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October 31, 2008

Meet Me In St. Louis

Sorry for not posting these past few days, but internet on the road is hard to come by. Anyway, I left off in Kansas City where we saw the world's largest shuttle cock and had a BBQ dinner in a gas station. Day 4 of the trip brought us back through Missouri, en route to Illinois.

We woke up that morning in a little town outside of Kansas City called Odessa, Missouri. We got to the car early in the morning only to discover that our entire jumbo box of Honey Nut Cheerios had spilled out onto the car floor during the night. What a way to start a road trip, right?

After cleaning up, we took turns wearing our Road Trip Nation hat that PBS gave us:

As we were leaving the hotel, we found a brochure for Effingham, Illinois, where we had spent the night at the world's worst Motel 6:

Effingham? They couldn't have named it anything else? And also... does a town like Effingham really need a visitor's guide?

We got back on the road where we got the world's cheapest gas:

No, it's probably not really the world's cheapest gas, but middle America seems to be filled with "world's largest," "world's greatest," and "world's only" items, so I think I can call the gas anything I want, especially since here in Connecticut, gas prices have been above $4/gallon for some time now.

One comment I'd like to make on Missouri, is that it's a state completely divided in morals. As we were driving down the highway, there were billboards every 1/10th of a mile, alternating between "Passions Porn Shop! Your one-stop shop for adult videos, toys, and costumes!" and "Turn to Jesus, not pornography. God is watching." It made for an interesting drive.

Another of my favorite things about middle America is that every single population 800 town is named after a major city or country.

Mexico? Did someone take a wrong turn?

Everywhere we went, we were passing through a miniature town named Paris or Vienna. We even stopped for gas in New Florence which I can tell you is not at all like old Florence:

Tuscany condominiums in New Florence:

Anyway, after driving through Paris, Florence, Vienna, and Mexico, we finally made it to St. Louis, Missouri where we did some sightseeing. The first thing we went to see was the St. Louis Arch which is truly remarkable. I remember studying it in physics class and, despite all the very good reasons why it makes sense that this thing doesn't collapse upon itself, still completely not trusting it. Needless to say, we did not take a ride up inside of it:

We walked along the Mississippi River, looking at the arch, and bumped into this fantastic ship called the American Queen:

Cabins on the American Queen:

Doesn't it feel like a completely different era? It reminded me of all the old Mark Twain novels I used to have to read in school.

A horse-drawn carriage with a beautiful white horse:

One of the interesting things about photography and national landmarks is that no matter how many pictures you've taken of the exact same thing from the exact same angle, it always feels like you need to take just one more....

Sarah, Nicole and I decided that what we'd really like, would be a picture of all three of us with the arch in the background. You'd think this would be a fairly simple and straight-forward request, but apparently not. The first family we asked to take our picture resulted in this:

Unfortunately, they seemed to think that we were standing under the arch for the small sliver of shade it provided, and not to have it actually in the picture with us. A picture of us with a national landmark in the background? What a novel idea!

When we approached another person, a few minutes later, we decided to be very specific.

"Could you hold the camera this way to get the arch in it too? We definitely want the arch in the background, just like this...."

Well, at least this guy kind of got it. Instead of taking a picture of the three of us under a gigantic arch, though, he took a lovely picture of us standing on the lawn, with what looked like a giant piece of shrapnel jutting out in the background. Close enough:

Looking up at the arch:

Sarah and Nicole making their own arches:

We didn't know what this building was, but we liked it:

National landmark? Ok, ok... one more picture:

I have a bit of an obsession with reflection shots. I think I have one of these in every major city I've ever been to:

This painting on a brick building looked just like the ship we had seen in the Mississippi River a couple blocks away:

We asked one of the locals where to go for lunch and to walk around the city, and she recommended that we check out Laclede's Landing:

Laclede's Landing was in Old St. Louis and was absolutely adorable. There were cobblestone streets and little cafés at every turn. Well, except for one turn, which took us to Rocktoberfest, where we watched an 80s hair band called Metal Studs perform:

It was probably one of the top most ridiculous things I've ever seen up close. We rocked out for a little while, and then left in search of dinner.

Great clock:

Ok, so you guys are not going to believe this, but we actually passed the best bar in the whole wide world! Can you imagine that we just stumbled across such a thing without even looking? I wonder why it wasn't on the tourist maps:

We ended up wandering around until we found Jake's Steaks, an adorable little restaurant in Old St. Louis:

We sat outside and ate an enormous dinner while taking in the scene around us.

Waves of cobblestone:

After dinner, we drove out of the city because we had a long way to go that night.

Goodbye St. Louis!

I really loved this billboard. I think it's fairly obvious why:

East St. Louis:

That night, we drove through Illinois and made it all the way to the Kentucky border. We stopped in a gas station to use the bathroom and were greeted with a machine selling tampons, condoms, and "fun toys":

I was fascinated by the "fun toys" idea, thinking I'd get something like you might find in a Cracker Jack box. Also, I had promised to get Brent a really good souvenir... so I thought I'd give it a try. Needless to say, I was mistaken with the Cracker Jack box idea:

We left Vienna (yes, we were in a town called Vienna when I bought my condom machine toys) and ended up stopping for the night in Metropolis, Illinois. Sound familiar? It should, it's the home of Superman!

Having seen our last "world's largest" a long 24 hours ago, we decided it was time for another, so we drove to the world's largest Superman in Metropolis:

Aside from the whole Superman thing, Metropolis was actually a really adorable town. Metropolis was, perhaps, as much of a misnomer as New Florence, though, with a whopping population of 6,000 people. Of all the places we stopped, though, I have to say Metropolis had the most small-town charm.

We all really wondered why Superman wasn't on the mural of local heroes:

As we were driving around looking for a hotel to stay in, we saw this one street that was just completely filled with flashing lights and a giant gateway leading towards the water. We had to check it out, of course, and we ended up finding our way to a Harrah's casino! Despite being completely out of place in our adorable little town that honestly looked like it could have been plucked straight out of 1950... we decided to check out the casino.

We should have known to turn back when Sarah and I got trapped in a giant revolving roulette wheel on the way in.

Here we are when it was still all fun and games:

And here's where the automatic revolving door stopped automatically revolving and I started freaking out while Sarah laughed at me:

We made it out alive and took one last super awkward picture:

When we got into the casino, we had to stop taking pictures while we were each individually photographed and microchipped before officially entering. I don't think we were actually microchipped, but they did take this really creepy electronic machine and punch it into the underside of our wrists making some sort of invisible mark that we had cleared security.

To put it very bluntly, Harrah's is like the Walmart of casinos, and I have some very strong opinions regarding Walmart. Having been to the casinos in Vegas and Connecticut, I think I was expecting something nice, but instead was faced with loud, screaming machines covered in neon blinking lights and approximately 10,000 people who had perhaps just arrived off a caravan of buses heading to a mullet convention.

We didn't stick around very long.

As we left and were searching a parking lot big enough to warrant its own zip code, we found a group of dumpster kitties! There was a little shack off in the brush next to the parking lot with a sign that appropriately said "Maintenance" on the door, and living in the adjacent dumpster were about 15 cats of all ages. Some of them were kittens that couldn't have been more than a few weeks old. Nicole and I, both cat lovers, forced Sarah into spending the next hour chasing the dumpster kitties around trying to feed them what was left of our box of Honey Nut Cheerios:

We wandered around, at night, in the dark, through the woods... (Mom, I hope you're not reading this, I know you've taught me better than that) in search of more dumpster kitties. We found a couple abandoned shacks teeming with mewing kittens:

We had nothing to offer them but Cheerios, though, so we decided it was time to call it a night and return the next day with real cat food.

That night, we stayed at a really nice Holiday Inn Express in Metropolis where we met a very friendly manager named Kevin who gave us an enormous discount on our room. We were all exhausted and not much else happened that night, but I'll be posting about Day 5 very soon!

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 10:59 AM | Comments (6)

October 26, 2008

Show Me Missouri

After spending a terrible night in the Motel 6, Sarah, Nicole and I got up really early to make it to our Hallmark interview in Kansas City, Missouri. We left Effingham, Illinois in a terrible mood, which was quickly brightened by a coffee stop on the way out of town.

Here are a few pictures of our drive out of Illinois and all the way across Missouri:

Driving down Route 66:

Nostalgiaville, USA:

The landscape is so different from what we're used to at home:

We were really hungry, so we stopped for lunch at Sonic, which I have never been to before (we don't have any near us). Sonic was one of the coolest experiences ever. It's a drive-in fast food restaurant!

By the way, our waitress totally looked like Deb from Napoleon Dynamite.

After lunch in the car, we got back on the road where Sarah took this great foliage picture with my camera:

The next official stop on our RTN trip was Hallmark Cards, where we had a couple interviews set up.

Nicole and Sarah in front of Hallmark:

Having a camera stare-down with Nicole:

When we got into Hallmark, we met up with Bess who gave us a tour of the whole building. Hallmark is one of the coolest places I have ever been in my whole life. The whole building was filled with fun things at every turn. All the workers have "booths" where their desks and computers are, and they're all decorated completely. One person even had a giant decorated yellow umbrella over her space!

I wish I could describe everything I saw at Hallmark, but I would never be able to. There are displays everywhere of paper, designs, fabrics, art... everything. Here are a few pictures I took.

A paper display:

Hallmark has its own library, where the employees can hang out for inspiration, relaxation, or whatever they'd like. In the library there are little inspiration rooms with different themes, like these:

There's a room with all sorts of hand crafted things, a technology room, and many, many more. Here's the illustration room:

One of the design displays:

Sarah, Nicole, and Bess looking in on the supplies room, which is basically a giant art store where people can go grab the supplies they need to make cards:

Bess in the supplies room:

Ok, now I'm about to make you all want to quit your jobs and go to work at Hallmark.... There are people whose job it is to travel the world picking out cool stuff of all varieties to study "trends" of what people like. There's a trends room at Hallmark filled with all sorts of knick-knacks and do-dads that people have gotten from all over. I want that job.

In the trends room:

More cool Hallmark stuff:

This is especially cool.... We got into the top-secret humor room where Hallmark keeps their funny cards that are going to be coming out soon. We weren't allowed to photograph anything close-up, but I did take this picture of the room:

In the dining hall, the chandeliers even had the Hallmark crowns:

On the walls, they had this really cool project where people could write their own thoughts about a certain theme, like "Our Purpose" on this poster:

We happened to be visiting during word week:

So the employees got to put up post-its with words they liked:

And words they didn't like:

Hallmark even had their very own Starbucks-style café:

Anyway, I think it's pretty obvious that I'm completely jealous of anyone who works at Hallmark. That leads to our interviews, with two Hallmark writers (who have the greatest job ever).

The first person we interviewed was André, who got his start at clown college and ended up as an "alternative humor" writer for Hallmark. I don't want to give anything away from our interviews, so you'll just have to watch our show!

Here's our picture with André:

Our next interview was with Molly, who writes for Hallmark and has written a few children's books. In a completely random coincidence, she had actually written a book that Nicole owns! Here's our picture with Molly:

A great poster in Molly's booth:

When we finished our interviews, Bess gave us all sorts of cool souvenirs from Hallmark and took a picture with us:

Bess then recommended a restaurant to us in Kansas. It was called Oklahoma Joe's and it's a BBQ restaurant that's inside a gas station. I know it sounds totally weird, but it was fantastic.

But first... we went to see the World's Largest Shuttle Cock. I think America has more "World's Largest" things than anywhere else in the world.

World's Largest Shuttle Cock:

Us with the World's Largest Shuttle Cock:

After taking way too many pictures with the World's Largest Shuttle Cock (we even took some where we pretended to play badminton with it) we drove over the border to Kansas, where we got dinner at Oklahoma Joe's:

It was packed! The line went out the door to get food:

Totally awkward picture of Nicole and Sarah:

Finally, after a long (but really fun) day, we drove out of Kansas City and headed back towards Illinois, passing this great sign along the way:

That's all for Day 3 of our trip, I hope you're enjoying following along with us!

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 09:48 PM | Comments (4)

I Wish and Wish Again (That I Were in Michigan)

On Day 2 of our road trip, Sarah, Nicole, and I drove from Ohio (where we spent our first night) to East Lansing, Michigan where we met up for the afternoon with two of Nicole's friends and one of Sarah's friends.

I did a lot of the driving that day, so I have way less pictures than usual, and none of them came out very well, but of course I'm going to post them anyway.

Before I begin with my Ohio/Michigan/Indiana pictures (the three states we visited on Day 2) I wanted to tell one story.... On our first night, we almost stayed at an Econo Lodge, but decided that there were too many serial killer types there and, instead, went to the Fairfield Inn & Suites which was really nice. After the super-sketchy Econo Lodge, we were so impressed with the new hotel that we video taped ourselves making a big to-do about our beautiful, luxury corner room with an ocean view (in Ohio, yes) and Nicole pulled open the curtains and yelled, "Guys, I can see the Hamptons from our window!"

Maybe I've been in the car too long and think stupid stuff is funny, but I'm still laughing about that.

Anyway, back to Michigan. The instant we crossed the state border, we started seeing some of the ugliest cars in the most random colors ever. I'm talking about metallic magenta, neon green, teal... it was bad. I'm pretty sure that Michigan has the largest number of oddly-colored cars per capita. I ventured a guess that since so many cars are made in Michigan, there are probably car outlet stores with all the reject colors that don't sell in normal places. Is anyone reading this from Michigan? Do you have any insight into the car situation there?

Anyway, here are a few of the pictures I took on the drive through Michigan and into Indiana (sorry about the poor quality, they were all taken through a car window while driving 75mph):

That night, we went to a hospital in Indiana to visit Sarah's cousin who had just had a baby that day! Her name is Emma Jean and she's absolutely adorable.

Sarah, her cousin Jean, and Emma:

Sarah and Emma:

Yawning:

Smiling:

License plate on the sheriff's car outside the hospital:

We left the hospital pretty late and drove in the rain into Illinois, where we stayed in a town called Effingham (another great name, almost as good as Intercourse).

We were tired, wet, and grouchy, so we pulled into the first hotel we found off the exit we took, which happened to be a Motel 6. I highly advise that no one ever stay at a Motel 6, it was filthy and unsafe.

First, when we arrived, a bunch of drunk guys came out of their hotel room and followed us around. In their thick accents, they called to one another, "Git on out heeyar!" "There's three of 'em! Git out heeyar!" They invited us in to play drinking games with them, but we politely declined. Later, one of them shouted out, "They're wearin' pants! Yew said they weren't wearin' any pay-unts!" then they asked us how old we were, guessing we were about 17. We laughed and said "No, quite a bit older..." to which they responded, "Well git on down here then!" I yelled back "Just kidding, I'm fourteen and a half," and Nicole started shouting, "Mom! Mom! Let us in!" and pounding on our door for Sarah to save us. Rather than saving us, Sarah video taped the whole thing for our show.

Anyway, we were greeted in our room with these fantastic bedspreads. Remember, we were in Effingham, Illinois. What city would you guess we were in based on these bedspreads?

I see the Space Needle, a flamingo, and a cactus:

We did a quick inspection of the room and found that our beds were dirty with pus stains. Yes, green pus stains. We then checked out the bathroom where there was pee in the toilet, lots of hair, and a completely disgusting bathtub.

Clearly there had been a larger mat in the bottom of the shower that was lifted up, leaving a white mark in our otherwise gray tub:

We were totally grossed out and wrapped ourselves in towels before climbing into bed. Never again will I set foot in a Motel 6.

Pictures from Days 3 and 4 coming up soon! Remember to keep checking our What Now Wanderers blog, too!

Posted by lauren at 12:19 AM | Comments (4)

October 24, 2008

Cruisin' Down Route 66

Sorry I havn't had time to post yet today, but we had to get up really early to drive to Hallmark in Kansas City for our interview. I'm blogging from my iPhone right now as we drive down Route 66! Anyway, I just wanted to keep you all updated on our trip progress!

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 11:29 AM | Comments (0)

October 23, 2008

Rollin' With the Amish

Right now I'm blogging from Streetsboro, Ohio where we're staying in the Fairfield Inn.

Yesterday, we started our trip at 6am and headed west and into Pennsylvania where we went to Lancaster County, home of the Amish.

Here's Nicole in the car, making a hat to pass the time:

The landscape out there was so much different from what we're used to in Connecticut:

Who are those losers taking their picture in a reflective pillar at a gas station?

Sarah's car, our road-trip-mobile:

I love farms:

A windmill:

Moo cows!

Old Candle Barn:

Nicole and Sarah getting the camera ready for filming:

We stopped at the Kitchen Kettle Village in Intercourse, PA (what a great name, right?). Anyway, the buildings were so cute, we went in a few and mingled with the Amish, who are a source of endless fascination to me:

Our favorite horses:

Sarah and Nicole being ridiculous:

This horse had the softest nose ever:

He even smiled for the camera!

Sarah, Nicole, and Me:

Of course we had to check out a store called Insect Creations:

I'm kind of sorry we did:

I love Amish buggies:

Next stop was a restaurant called Good 'n Plenty in Lancaster. It's owned by Sarah's friend Jenn's grandparents, who were very good to us and gave us mashed potatoes, fried chicken, homemade ice cream, and "shoo fly pie":

The restaurant even had a little pastry shoppe inside!

Pie and homemade ice cream:

We interviewed Jenn's grandfather for our show:

Me, Nicole, Jenn's grandfather, Jenn, and Sarah:

Lancaster has the best town names:

Outside, we went to the farm at Good 'n Plenty where we played with all the animals for way too long:

My favorite goat, who reminded me a lot of my dog Rocky:

Sarah feeding the goats:

Check me out:

Moo!

Miniature horse:

Not miniature horse:

We said we were going to ride in an Amish cart....

I wish this picture had come out... Photography from a moving car is never good:

We went to an abandoned corn maze where we played around in the hay and corn for a while:

Sarah, Nicole, and Me:

Sarah found a little bicycle-like thing that she had a lot of fun on:

The field says FIELD!

A mini-horse wandering around:

This was almost very bad news for the rest of our trip:

The Amish boy who showed us his baby bunnies was the cutest thing EVER, by the way.

I love places like this:

Hitching post:

Wind turbines:

Anyway, we have to leave now, but I'll be posting more (hopefully with more commentary than this entry had) very soon!

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 09:15 AM | Comments (7)

October 18, 2008

What Now Wanderers Schedule

Recently, Sarah, Nicole, and I met up at Arcadia Coffee to plan our road trip schedule. We're leaving this coming Wednesday and won't be back until the following Thursday afternoon.

Trip planning materials:

We came up with a basic route, which I mapped out on Google Maps here:

Anyway, sorry this isn't a better post, but I'm sick and being totally lazy.

I hope you're going to follow our trip on What Now Wanderers!

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 03:18 PM | Comments (3)

Pumpkin Patch

So I got a little ahead of myself yesterday, posting the pictures of Brent's and my Graveyard Book pumpkin, and I wanted to go back and post a few from the pumpkin patch we went to.

A haunted house at the pumpkin patch:

Brent checking out the pumpkin selection (perhaps that ghost orb on his arm is from the very scary haunted house pictured above):

How cool am I that I just talked about ghost orbs? I think I've been watching too many paranormal investigation shows on TV lately. Next thing you know I'll be taking EMF readings (yes, I considered buying an EMF reader on e-bay).

I can't imagine why anyone would need to buy a rooster this big:

Speaking of things I can't imagine buying... fox and coyote urine???

Farms sell the weirdest products.

I don't actually know what this plant is, but I liked the purple color:

Once we got the pumpkins we wanted, we headed back to my house, taking a couple quick foliage pictures along the way:

We started off the afternoon with Winston and George's pumpkin that Brent carved:

It's a terrifying bunny face (kind of reminded me of Frank from Donnie Darko):

Somehow I managed to not get the cool bunny ears Brent made in any of my pictures. Oh well:

Anyway, now that I've posted the pumpkin patch pictures, I'm completely out of order and I don't know where to go from here. I have all day to get working on catching up, though, because I'm SICK.

Could there be a worse time to get sick? Just days before I leave for my trip?? I'll probably be over it by the time we leave on Wednesday, but I'm sure I'll be left with a bright red nose for my reality television debut. My hope, though, is that I'll have that post-cold sexy voice that will be immortalized in our show for posterity.

While I'm working on getting caught up, check out What Now Wanderers for our last few entries before we leave on our trip! We're bringing computers with us, by the way, so you can get updates as we go, too!

Posted by lauren at 11:14 AM | Comments (1)

Our Pumpkin is an International Celebrity

Brent's and my pumpkin just got linked on Neil Gaiman's website! The link is to Brent's blog, so make sure you check it out there if you haven't already.

That's all... now I have to hand my computer back to Brent who is beside himself with joy and wants to refresh his page 3,000 more times before going to bed.

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 02:53 AM | Comments (0)

October 17, 2008

Pumpkins!

I know I've gone missing for the last few days, but Brent has been visiting so I haven't been on my computer much.

Brent and I went to a pumpkin patch today (which I'll be posting pictures of soon) and we ended up spending the entire afternoon and evening carving the world's most amazing pumpkin.

As you may remember me mentioning, Brent and I recently read The Graveyard Book after going to a book reading with the author, Neil Gaimain, in NYC.

The Graveyard Book:

We modeled our pumpkin after the cover of the book!

We even made the top of the pumpkin into the Ghoul Gate, straight out of the book. Brent found a quote from the book that describes it best:

Bod stopped beside a grave that looked the way he felt: it was beneath an oak that had once been struck by lightning, and now was just a black trunk, like a sharp talon coming out of the hill; the grave itself was waterstained and cracked -Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

Our Ghoul Gate:

Here's how we made our "tree" look like it had been struck by lightning:

The final product, out on my front stoop:

Of course Brent had to set random things on fire because he's a boy and that's what boys do:

Brent with our pumpkin:

Lastly, Brent and I used some of the guts and seeds of our pumpkin to make our bunnies, Winston and George, a nice little fall snack:

Anyway, Brent and I are having a "Supernatural" marathon right now so I have to go, but I'll be catching up with the rest of my posts soon!

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 11:42 PM | Comments (4)

October 15, 2008

New MacBook Pro

I was planning on doing a lot of blogging today, but then I got a new computer that required my immediate and undivided attention. You may or may not remember this, but my computer broke a couple months ago and I haven't been able to turn it on since. I've been using my parents' computer, which doesn't have the same features I'm used to for my photography, so it's been really hard keeping up with my blog because of that.

Anyway, now I have a new computer and hopefully this will help me move forward with blogging (once I transfer my pictures over here, of course).

Until then....

Oooooh.... Ahhhhhhh....

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 11:56 PM | Comments (3)

October 14, 2008

Arcadia Cafe and Just Books

Here in town, there's a coffee-shop-bookstore that I love called Arcadia Coffee and Just Books. Well, it's actually two different stores, but they're next door to each other and owned by the same people. When Brent came to visit recently, we went to both (you all must know by now that we're huge suckers for coffee and books) and we decided to open our own coffee-shop-bookstore some day. Will it actually happen? Yes, absolutely.

My favorite thing about Just Books is definitely their cat, Stella:

Every bookstore needs a cat, right? Brent and I discussed Shadow as a potential bookstore cat, and decided that for the safety of the customers, that probably wouldn't be a good idea.

How can you not love a place with free cookies?

Kitty in the window:

After perusing books we don't need (and buying one, of course) we took a walk to Binney Park where we had a picnic and took pictures of some local wildlife.

Duck:

Brent looking at a turtle:

And last but not least, back at my house we found our cats, Frisky and Shadow, peacefully co-existing:

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 01:30 PM | Comments (3)

October 13, 2008

This is Hilarious

As you all know, I'm taking a political blogging graduate class at Trinity College, and every day I follow the blogs of my classmates. Mike (from my class) posted these awesome videos and is friends with the guy in them.

You absolutely have to check this out:

I have to admit, the first time I watched these, I thought they were sorta funny but kinda weird... but then I found myself singing the songs in my head all day long. The same will happen to you until you realize how amazing it is.

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 01:45 PM | Comments (0)

October 12, 2008

Neil Gaiman in New York

Neil Gaiman is Brent's author hero. Brent, who wants to be a writer himself, has read nearly every single thing he has ever written. Anyway, Neil was in New York City for a book reading, so of course we had to go.

Neil (for some reason I seem to think we're on first-name basis) was reading from The Graveyard Book, which I actually just finished. If you've been wondering where I've been these past couple days, I've been deeply entrenched in the wonder that is The Graveyard Book. Yes it's meant for children or "young readers," but so are a lot of good books!

The book is modeled after Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, but is about a boy named Nobody who lives in a graveyard with ghosts. Maybe (definitely) that sounds weird, but it's fantastic and I recommend it to anyone who enjoyed other semi-nerdy (but totally amazing) books like the Harry Potter series.

Here's Neil reading:

After the reading, there was a Q&A period, where Neil read questions given to him on notecards. Unfortunately, Brent's question never came up:

One guy's notecard question asked if Neil would give his friend a hug, because he'd like to give that to her as a birthday present. Neil told him he was cheap and had to buy her something, but gave her a hug anyway:

After the reading, Brent and I were starving, so we went to Tao for dinner. We shared fish satays, vegetable dumplings, and pad thai, then we drank cappuccinos out of bowls (which was even more fun than you might imagine) and shared a slice of chocolate cake for dessert.

The giant Buddha at Tao:

It was a beautiful night, so when we finished dinner we took our time walking back to Grand Central:

This is actually a glass building, reflecting the building behind me:

It was a wonderful night and we left with our own signed copy of The Graveyard Book which, I promise, is a real treasure.

For pictures from the last time we saw Neil in New York, click HERE.

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 03:40 PM | Comments (1)

October 10, 2008

Capsouto Frères

A little while ago, our cousin Jessica took Jocelyn and me out for brunch in NYC at a restaurant called Capsouto Frères. The food was fantastic. I had a three cheese soufflé and lavender ice cream, yum!

This is the only picture I took:

You can see more photos HERE, though.

After brunch, we spoke outside with the owner for a few minutes about hadron colliders and black holes, of all things.

I'll definitely be going back for more soufflé!

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 09:16 PM | Comments (2)

October 09, 2008

Shadow's Visit

Shadow came to visit for a week towards the end of September and she did her very best to terrorize both Rocky and Frisky while she was here.

You may remember that Shadow is a little bossy and likes to be Queen Animal wherever she goes (living with a kitten and two enormous bunnies in a small dorm room was quite an adventure).

When Shadow arrived, she first had to establish herself with the rabbits again. Winston and George have a giant pen in my room that they live in with all their things. Shadow circled it, watching, stalking, until the bunnies were convinced they were safe and she couldn't get in. She waited until one of them sat too close to the edge and then slowly slinked over, rubbing her cheek up against the pen, purring. She then sat down next to the poor, unsuspecting bunny and quickly punched her paw underneath, claws out, and watched little Winston or George pop straight up into the air in terror. She would then repeat this activity for as long as it took to convince the bunnies that they should not leave the safety of their bunny condo again.

iPhone photo:

Next up was Rocky, who is very used to running the house. Shadow chased him in circles, up the stairs, down the stairs, on the couch, under the table...everywhere... until he finally gave up and ran out his dog door to live in the garage. One of the saddest moments of Shadow's visit was when I found Rocky sitting among the trash cans by the side of my house, looking in the window at what used to be his home.

Last on Shadow's list was poor, sick Frisky who doesn't have anything to defend herself with. Shadow tried many times to take over Frisky's table with her bed, but Frisky was having none of it. She would hiss and growl up a storm until Shadow, terrified, would quietly slip away. I think Shadow had a certain respect for such a fierce animal, though, and she and Frisky almost became friends.

Just to prove she won, though, Shadow would steal Frisky's things at night while she was sleeping. Here, I caught her with Frisky's bag of treats as she was frantically trying to slash it open:

When she didn't get it on her first few tries, she carried it away to a secret hiding place where she could work on it as long as necessary. Needless to say, Shadow had a very large midnight snack that night.

All in all, I still love that little devil cat so much. How can she be so evil but also so cute?

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 12:23 PM | Comments (4)

October 08, 2008

Boats in the Harbor

A little while ago was Grandma and Poppy's anniversary! We all went out to the yacht club for dinner on the deck to celebrate.

Poppy and Grandma:

For dinner, I had the filet mignon with truffle mashed potatoes and it was unbelievable.

I also took a few pictures of the harbor at sunset:

Also, if you haven't been following What Now Wanderers, our blog got a new banner (made by Nicole) and our trip is only two weeks away now! I haven't been giving very detailed updates here on The Blonde Excuse because Sarah, Nicole, and I have been posting all the new information on our What Now Wanderers blog, so make sure you keep checking for more news on our show!

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 01:57 PM | Comments (1)

October 05, 2008

Hiking in Kent, CT

Brent and I went hiking recently at the Macedonia Brook State Park in Kent, CT. Brent got a hiking book for Connecticut that said this is one of the hardest hikes in the state, so of course we had to give it a try.

While it definitely is not a mid-point between Greenwich (me) and Avon (Brent), it was equidistant for the two of us, so it made a perfect meeting place.

Even just the drive into the park was gorgeous. I was driving along little dirt roads with cow-crossing signs and enormous grain fields on my left and right. Brent said it was the same on his drive (from the other direction) and somehow, we got extremely lucky and met up in the middle of the park (there was no cell service for miles and we hadn't set up a meeting spot).

We started off on some pretty basic trails:

But the terrain soon got much steeper, and we discovered that going down is just as hard as going up:

What was funny about this sign was that it pointed at a picnic table buried under about 15 years of overgrowth:

This lake reminded me of the reservoir by Brent's house:

There were a few stretches of our hike that had wide, easy paths like this one:

But most of it was deep in the woods and extremely difficult, much more so than my pictures could possibly show.

Don't you love Brent's new hiking hat?

This little stream was shooting out from a small opening in the ground and rocks beneath our feet and seemed to come from nowhere:

I loved this mushroom:

The beginnings of fall:

A camouflaged butterfly in the fallen leaves:

Brent taking a brief break:

What is it that's just so great about moss?

And suddenly, without any warning, we came upon this....

This was one of the most breathtaking views I have ever witnessed first-hand, and I know my camera could never do it justice:

Brent and Me:

I recommend clicking on these pictures and viewing the larger size:

This makes me feel very small:

We took in the view for a while, but had to move on.

Something about this sign seems unlikely....

A stream:

At this point in the hike, we found that we actually had to climb a real mountain. Climbing a mountain, to me, means walking in zig-zags up a nice, long slope. No such luck here:

Again, I don't think my pictures show how steep this was. At one point, we were actually climbing a completely vertical rock face. I don't have a picture of that, for obvious reasons (like the fact that I didn't want to plummet to my death):

When we got to the top of this next mountain, we were rewarded with yet another beautiful view:

A hawk enjoying the view with us:

One little tidbit of information I remember from high school physics is that light refracts differently at higher altitudes, so when you're on top of a mountain, the sky up above is a much deeper color than down below. I don't think I've ever really taken the time to notice it before, but it's absolutely true:

Amazing.... I wish this is how the sky looked everywhere:

One of my favorite things to do with my camera is to zoom way in on things so far off in the distance that you could never see them without binoculars. I zoomed in on one of the mountains off in the distance and found this farm:

Again, we had to keep moving:

I miss that sky:

We met this toad along the path who reminded us both of George (one of our bunnies):

Another great view (when you're on a mountain, they pop up unexpectedly all over the place):

We came to a portion of the mountain that was covered in dead trees. We both wondered if maybe there had been a fire there at one point:

These next couple pictures I played around with on Photoshop just for fun. I don't really like them, to be perfectly honest, but since I had spent time on my little projects, I felt like I had to post them:

Wooden bridge:

Another bridge leading back to the main road going through the park:

We took the long road back to our cars, which were literally miles away:

Finally, after a long day hiking, we drove into town where we had dinner and then drove back to our houses.

If you're up for a real hike, I highly recommend the trail we took that day. I think it would be especially nice now that there's more foliage. Hmm... maybe we'll have to go back.

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 05:24 PM | Comments (4)

October 04, 2008

Penang

I don't even want to think about how far behind I've let myself get... Juggling three blogs isn't easy!

Anyway, a little while ago my friends and I went to an Asian restaurant right off of Greenwich Ave. called Penang. I've been there a few times and have never left disappointed (or hungry). The food is fantastic so if you're in the area, absolutely check it out.

I didn't do a great job taking pictures that night... I think I must have had my camera on some weird setting, because they all came out a little grainy.

Cathy and Hayley at Penang:

After dinner, we walked down the street to Sundown Saloon where we met up with some more friends for a few drinks. Again, sorry for the picture quality... and for the fact that I clearly didn't warn anyone that I was taking pictures.

Erin, Cathy, and Jenn:

Molly and Me:

Hayley and Kristina:

I took this last picture on the way out to my car. Yup, I went home before 10pm. I'm that cool:

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 01:19 AM | Comments (0)

October 02, 2008

The Worst Thing That Could Possibly Happen To Me

So, remember a little while ago when I said that Thataway Cafe is my favorite place to "see and be seen"??

Well, I was absolutely right (as always). Apparently, Britney Spears was dining there yesterday! This was my one big shot to convince her to start a girl band with me!!!

The worst part?? BRENT IS IN VERY BIG TROUBLE because yesterday, right when she was there, we had this exact conversation:

Me: What do you want to do?

Brent: Oh, anything, whatever.

Me: Want to go to Greenwich Ave.? We could have lunch at Thataway Cafe again.

Brent: Yeah sure. Actually, no let's just get bagels and hang out in the park.

AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Here's a picture of Brent and me at Thataway Cafe a few weeks ago where we could have been yesterday having lunch with Britney Spears:

Brent is in especially big trouble because he owes me big time! We made a deal over a year ago when we were in London where there was a Star Wars convention going on. I agreed to go and I even went to "Jedi school" and took the Jedi pledge among a group of four year olds and a bus load of band campers (no, I'm not making that up).

The deal was that if I did that for Brent that he would come to the Spice Girls concert with me. I ended up going with my friends so I never got to cash in on my end of the deal! I know it's not his fault... I know he didn't purposely keep my girl band dreams from coming true... but it still hurts to know how close I came.

Anyway, I'm sorry for how lazy I've been about blogging lately, but I've been super busy. I'm working on another hiking entry though and hopefully I'll have that up tonight or tomorrow!

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 11:49 AM | Comments (2)

October 01, 2008

Please Vote

To find voter information for your area, use the Google application below:

Remember, if you don't vote... you can't complain about it later.

Posted by lauren at 11:51 PM | Comments (2)

Just for Fun

A lot of this is just silly, but parts of it are almost word for word what Sarah Palin said in her Katie Couric interview:

Posted by lauren at 11:37 PM | Comments (0)

NYC

Sorry that this is, yet again, not a real blog entry, but I thought I'd try to post something quickly to keep you all entertained while you're off at work and I'm at home enjoying my early retirement.

Monday night, Brent and I had our political blogging class (check out our blogs here: Brent & Me). After class, Brent came to my house for a couple nights. Yesterday, we went to NYC for the afternoon/evening because one of Brent's favorite authors (Neil Gaiman) was in town having a book reading/signing over at Columbia.

We decided that the quickest way to get there would be to take the train from Greenwich, CT to Harlem and just walk. This was a dangerous idea. I think I'll just leave it at that.

The reading was fun, but I felt completely out of place in my preppy outfit. Apparently, to be a fan of Neil Gaimain, one must don black clothing and purple hair. I have pictures (of the reading, not the purple-haired fans) that I'll be posting once I get caught up.

After getting our signed copies of The Graveyard Book, Brent and I decided that we needed a good excuse to take a cab to Grand Central rather than back to the much closer Harlem 125th St. station. We were both starving, so we ended up going to Tao on 58th and Madison where we had a very late dinner. This also provided a good in-between stop to bring us closer to Grand Central.

On our way to Tao, we drove past all the apartments on the East side of the park. Brent and I decided we're going to live there. Mom & Dad - that's #1 on my list of things I want for Christmas (please make sure it's overlooking the park). I hope that's within an acceptable price-range.

So onto Tao....

I won't give you a whole list of what we ate and drank (because I'll probably do that later when I post the pictures) but I will say that Brent ordered a pink beverage (on recommendation from our waiter) and I didn't let him hear the end of it.

Finally, we headed over to the train around 11pm and caught the 11:10 home. Just as an excellent example of what makes Brent "different" (actually, I think I called him "the weirdest weirdo I've ever met") as we were in the middle of a conversation on the train ride home, Brent interrupts and urgently says,

"Laur! Give me my book, quick! I need paper to write something down!"

I assumed he had suddenly remembered a phone number or the name of something he needed to look up... you know, something normal. In fact, what Brent so desperately needed to write down, as a reminder to himself, was:

"Not thinking about existentialism is existentialism."

I don't really even know what that's supposed to mean, but these are the sort of thoughts that mill about in Brent's brain all day.

Anyway, when we made it to our station, we decided to walk home because it was a beautiful fall night and we didn't want to waste it in a car. During our walk, we encountered a ghost on a bridge, but I'm not going to say any more about it because you probably all think I'm crazy enough already.

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 10:57 AM | Comments (2)