Hawk Mountain

Tonight i was sitting out on my porch, reading my book and minding my own business, and a guy walks up to me, sits down, and starts talking to me. Nice guy, but he actually used the phrases "you've really got it going on" and "once you go black, you'll never go back." i didn't think people actually said those things. Much too young for me (22), and, is it snobbish to say that i like my pick-up lines a little more linguistically creative?

Anyway, last weekend i took a trip up to Hawk Mountain to hike. This place was astounding, particularly this week as we are at peak foliage. Another thing i missed while living in Kansas, where there are so few trees that what most people use to mark autumn is the occasional corn maze. (Not that i don't enjoy a good corn maze from time to time.)

Hawk Mountain is known as (and named for) a great place to watch hawks migrate in the fall and then again in the spring. It was a beautiful clear day, but i only managed to spot two red-tailed hawks... among the most common species. But the hike was relatively challenging, particularly on the northern half of the trail.




You can sort of see in the photo above, right in the center of the valley, a feature called "the river of rocks." It's an "upside down river," with large boulders in a trail down the side of the mountain and through the valley. Water runs beneath them.

The northern terminus of the Hawk Mountain trail is at a large boulder field unassociated with this rock river. But clamoring over them was nonetheless harrowing, as the dropoff on either side was precipitous. The trail from there was a link to the Appalachian Trail about 2.5 miles away. i'd have hiked out to it, but it was already getting toward dusk, and i didn't want to risk it.




Most of the trail looked like this...




And most of the drive back to the Pike looked this this...


These hikes are such great reliefs, as i am finding work very stressful. The school at which i'm working now is high-powered, prestigious, and demanding for both students and faculty, and i am finding the pace of life here a big change from Wichita. There i had a number of other responsibilities, like the after school program, chess team, and the accreditation committee. Here i can't imagine doing any of those things on top of my teaching load. (Well, except chess, which begins next week.) The first year at a new school is always the most stressful, and next year will be better. i am still managing to eat right, but am not exercising as regularly as i was last year. It's really frustrating, but if i want to keep my job, i have to keep up.

i find myself longing for three-day weekends and holidays. Lord knows what i'll do in January and February when there are none. And i haven't even had to write my first set of comments yet! That'll be just before Thanksgiving.

i feel like i'm always a few hours away from cracking. i'm just venting... i know i'll make it through, but man am i tired. i've got to stop doing this... maybe i'll just stay in Philly.

Well.... or maybe just one more move... five years or so? Head on up to Maine or Vermont....?

Gettysburg

Last Monday was the perfect day for adventuring. Most everyone else was at work or honoring the Day of Atonement. It was also a splendidly crisp and clear early autumn day.

i waited for rush hour to be over (read: i slept until 9 because why not it’s a three day weekend and i’m not setting an alarm on a day i don’t need to!) and then got on the road, three times. (Just one of those days where i kept forgetting things.)

Once on Route 30 West, i popped in my Gettysburg Road Mix CD and started jamming out as i drove. Round about Lancaster, this song called “Your Rocky Spine” comes on. It’s a quality song, very mellow and aching. (i actually think that having a CD player in my car has allowed me more time to listen to music and in turn has improved my taste… i have wished several times over the last few weeks that Jeff and i were friends so i could make him a CD proving this fact. Oh well, he’d probably still say my taste sucked.) And i’m dangling my arm out the window and breathing in the rushing air as i do.

This song is lulling me into a contemplative state and i think… damn, i’d forgotten that autumn in Pennsylvania has these distinctive smells. You can smell sweet gum, earth, corn, hay, and [i swear] the coming snow. These smells are rushing over me and in my head i’m naming them, naming them as i whisper the lyrics of this gingerly possessive song, remembering each one… blueberries, bonfires, fertilizer, apples, hickory nuts, Ramen noodles…


Ramen noodles?


Where did that thought come from?

i’m jerked from my thoughts and my song, and i look off to the south and sure enough, there’s a Nissin plant out there on the rolling hills east of Lancaster, PA, home of the amish and the Dutch home cookin’.

Anyway, i drove through York and on to Gettysburg for my first look at the battlefield since I was 10 years old.

i went through the museum but didn’t have the patience to sit through the multimedia presentation. i was anxious to see the battlefield that my mother swears is haunted.

The driving tour is self-guided and spans a much broader area than i imagined. The battle ranged from north to east to south of the town of Gettysburg, but thankfully left the town pretty much unscathed.

The first place i stopped was meant to be the last, but it wasn’t until i had seen everything else that i really understood why. It was the Gettysburg National Cemetery. There are many people who have been buried here SINCE the Civil War, so it is not exclusively for those who died in this battle, or even this war. But most of the unknown soldiers and many of the identified Union soldiers are, in fact, interred here. And of course, it is breathtaking in a morbid way…

i think this one stands out as one of my best photos

This was also (and i didn’t know this) the site of the Gettysburg Address, the occasion of which was to dedicate this cemetery. More specifically, the memorial in the center was where he stood.

From there i headed into the town toward the northern front. In so doing i was absolutely charmed by the city [town] itself. So delightful… it’s sad how many people miss it in their battlefield crawl.

the square... "downtown" Gettysburg, and typical of small town Pennsylvania

From there i drove along Cemetery Ridge, the high ground held by the Confederates through most of the battle… and the monuments along that part of the drive are for the southern states, though their monuments are smaller because not a lot of southern states have cared to put money into remembering Civil War battles they lost… (though who really lost is a ridiculous question if you count men instead of ground… 28,000 confederates and 23,000 Union…)

canons on Cemetery Ridge

Virginia Monument

The Virginia Monument stands at the site of Pickett’s Charge, a cavalry move that pretty well ended it for the Rebels that day (and arguably… the War?) Sitting atop it is General Lee (my kin!) and engaved on the bottom is “Virginia to her sons at Gettysburg.”

The observation tower is eight flights up and offers a great view of the southern Gettysburg sites. In this one you can see Little Round Top and the Rose farm just below it.

Once i got to Little Round Top, a name i had heard many times, i learned that it was a stronghold for the Union sharpshooters, and that Confederate sharpshooters did comparatively poorly from their position down in the Valley, specifically Devil’s Den, a rocky outcrop visible on the far left of this photo. The Valley itself, now called the Valley of Death, is where a lot of those 50,000 soldiers fell, in particular the Wheatfield just beyond the far right of this photo.


As an aside… Devil’s Den is the only thing i remember from my first visit here. Climbing on the rocks was fun… both times.

The last stop on my trip was the Pennsylvania Memorial… the grandest of all the states’ memorials here on the battlefield, and dear to my heart for obvious reasons. It was getting late by the time i got here, around 5pm or so, and the light was a little tricky to get right. Also, though it was a slow day as far as people went, i was by no means the only on here, so i had to be patient to get a shot without anyone in it. i shot it from many different angles, but can’t decide on my favorite, so, here’s a decent one…

Around the base are the names of every soldier from Pennsylvania who fought here. A few…

A [pretty sad] anniversary

Another postponement of the Gettysburg pics to note that i am approaching an anniversary which deserves to be marked.

But is it sad that i celebrate an anniversary with.....




....my cat? Sao and i will celebrate one year together on October 20th. She has done this snuggle-into-mommy's-neck thing since that first day, and this is the first picture i've ever managed to have taken of it. (Because usually nobody's around when she does it! Thanks, dad!)

Does that make me even more cat-lady-ish than i already am?

On that note....
(disclaimer: yes, i know this is not literally true... i have had some great boyfriends in the past, and probably will in the future... but it certainly feels this way sometimes, and it's funny!)

(post)ponement

Get it?

Anyway, i know i am scheduled to post on my Monday adventure to Gettysburg, and i will, soon. i also know that i owe a lot of your blogs visits. i have been scarce since i started school again. my deepest apologies.

But i have to postpone once more to record the events of last night.
They may seem perfectly uneventful to most.
They probably are.
But it was the most fun i've had since arriving in Philadelphia, and i want to be able to come back to this and read it someday!

So... i'm running around my lab on Friday after school, trying to wrap things up and get out of there at a reasonable hour (read: 5pm) when two 5th graders poke their heads into my room and ask if they can sit in there and do an interview they had been assigned to do for their Civ class.

Jen, the educational technologist, follows them in and says says hello (we work across the hall from one another, she always seemed nice enough), and they proceed to interview her while i finish off emails, sort through my stack of grading, and pack up my bags.

The interview was really cute, and at one point, they asked Jen to recite some lines of her favorite poem, but she couldn't remember them! Luckily, i was on hand and could finish it for her.

After the kids left, she spontaneously asked me if i wanted to go have sushi with her and two other young, single, female teachers.

i have just developed a love of sushi over the last four months or so. i was staying with my Philly cousins while i apartment hunted, and they took me out to this sushi bar. Well, i didn't want to be rude, so i ate some and it was like a whole new culinary world has opened up.

But since arriving in Philly, i haven't had the chance, so i said yes!, even though it had the potential to be quite awkward.

When i arrived at Bluefin, Jen, Meadow, and Stephanie were already there. i knew Meadow because we are both new to this school and have gone to the New Faculty Meetings together. But i literally sat down, introduced myself, and shook hands with Stephanie at the beginning of the meal.

It didn't take long for us to realize that we have a lot in common. It must have been funny to hear us tiptoeing around issues we weren't sure were going to offend each other, timidly saying it anyway, and then realizing we all have very similar views on religion, politics, relationships and all the other potentially offensive topics.

We decided that we're kind of like the Sex in the City girls. Jen and Stephanie think that Meadow and i are hysterical and we think they are. We decided we all belonged on a TV show not called "Sex in the City" but rather "Not Getting Any In Philadelphia."

We discussed terms of being kicked out of the group when you get some, and how long of a dry spell it would take to earn your way back in, and then dubbed ourselves (for reasons which will remain private) the Sigma Sigma Sigma sorority.

We made plans to attend the bridesmaid's ball, and to rope three more people to dress up as the 7 deadly sins for a halloween party (which we also have to plan, and throw).

Of course the implied confidentiality of the circle grew as we talked, and i won't write about anything else we may or may not have discussed.


i will say that we were the first people at the very popular restaurant that night, and while not the last to leave, very close. As we got up 5 hours after sitting down, we each added another $10 into the tip, figuring they could have had three tables there in the interim, and the sushi chefs got up and clapped.

They clapped as we left and said, "hey, you set the record!"

i don't usually make friends at work.

You all know i have some personal stuff that i don't like to share with people i work with, and so i usually tend to find friends through other outlets.


But this was great. Sometimes nights like this happen, and then plans fade away, and people forget to come back together. And i can't say that won't happen, but i can say that if it doesn't happen, and i really have found three girlfriends of the quality i think i have, that i will want to remember last night for a long time.