Posted 2:35 PM by Anonymous

Well, tomorrow I take off for a five-day adventure to New York state. I'm going with my boyfriend to visit his grandparents, father and step-mom at his grandparents' house in Chautauqua. Chautauqua's a pretty cool-sounding place - I actually first heard about it in my AP U.S. History book, believe it or not, in the section on the Great Awakening, or something like that. (I have a notoriously bad memory, which isn't helpful as a history major!) Anyways, Chautauqua is this great pretty community on a lake, there's an art school and a music school, opera and symphony, and they constantly have classes and lectures that are just open to the public. It's kind of a continuous learning community - pretty neat idea, I think. I've never been there before, but I'm pretty excited about it. Jon and I are driving out, it should be about an eight-hour drive and I'm working on burning about eight mix CDs to keep us entertained for the duration. Road trips are so much fun when you're with people you love, so I'm pretty excited.

Last time we went on a road trip was driving from the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in the Berkshires back to my apartment in Washington, D.C. We left the festival around 10 p.m. and drove through a torrential thunderstorm with about two feet of visibility and deer at the edge of the roads, just waiting to hurtle out at us. We drove straight through the night, except to stop and nap for three hours in a parking lot in Baltimore - just a little sketchy, huh? But it's a great opportunity to have a six-hour conversation with somebody you really care about. Especially when it's somebody who you don't disagree with too much. I guess I'm one of those people who sees issues in pretty black and white - I have pretty well-formed opinions on most things and am pretty certain that they're the right position to have. That makes debating certain things with me pretty difficult. Oh well. I have to say, though, that the U.S. highway system has to start getting more rest stop restaurants that can feed vegetarians. Those Roy Rogers packaged salads are pretty awful. Anyways, I probably won't have much internet access in Chautauqua so I won't be blogging again until Monday night or Tuesday, so see you guys then!