Gettysburg

This posting will deal mainly with a trip Kim and I took last weekend to Gettysburg. However, before I get on to the main dish, I thought we'd start with something that has bothered me for a long time. I am referring, of course, to people saying that they are in a 'insert type here' sandwich when they stand between two people who share a particular characteristic. "I'm in a Michael sandwich!" (when standing between two Michaels) or "I'm in a software engineer sandwich..." (said with disappointment and slight apprehension). The problem with this class of statement is that sandwiches are named for what's in between the two pieces of bread. This is so obvious it's embarrassing to say. Only in specific cases does the bread get a mention in the name of the sandwich. Which is why saying "I'm in a Michael sandwich" is like saying, "I'm having a wheat bread sandwich for lunch". A true Michael sandwich would have a Michael in the middle and two people on the outside with some similar characteristic. But unless they were particularly unusual or interesting, they wouldn't warrant a mention. Thanks for bearing with me on that.

Now on to Gettysburg! Last Friday Kim and I took off on Friday evening and headed North through Maryland and into Pennsylvania, arriving at Gettysburg just after 9 pm. As we went to pull into our old farmhouse bed and breakfast, I turned (in the pitch black darkness mind you) into what I thought (because of the sign placement and lighting) was the driveway. Turns out it was the front yard. We had to just sit there and wait for cars to pass before I could back onto the roadway, drive 20 feet further down the road, and enter the actual driveway. Embarrassing.

Kim and I both shared a fear that Gettysburg would be an uninspiring expanse of fields and woods coupled with boring museum exhibits. In fact, Gettysburg turned out to be fantastic. We started at the new visitors center (very cool) and watched a movie narrated by Morgan Freeman about the battlefield. I decided that if a movie is ever made about my life, I want Morgan Freeman to narrate it. Or Alastair Moyer. Or Kim. After the movie we went upstairs to an exhibit called the "Cyclorama". You're forgiven for assuming that a "Cyclorama" is a bicycle exhibition. In fact, it's a huge 360 degree painting which depicts a crucial moment on the last day of the battle. It was done by a French painter and includes thousands of figures. You stand in the middle while a guide points out the most interesting parts of the pictures. Downstairs there's a big museum, which is interesting but overwhelming.

After the visitor center we headed over to lunch at a little restaurant (cheeseburger: $4.50) and then walked through the town center. We stopped at an antique shop where a man who saw our license plate asked us some questions about being from Washington. As we turned to leave he asked us a couple more. Then as we attempted to make our way to the door he continued asking us rephrased versions of questions we'd always answered. We eventually managed to squeeze out the door.

One place that surprised us was a store that billed itself as a "museum where everything's on sale". It was all real artifacts with price tags on them. We bought a bullet for $2 and sent it to my dad. We were going to buy the tree stump with a cannonball and bullets in it for $15,000 but it had already been sold.

That evening we started out on an audio tour of which we were both a little dubious. The idea is that you drive around the battlefield while listening to explanatory history on CD. It actually turned out to be amazing as we sat at each spot hearing what happened there. Once it got dark we headed over to a cool underground restaurant Kim had found for dinner.

The next day we finished up the audio tour and felt like we'd really gotten a good feel for the history of the area and what happened. Little Round Top was just like I'd imagined it. Devil's Den was an out of place outcropping of huge rocks that look like it was made to film a war movie. It's sobering to think of what actually happened there. The strangest part of the battlefield was standing on the Confederate positions and looking across the field they charged. And by 'charged' I mean 'walked slowly' while getting mowed down by cannons and bullets. Then to go across the field and see what the Union soldiers would have seen at the same moment. It had to be stunning for them that the Confederates would just line up and walk towards them like they did. Crazy. Also, the whole battlefield is littered with hundreds of monuments to different states and regiments and brigades. Some of them had flowers on them.

That night we watched the movie 'Gettysburg'. It's about 15 years old (and looks it), but it's quite moving as it tells the stories of different soldiers on each side of the battle. All together, we feel like we got a thorough understanding of the battle, the history behind it, and a picture of the different people involved. We highly recommend it.

Just a quick note if you do go: You'll probably expect places like 'Cemetery Ridge' and 'Seminary Ridge' to be located on land discernibly higher than the land around it. In South Eastern Pennsylvania, you'd be surprised as what qualifies as a topographical feature. Kim and I were routinely confused by discussions about the Union troops occupying the 'high ground' that was pointed out to us. Usually this amounted to a piece of land that would only be recognized as higher in elevation than that around it by an experienced surveying crew.

On the way back we stopped in Frederick, Maryland to patronize "the largest used book store in the Washington-Baltimore area". As Kim and I are both book people, we were visibly excited, having prepared our lists of what books we want. What we found was "the least organized book store in the Washington-Baltimore-Ottawa-Fairbanks-Kansas City-Los Angeles-Tokyo area". The store was divided into traditional book store sections. From there it's all downhill as books of the same subject (interpreted loosely) are crammed into shelves in no particular order. I asked about a particular book and was taken to a corner of the store and told the book 'would be in here if we have it'. The section was a horrifically shelved section of books, many of which belonged in another section. One upside was that all books in Russian were $.99. So there's that.

After the bookstore we went and saw Averill at Goucher College in Baltimore. We went and got lunch which made Averill's day as it was not the Goucher cafeteria. Then it was picking up a new chair at Ikea (an excellent reading chair that you can enjoy should you come visit us) and back home to get ready for the week.

Gosh, I always go way too long on this. Sorry everyone.

Our Bed and Breakfast

This is the Confederate position on Seminary Ridge. In the background on the right are Little Round Top and Big Round Top.

This is the field that the Confederates marched across during Pickett's Charge on the last day of the battle.

This is the view from Little Round Top. The rocks in the middle of the picture is called Devil's Den. On the left near the little shed is the area called the Slaughter Pen because of all the men who died there. The Union troops on this hill had clear shots at Confederate soldiers attacking up the hill.



Here we are standing on top of Devil's Den.



Gettysburg from a look out tower.


This picture was taken behind the center of the Union lines. Pickett's Charge got as far as the tree in the middle before being pushed back.

In the background you can see all the monuments to all the different regiments and brigades. These were everywhere on the battlefield. This exact spot marked the turning point of the war.

Not to Brag but...

The weather here has been ridiculously beautiful! Averill, one of the kids in the youth group, came to visit this weekend. He is going to college about 60 miles north of us. We went to the zoo on Sun with Jason and Jack. It was 73 degrees and so fun. Yesterday Jack and I ran around Roosevelt Island and today we played in a creek by his house forever in 60 degree weather. It has been so nice to have the sun out and having it feel like spring. Patrick had pipe night a couple of nights ago bc it was so nice outside. Not to worry, the weather is going to get cold again this weekend just in time for our trip to Gettysburg. We'll follow up about Gettysburg next week. Hope everyone is well.

Baraking the Weekend

I could spend hours detailing all the things that happened this weekend and what all we did but I'm not sure how many of you would appreciate that or read it as it would stretch for pages and the little bubble on the side of the screen indicating how far down the screen you've scrolled would be barely visible as it would be so small. But our friends who visited this weekend did a great job of chronicling the events blow by blow and other pictures- you can check that out here:http://losloya.blogspot.com/
Jake and Carlee are two great friends from Bellingham who are some of the best people you could ever want to meet. Unless you're uncomfortable being mocked a little. In that case, go find other friends. They arrived Friday night and it was cold. By cold I mean -3 wind chill or something like that. If anyone from Wisconsin or Maine is reading this, sorry to complain about 11 degrees when you're in the middle of -45 degrees, and also, can you send me some cheese or lobster? It's just uncomfortable to leave the house right now.
Here are the highlights of the past couple of days:
1. Inauguration opening concert on Sunday the 18th. We knew we'd have to arrive early as only 3 musicians and actors in the whole country had been left out of the lineup. We wanted to get a prime spot but honestly there were so many performs I thought they might be taking up the prime spots. And I didn't want to have to push James Taylor out of the way just to get a better view of the stage.
We arrived at 7:30 am for a 2:30 show. Plenty of time? Barely. We got a pretty good spot near the front and next to tree we were hoping we could climb on a little to get a better view. Things filled in pretty quickly and we thought all was progressing nicely until Jake and Carlee left to get food. They almost didn't get back. As more and more people started arriving they just kept pressing forward. And forward. No room? No problem, just keep shoving in! You had to keep your extremities close to your body because if not before you knew what was happening there'd be a whole family camped out in between you and your arm. After they had returned victoriously with the food I made the mistake of having to go to the bathroom. I have never really fought my way through a crowd like this before. (Keep in mind we're still 3 hours away from show time here). I was able to reach the bathrooms (about 75 yards away) in only 10 minutes or so, but when I came out, someone on stage started playing. It was only a mic test but no matter, let's all 400,000 (actual number) of us press forward towards the stage anyway and crush all in our path! It was sort of like watching a tunnel collapse- instead of making your way through a maze, now you have to swim through the rubble. It took over 45 minutes for us to travel those 75 yards and people were not happy about it. The whole story's long but I almost got in a fight with two guys who just REFUSED to let me by. At first they were annoyed and then it became a matter of principle for them that I would not get by. At one point I tried to push past one of the guys only for him to reach out and push be back while yelling "Aint gon happen!" Basically everyone around us got involved and was arguing about whether or not I should be able to get through. Kim and Jake could see me and were yelling and when I finally broke through (at much personal risk to my own safety) the whole crowd cheered. It felt like something out of a cheesy Disney movie.
Ok, that was really long and I left out the crazy guy climbing our tree, falling out of the tree, barely missing Jake, but not missing 3 other people, one of whom got really crushed. The concert itself was good as each performer did one piece or a couple of them played together. We were close enough to really see all of them which was cool. Obama spoke which was cool too. People went crazy every time they saw him on the screen and then when he came on stage. Finally the show was over and we headed into town to get dinner... That was a whole nother adventure which I'll spare you.
On Tuesday we got up at 3:00 am, were at the metro by 4:30, rode into town, got off at our stop by 5:15 because the metro was already backed up from all the cars on the track, and then... Just stopped. The metro station was full. Just full. Like when a pot is full, the extra water spills out, this was like that. People were slowly crushing toward the exit and swarming up the stopped escalators. But the crowd was happy. Everyone was waving flags and cheering. We finally got up the stairs, out onto the street, now let's run to the mall! Wait, the streets are also full... We finally make it the 3 blocks to the mall and the street was closed off. We were on 7th and they said we'd have to go down to 12th to get in. Good grief, could this get more complicated? Oh yes, it can. The street was closed to traffic but we still couldn't walk on it because every police car and horse carrier from the NE United States was parked on that street. And the cops kept yelling for us all to get on the sidewalks. Have they seen the sidewalks? Nowhere near enough room. Finally we made it onto the mall, and by 6:15 had staked out a good spot in view of the capital, in view of a jumbotron, near some speakers. We were the only ones with chairs and sleeping bags because we ignored the "No Backpacks" rule. Suckers. The crowd crush happened all over again and by 7:30 there was no hope of going anywhere. And it was really cold. The ceremony was pretty cool. It was short and to the point. Barak's speech was very good. On our way home we quickly found streets closed and the metro stations jammed to overflowing. And when I say overflowing I mean several city blocks surrounding the entrances just crammed with people. I'd never seen anything like it. We walked home.
Ok, I'll just finish up with some thoughts for you.
1. It was truly amazing to be a part of history like this. You could feel it and see it in the faces around you. The crowd was so excited and didn't seem to mind the cold or the crush. I (Patrick) don't know if I've ever really felt involved in something so specifically American like that before. At the same time I felt a little bit like an outsider. The people around me seemed to be universally hailing Barak as the savior of the world, he who shall undo all past wrongs and make all things right. Let us trust ourselves into his strong hands and may his wisdom pour over us blah blah blah. But I wasn't feeling it. I voted for him, and I think he's exceedingly capable and intelligent. But I wouldn't ask him to kiss my baby. I'm worried about some potential Obama policies. It was just kind of funny feeling, feeling a part of something and yet somehow an outsider.
2. I never want to be in a crazed mob. It felt dangerous to be in a crowd like that where everyone was singing and talking to each other. I can't imagine if everyone was fearing for their lives and running.
3. While I'm still hoping that Obama really will usher in a more bi-partisan ethos in government (don't we say that every four years?), it didn't start at the inauguration ceremony, at least not with the crowd. When Bush was shown on the jumbotron the crows booed like it was their job. When Cheney appeared they booed louder. That didn't offend me. They probably deserved it. But booing George H W Bush and Martha Bush? He was a legitimately good president who embodied many of the things his son didn't. It was just a little disappointing to witness the same old "boo all Republicans and cheer all Democrats". And it would have been exactly the same had McCain won. Oh well. To be fair, Colin Powell got a raucous cheer, but maybe just because he endorsed Obama, who knows.
4. Altogether, it was amazing to be there and I'm glad we endured the early mornings and cold and having to pee. It was even better to do it all with Jake and Carlee. I even think I did a good job of not letting on how insanely jealous I am of all the traveling they've done.
5. Thanks for getting to the bottom of this and in a spirit of renewed American excitement, let me just say that I'm praying for Obama and his family and looking forward to where the next couple of years take us.
Here we are seeing them put the finishing touches on the stage just days before the big day.

This is the line to the concert. Thankfully we were towards the front.


Camped out for the next 7 hours while thousands of people try to crush us.


These are all the crazy people like us waiting to see the concert and hopefully Obama.

There he is welcoming us all to his inauguration weekend.

Yay we survived. This is the little lady that Patrick helped get through the crowds to the bathroom and back, she was so little.

Carlee and I trying to keep warm at 5:30AM on Tuesday. Note that at this point we all looked homeless.

Cheering for something, Oprah, Obama, or maybe even Beyonce or maybe just the fact that the inauguration was finally starting.

Jason (Jack's dad), Patrick, Me, Carlee and Jake enjoying our new President, waiting to check our real lives to see if all our problems are solved yet. Not knowing that the first thing he did in office was force us to walk 6 miles home...sucky.



This is a poster that I (Kim) asked our friend Conner Peirson to make. The faith people are placing on Obama just seems like the type of faith and hope we should be placing in Jesus.

A sports prejudice revisited

As some of you may know, I (Patrick) am a sports fan. This fandom, however, does not extend to all sports. Football, in any of its many forms, is worthy of being showered with praise and honor. Basketball is an undeniably fun sport who's playoffs and finals can justifiably be watched on TV. Baseball's history combined with the mental aspect of the game make it a sport that, while boring at times, is great if your team's competing. I have nothing against soccer and played rugby in college.
That said, there are some sports that are not worth getting out of bed for (Note: I am talking here about watching these sports, not participating in them). I realize that by evening mentioning them on this little-read blog I am wasting your time and mine. These sports are, in no particular order: car racing of any kind, animal racing of any kind, bowling, women's collegiate sports (sorry ladies), rowing, body building, the WNBA, billiards, and many other "sports" that occasionally appear on TV. You are probably thinking that many of the activities I just listed don't even count as sports. You are correct. And I didn't even mention poker.
All that to say that I have firm opinions about every sport. Almost. Hockey has always been difficult for me to categorize. I enjoyed floor hockey in P.E. Activities where i furiously hit things and people repeatedly with sticks usually go over well with me. But the NHL has continually confused me. The sport is fast, very athletic and physical, and requires excellent team work. And yet somehow i was never interested and even bored by it. Here are my main beefs with hockey:
1. The fighting seems like a silly side show. Sports should be interesting and not need drama to punch up the story lines.
2. The goalie and his padding take up 7/8 of the net. I'm sorry, but when your job is best accomplished by laying down and hoping for the best you lose me.
3. There's no way to follow the puck (But read more on this later). The fact the hockey has a spinning red light to let people know their team has scored clues you in that the action is hard to follow.
4. It's not a sport you can just grab a couple friends and go play. Unless you live near a frozen lake. Which not even most polar bears do these days.
Last week a friend here invited Kim and I to an NHL game. The response "I'd rather eat the pencil I'm holding" was almost on my lips when he slipped in the twist: It was free. All of a sudden my curiosity was piqued. I had never been to an NHL game. I could put my long held prejudices to the test and surround myself with people actually interested in hockey. We immediately accepted the invitation while I prepared some of my best hockey-scorning facial expressions.
We arrived at the game (Washington Capitals v. Ottawa Senators) right as it started and found our seats, which, despite being as far from the ice as possible, gave a great view of everything. The only bad thing about our location was that we were out of range of the t-shirt cannon. Seeing the game in person, several things struck me immediately:
1. The puck is (mostly) visible. You can basically follow all the action. Slap shots are still invisible. If the red light goes off it means the shot went in the net. If another player mysteriously appears with the puck somewhere else then the shot must not have gone in the net.
2. I like sports fans no matter what they're rooting for (does not apply to car racing). A family behind us was coaching their 3 year old daughter to say things like 'Go Caps!' and 'The Caps are so good!' Cute.
3. The fouls in hockey are like penalties in football: they can be called at anytime for just about anything. The definition for hooking (which flashed on the jumbotron) is "using your stick to impede the movement of another player" The definition of holding is "holding an opponent from moving with your hands or stick". If both of these weren't happening all game then I must have been watching something else.
4. The intermissions are HORRIBLE. One 15 minute half time is bad enough to sit through in any sport but in hockey both intermissions are 17 minutes. I should have brought a Dostoevsky novel.
5. The most fun part to watch is skirmishes near the goal that usually involve the goal tender, totally unaware of the puck's location, flailing on the ground like a beached whale. Every time the goalie ended up on his back making ice angels I giggled to myself.
I have to admit, barring the endless intermissions, I had a good time at the game. The action was fast and skillful and the fans were fired up. I would still rather go to almost any other sporting event but at least next time I'll know to bring a long novel. And $140 if I want to buy a jersey.

A Day in the Life of Kim and Jack

Today Jack and I made Christmas cookies. It was super fun. I showed up with most of the stuff to make them, shape them, and frost them. When I told Jack that we were making cookies he was stoked. Then I started to pull all the ingredient out while telling him what they were for and how we would use them to make the cookies. Once I pulled everything out he said, "Kim, where are the cookies, I want to eat them." Cute. Later we put all the stuff together and had our dough and again he asked where the cookies were. We cut out Rudolphs, Mittens, Presents, Snowmen that Jack called Johnny the Snowman, and Stockings, baked them and made frosting, lots of frosting of different colors. While they were baking Jack sat in front of the oven and watched them bake making funny faces in the window and saying things like, "oooo", "Kim, can I eat them now?", when I said, no they are too hot right now in the oven he said, "I think they're cold now." Then, you guessed it we frosted the cookies. Jack was making his cookies for the "art show", not sure what that meant but it was cute. All this fun with some good Christmas music in the background. Once we were done we ate cookies and watched Rudolph. Then went back for round two of frosting. It was a fun day.

"I'm ready Kim!"


"Wow, we're making a mess."


"ooooo, I think they're cold now."






"That Good!"

The Cernas in Town

My family plus Meghan (David's girlfriend) came for Thanksgiving. It was so great having them here. I think DC wore them out though, they went to all the major museums, to the top of the Washington Monument, saw the glory of the National Cathedral and still had time to shop and just hang out. I loved having everyone in our little house, surprisingly it fit us all well. Meghan and David did take turns on the couch and the floor-sorry guys, but they didn't complain at all. Meghan and I made dinner for the family and Jack and his parents. My family enjoyed meeting them. It was an all around good week and I really miss having Dad asking me 101 questions about everything I do : ), Meghan and David constantly teasing and laughing with each other and Mom's funny one liners and expressions. It's really quiet here now and I can't wait to see them again for Christmas.



Our table...we had more food than this. Seeing as how we barely had room for our immediate family we decided that we are a long way from being able to host a real Thanksgiving.

Patrick being such the man of the house by carving the turkey he made.

The only thing Meghan bought while she was here, a finger puppet from the Native American Museum.


Mom and Dad walking The Mall.


One of David's cool pictures from the Washington Monument.


Meghan making her Inaugural Address.


Mom and Meghan riding the carousel in at the National Mall (they were the only ones on the "ride").




Here we are totally bored with the DC scene.
(That is Barak's Inauguration stage being build in front of the Capitol.)

Patrick at Work and Play

Well, I know it's been a while since I rapped at y'all but I'm back and I've got some good news.
As some of you know, all my classes are in the evening because the school expects that students will hold jobs and find internships during the day. I've devoted a lot of time this fall to applying for different positions at a lot of places around the city.
In the last couple of weeks I secured two different internships for next semester.
The first is a 15 hour per week research position at the Hudson Institute. I'll be helping the director of the political/military section with several research projects that he has going on. Most of them focus on Russia or central Asia. It's an unpaid position but is extremely flexible. I can work from home or come in to the office. Also, research work is great to have on my resume. Ask me in mid-January how it's going.
The other is a congressional internship (paid!) with Adam Smith from District 9 in Washington. He serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee so I'm looking forward to being involved in that in some way. There will a fair amount of phone answering and mail opening but that's life. Again, I'll let you know how that's going in January.
For now I only have a couple weeks left in my first semester. I have finals in two out of three classes and big papers in two out of three as well. Classes on the whole have been very good. My European Union class is fantastic and I've learned way more than I expected to. I also have an intro to Europe, Eurasia, and Russia. That class has been up and down but I'll be happy to be done with it. My last class is a history of Eastern Europe class which has been good, but I would have liked more lecture. The professor seems to think we understand things better than we do and continually looks for in-depth discussion among the students. The only problem is that we usually don't know what we're talking about. Kim here, real quick Patrick is doing really well in his classes and I am very proud of him.

Enough about work and school, on to other subjects!

Kim's family is coming this week which promises to be a great week. We're really excited to have visitors again and Kim has the whole week scheduled out for them. Kim? Making a detailed schedule? Shocking.

We also bought our tickets home. We get in on the 18th and head straight to Walla Walla. We'll get back to Tacoma on the 24th and be at the First Pres. Christmas Eve service. Then we'll be in Tacoma until the morning of the 1st. Kim is using all her vacation days to be gone for that long. Yikes. No trips home in our future after Christmas for a long time.

Tuesday Nov. 4th

As some of you may have heard, there was an election on Tuesday. Kim and I watched the coverage on Tuesday night and had a map of the US on the wall. As the results came in we colored each state red or blue. We were ready to go to bed at midnight when they showed some footage taken outside the White House. There was a huge crowd (mainly college students) celebrating outside. Kim and I threw on our coats and headed down there. We walked through the crowds and watched as people celebrated. I couldn't help wondering if they knew exactly why they were so happy. Are they just stoked to see a black president or do they really expect life to drastically improve? Or was it just a chance to be a part of something historic?
Immediately follow the election a lot of emotions came to the surface. The coverage on TV immediately turned to Barack's election as historic because he's black. While I appreciate this and understand it's historic significance, many of the comment made on TV bothered me. "America has finally put its racist past behind it." Really? And if the voters of the US had decided that John McCain had better policies and would make a better president then that would mean that we still hadn't dealt with our racism?
"America did the right thing." Did those who vote for McCain do the wrong thing? Have they refused to put their racist past behind them?
I guess I loved that race wasn't an issue during the campaign but it comes out immediately following the results. I do understand how historic it is and I hope it's a great celebration for now and quickly fades to the background. I (Kim) think it will because like our friend Liz said he did not have race as his platform and it's great to rejoice in it but I think his plans and ideas do not revolve around his race.
The other thing that Kim and I had trouble with was the reaction from the Christian community. Not the wider Christian community, just the people with whom we interact. There was such a 'the sky is falling' reaction. A couple people said they were moving to Canada, apparently betraying their ignorance about Canadian social policy. I understand why someone would be worried about aspects of an Obama presidency. But there was so much angry, unthoughtful, reaction. If we are looking to involve ourselves in society, to influence society, and to make our society a more just and godly place, reacting to this election with cynicism, sarcasm, and anger is exactly the wrong way to do it.
Obama won this election because he has a positive and productive view for America's future. McCain came across as not having a positive forward looking program, but as simply attacking Obama. I don't want to follow someone with no idea where to go, I want to follow someone who powerfully points the way to the future. That is what the Christian community needs to do. We do ourselves no good by making thoughtless and reactionary judgments on what the next 4-8 years hold. We will have an impact when we can point the way to a future that others want to be apart of. Right now a lot of Christians aren't doing that.



Kid in a Volvo: Such a beautiful example of Swedish-American unity.



This is the crowd outside the White House.

Milton Delaware

For my birthday Patrick planned a trip out to the Delaware coast. There were a few milestones on this trip. The first was that we had never been to the Atlantic Coast before. It was great seeing it and it was strange seeing the sun set behind us while we looked out on the ocean. Another milestone was while we were driving our Civic hit 100,000 miles! The bummer was that we missed it! So we celebrated the 100,010th mile, which was still ok. And the last milestone was that we bought gas for $1.99!
While we were were there we stayed at bed and breakfast called the Governor's Bed and Breakfast. It was cool, because a lot of Delaware governors are from Milton and some of them lived in this house. While we were there it was 74 degrees and beautiful. We played in the water and went to the little shops around the coast. It was a great break from studying for Patrick and a good change of pace for me.



Patrick's footsteps heading to France instead of Hawaii. That's the Atlantic for you.


This one's for you Brett Taylor! : )



Here we are celebrating our 100,010th mile!


The beautiful drive home. A week later the colors are even more brilliant.