (possibly three) weeks.

So the past few days I've been cleaning my house and putting off packing. Which means the bulk of today is dedicated to packing like a mad woman. How do you pack when you're going to be gone for over a month? I guess I'll find out. Plus I have to pack up the car with all the cat's stuff which includes their cage (which thankfully folds up), two air filters (my dad is allergic), all their toys, some litter boxes, their food, etc. It's like traveling with children. I don't know what I'm going to do with them during the ride (it's about 6 hours). I'll have to stop to give them water I guess and maybe see if they'll go to the bathroom on their harnesses (though I doubt it). If you have any advice on traveling long distances with cats I would really like to hear it.

To add some more excitement to today I have a friend driving up tonight to hang out for a bit. We went to college together and just realized that we live in the same state. I should probably have my head examined for all of this.

I'll be sure to keep posting while I'm on the road and on my externships. This is going to be an awesome summer.