Accents

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I have discovered that the reason that people often think that I talk funny, or that I have an accent, is that I take peoples accents. Completely unintentionally. After country concerts I would always speak with an accent (annoying Laura) and it wouldn't go away for hours. So in response to a comment Shelley made, saying "try taking their accent and seeing if they notice": multiple times I've talked to them and they have no idea I'm foreign. One person asking where I groom Max, "In Washington"- Ohhhhhh they say. They had no idea that the accent I was talking with wasn't local, wasn't just me copying them, without me even noticing. One time I spoke to a woman at a gas station and Laura could of sworn that she said a comment that made no sense, until I told her it was I who said it. But with her accent.

Just thought I'd write this, cause it was an interesting thing I've noticed.

Amy

Acting Out

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Yesterday we drove from somewhere to somewhere else. I cant keep track. Ok, it was at a rest stop in southeast-ish Oklahoma and at a hotel in Monroe, Louisiana. It was a lovely drive and I’m enchanted by the south altogether so far. We stopped off at a dam and saw a sign about alligators being around. For some reason Amy wouldn’t let me near the water. How little trust! We headed toward New Orleans, our destination for the night. We stopped by another lake in Louisiana to stretch and relax a little. The water here is nothing like the lakes in Washington. You get in the water and it’s warmer than the air. Crazy, seeing as the air is 90 degrees or so. We swam for a wee bit and decided that we had to head on. It was, after all, getting to be around 5 or 6pm or so and we had a long drive to get to New Orleans. As we were leaving, our car decided to throw a tantrum and made some scraping noises. We looked at it there and saw nothing, but soon noticed that, oh, we have no power steering or A/C. Great. We headed to the nearest large city in order to get a repair shop. Seeing as it was Sunday, nothing was open, so we got a hotel in Monroe. $60 seemed like a lot of money compared to the $0 we spend every time we sleep in the car. We got it worked on today at a dealership- it was just a belt of some sort that had broke. The people there were some of the friendliest I’ve met. Amy loves their accent. In fact it seems to be the thing she loves most about this area.

We made it to just outside New Orleans tonight, after touring Start, La and Star, Mississippi (I cant remember it’s abbreviation) – the hometowns of Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. (Start, an pretty empty town with nothing in it, was one of the most exciting things for Amy on this whole trip. She loves Tim McGraw that much.) This hotel is even more expensive than last night, but it’s totally worth it to have internet, right? Yeah.

Well, I’m out for tonight. We have pictures on the photobucket account from the last few days (I’m not sure if we’ll get the ones from today up or not)

Out,

Laura

Titleless

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Yesterday we were driving towards Santa Fe from Arches and noticed that Mesa Verde is actually on the way. We had originally planned on skipping Mesa Verde, seeing Guadelupe Nat’l Park instead. However, Guadelupe was out of the way, Mesa Verde wasn’t. Therefore, we stopped by. As is necessary with lots of the roads we drove on, there was construction. Not bad construction, normally done in 5-10 minutes, but the kind where you wait, follow a car on a skinny windy path for a long time, then you’re free. Once we got to the top of the mountains (why did they choose such a cliff like place to live?! Not cool. Amy no like cliffs.) we couldn’t really go to a lot of places without a) a ticket, and b) with a dog. We would do two methods: Laura goes and sees it and Amy stays in the car to make sure it doesn’t get too hot, or we go, but are gone for no longer then 2 minutes, with windows down and with lots of water for max.

We didn’t get on the road again until closer to dinner time, but we managed to get to Santa Fe, which was our goal. We slept in the car again, about 100 yards uphill from a campground. We just stayed in the parking lot. Its cheaper. J This morning we drove around Santa Fe, the capital, a very beautiful place. You’ll see pictures, but it was all adobe and themed and very nice, very spanish. (New Mexico definitely gets two thumbs up, Santa Fe in particular).

After lots of driving (through Northern Texas) we got to Oklahoma. By the way, I (Amy) LOVE southern accents. Oklahoma also gets two thumbs up (so far, its where we’re gonna stay tonight). We went to this little park that was completely flooding, but it was during sunset and it was amazing beautiful. We like the people there too! There were some really funny campers who joked with us.

And finally, we bought the camera adapter so now we can put picutres up on photobucket. Not like you ever knew the difference, seeing as we haven’t even had internet yet to post these up.

But there you go! A nice little update. Hopefully eventually we can actually get these posts up.

Amy

Written: 8.25.07

State Pictures...

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Our goal of taking pictures as failed miserably so far.

Entering Oregon: Laura changed lanes before the “real” sign, so all we got was a small, crappy sign.

Entering Idaho: There was construction so they moved us to the other side of the freeway, the sign, however, remained far across the valley, too small in the picture to see.

Entering Utah: Mile Post 3. Mile post 3?? What the? Are we in Utah?

Entering Colorado: Mile Post 4. Mile post 4??? What the? Are we in Colorado?

We will, however, try to continue this tradition.

Meanwhile, we are greatly enjoying the book on CD we purchased, called “In the Woods”. I want to play it constantly, both Laura, the pooperscooper of the group, says it makes her tired. She does enjoy it though..

We’d like to apologize that you receive all of these posts at one time, unlike in Washington, there is not wifi at every rest stop. (very upsetting, I agree)

Adios,

Amy

Began: 8/23/07

Perfected until the 25th

My time to shine

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Aha! Finally I (Laura) have control of the entry! Amy decided to let me sight see and took over the driving responsibilities for a little. Which means that I’m free to write whatever my heart contents. Anything from the itch on my ankle to where we stayed yesterday is fair game, if you ask me. Ok ok I wont bother you with the ankle thing… plus my ankle doesn’t actually itch, that was just an example. Anyway, last night we rolled into Moab at around 9 or 10. Arches itself was full (campsites… it wasn’t physically filled in with packing peanuts or foam or anything), so we found another campsite off our handy AAA campbook.

It said there was one about 9 miles up this small road, including 6 miles of gravel road, so we headed out there. Keep in mind it was pretty much pitch black out. The road started winding around a canyon, winding up the side of it. With steep sides. I was calm- I don’t normally drive off the road, why would now be any different? Amy on the other hand… Amy oh Amy. She was freaking out the entire time. When we got to where our campsite was, we decided that, eh, we didn’t want to stay there. Partly because we didn’t really know where we were, partly because we thought it was full (which we learned was not true later), so we turned around and looked for a motel. Did you realize that motels are expensive? The cheap one was going to be around $70. no way jose. Back to camping. We found a really nice site just north of Arches.

This morning we checked out the park, seeing as the last time I was there was when I was 3ft tall. It’s hard to see much with a dog, as they arent allowed most places. But we did some nice car viewing. Not watching cars. Don’t be silly. After looking at the awesome geology, and going ga-ga over some amazing cross-bedding (OMG it was beautiful! And I’m not even a soft rock geologist), we decided to go back to the scary cliff area from last night. And Amy was going to drive it. No, she didn’t kill us. Unless she did, and I came back from the dead to write this. Now you’ll never know if we made it back alive or not! HA! We drove along the road for about 30 minutes or so. It is incredibly beautiful there- I almost want to say that it’s more beautiful than Arches, but that feels like it’s blasphemous or something. So I wont actually say it… you can just know I was thinking it.

And now, now we are on our way to Santa Fe. At least that’s the plan. I’ll let you know later where we actually ended up.

Oh yeah, we still don’t have a cord to upload our pictures to the computer. If/when we get one, we’ll start uploading pictures (granted we have internet access- I’m thinking we should just start sitting nearby wi-fi hotspots and stealing it… we just are yet to go to that effort).

Peace out,

Laura

Written:

8/24/07 1:45pm

Generalizations, part 1.

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Washington: all the Canadians speed. Reason, best answer is that they are used to going “20” over, they feel more comfortable with the idea. If we go to Canada, we don’t want to go more then 5 over, even though in Kilometers, that isn’t that much. Another possibility: Canadians are crazy. (This may not be about Washingtonians per se, but, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Washingtonians and no generalizations can be made. We are all unique individuals. That is not true about other states though.)

Oregon: The gas stations are ridiculous, they’re not self pay, meaning you can’t just get gas and go, especially since when you get there you can’t see anybody nearby to fill you up.

Idaho: …they like to widen their roads near cities…

Utah: Very Mormon. The billboards are all for homes, kids and marriage. For instance “two toddlers, twins on the way? Buy our washing machine.”

Day Number 1!

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Day number one of our travels, the day where the fact that we’re going on a ROAD TRIP may actually hit us.

7:00- Wake up, burst of energy. “*beat* we’re actually going”. We finish up our packing, such as getting things into the car, finishing toiletries, and moving things from the fridge into the cooler.

8:40- We leave, first stopping at QFC, the bank and starbucks. We head south on I-5. Amy is freaking out for her pending drive test.

10:00- Arrive in Auburn, our first pit stop. For, of course, one of the most important “to-dos”. We have an hour to kill before my drive test starts. We take Max to a local park, walk around, see the sights.

11:15- Have to wait another 15 minutes for drive test, they’re backed up.

11:35- Amy takes drive test, embarasses herself on both backing around a corner and parrallel parking, but passes the test nonetheless. I -(yes, I will refer to myself in both 3^rd and 1^st person, not just in one post, but in one paragraph)- am thrilled, take a picture of me with my license. Sadly, it takes us an hour and a half in line to actually get my license, meaning we can’t leave until 1:00pm. During this hour and a half, Laura entertains many kids outside with Max. One young girl, possibly 8 or so in age, asks Laura if her daughter passed her drive test. Yes, her daughter. Laura very kindly responded, “what are you, dumb?” or “well, my sister did”. One or the other. This is a profound moment in Laura’s life. At 21, she can be the mother of an 18 year old.

1:00- Begin route to Portland to see Jeffrey and Jolene!

4:20- Arrive in Portland to a house full of food. They made delious food for us, including pancakes (made from scratch!), mashed potatoes, and ribs (ucky says the vegetarian). We sit and visit for a few, very enjoyable hours. Jolene shows a picture that she took in which Jeff looks exactly like B (other brother who may wish to remain nameless), its amazing actually. (She cut his hair the same) We are very sad when we have to go, but we must travel on.

6:50- We start travel towards Boise, with plans to stop at one of many campgrounds from Oregon to Idaho. We weren’t sure which we’d get to. Beautiful scenary. “We never knew Oregon was so pretty!”. Amazing, taking tons of pictures which do not begin to capture the true beauty of the water, the rocks of which we continuously try to identify and the neverending evergreens.

8:00- Beautiful sunset

9:00- Turn on the loud, energetic music so we stay awake. I start to drift to sleep, kinda hurt my neck. Well, what you’d imagine from sleeping with your head dangling and waking up suddenly, lifting your head too quickly.

11:30- Pull into rest stop, see no “no overnight stay”signs. Decide to stay overnight. We didn’t want to bother moving the stuff and putting the seats down, therefore Amy sat in the back seat and Laura in the passenger. Max got drivers seat. Woke up well rested, albeit rather sore and stiff (couldn’t ever extend to full length). Max behaved very well, we never disturbed the other guests there. We were able to leave bright and early. (Before 7:00am). We have no idea where we stopped, somewhere in Eastern Oregon. (Laura says somewhere near Pembleton).

Amy

Written: 8.22.07

On the road!

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Sorry that it has taken so long to post. Each night I, the superior officer of this group, delegate the task of writing this blog to Laura, my little minion. Sadly, she does not follow through, sometimes with the most mundane of excuses, for instance: “I was being chased by a bear”. Well this isn’t actually true, the truth is a little less interesting, for simply we get too tired at night to want to.

However, now, we are on the road! I write this from my laptop, which is plugged in, meaning I never have to turn it off. Muahahah. So I’ll figure I’ll give you an idea of how I got from our last post to now, seeing as there have been a great deal many changes.

We’ve spent the last few days as we did previous, we wake up at 6:00am. Or maybe 7:00…or was that 8:00. Oh I know, we’d actually get out of bed at 9:00am. But still, that’s morning at least. No matter what time we wake up, Laura and I write a list of things to do that day and we start checking them off. One important thing to cross of this list was finish a movie called “Bleakhouse” (by Charles Dickens), of which I was watching with Sarah. We began the movie over a week ago, but we had to get together at least 5 times to finish it. It was an over eight- hour movie, making it ok that it took that many days to finish it.

Every time that Laura and I would think of some random little thing to do, bring or buy, we’d right it down, in barely eligible ink slanted across random pages. Somehow, by this morning we were able to finish everything that we could think of, and I don’t believe (as of now), that we forgot anything. …(except my camera cord)

I think I’m gonna leave this post here, a nice little recap of our last few days, of which we’ve been ignoring you, our dearest and most adoring fans.

So until next time (immediately),

Amy

Written: 8.22.07

Tip Top Shape!

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This morning we took the car to the Hyundai place to make sure that it was in tip top shape, which, luckily it is! We were very happy with these results, cause now our parents fully trust that we'll be safe riding around a lot, far, far away. I also got my permit renewed, so I can drive around and get used to Laura's car. This is especially important seeing as I will be taking my drive test in her car, because we made an appt for the morning of departure, on the way down to our first destination!

Meanwhile to all this car prep and research done on my part, Laura helped our Dad work on building a shed in the backyard. I only bring this up because Laura, like the genius that she is, decided that she would rather hammer her finger than the nail. This has left it kinda swollen and bloody looking. Lovely, lovely.

This evening we went on a drive in the beautiful car, of whom we have yet to name. We practiced all those things I'll need to know for my drivers test. We came home and went on a shopping excursion, buying a cooler, an extra sleeping pad, lots of stuff for Max, the dog, including a nice, closable food holder and new, secure leashes.

(We will put up photos with us and the car on photobucket....soon)

Au revoir,
Amy

Those other things...

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Yesterday morning we woke up bright and early, ready to attend the lovely thing called Summerstart. We set off to WWU to check in, hoping that my schedule would be what we want, with orientation in the afternoon. Why, you ask? Because orientation is not something that I find necessary to attend, seeing as all it is a meet and greet where you learn information that I already know. So, we were very pleased to see that, yes, in fact, we could skip orientation and keep the afternoon free. I went to my morning advising where I signed up for my first three college classes ever at WWU.

Laura and I packed up more of our brother's things, ready to move him even more. Once in Edmonds, we took Laura's new car, one which I had yet to even see in the daylight, on a nice thirty or forty minute drive. We love that car, by the way. We ended the day with a very official meeting, held in Conference Room AB (Amy's Bedroom) where we planned out today.

Sadly little preparation for our trip was made yesterday, but on the other hand, we are crossing off those random, necessary things that must be done before we leave.

Amy

Success! well, sort of...

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The two of us went up to Bellingham today for two reasons: so Amy could take her math placement test, and to help our brother move. While there we went to the DMV so Amy could take her written test... aka the "knowledge test", although there are some questions on there that a simpleton couldnt get wrong. Case and point: my brother (that one that we helped move) had the question "which side of the road do you drive on?". TWICE. Yes. But anyway, the DMV was full and it took us approximately 1:37 to have our number called. That's just an approximation. I think that the people around us got sick of hearing our voices... well, Amy's voice... and one lady even got up and left. But I like to think that she just changed her mind and didnt actually want to get her license renewed.

While there we decided that, eh, Amy didnt really want to take her math placement test. So she didnt. So bad.

When we came back here, I went out with my dad to pick up my car. Well, to buy it. Then pick it up. It usually goes in that order. Unless you're financing, then I guess you get to pick it up before you pay anything. But I digress. I now am the owner of a 2001 Hyundai Santa Fe. Black in color. I'm in love. And the best thing is:

Buy Car... CHECK!

Until next time,

Laura

The Beginning.

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Set scene: Laura and Amy are deciding what to do for the day, take a ferry to Kingston and eat ice cream (Amy LOVES this idea) or go on a drive. We choose the drive, a nice long one to Kellogg (our favorite). We are driving along and begin to discuss our recently foiled plan of driving to Alaska. We would need to bring our lovely dog, Max. Through Canada. Not easy. Therefore, Laura suggests continental US. This is where our Journey Begins.

Keep in mind, this happened yesterday, Monday 8/13/07. We discussed this trip for the whole car ride and instantly fell in love. We were excited, we're not people who get excited easily. We got home and chose a departure date, 8/21/07, giving us 8 days to prepare.

We make a long list of everything we need to do, the list is long. It includes a few simple things, like buying stuff for Max, the dog, and getting some maps. It also includes a few things like...buying a car, and getting me (the younger one) a license. You know, little chores, easy to accomplish in a week, right? Instantly we started looking at cars online, my dad...surprised to say the least, that we plan to purchase a car in a week.

This morning the real adventure began, we woke up and found that our house, rather, our whole street, had no water. Lovely. First things first, we drove to the beach to "potty". We were very successful after our first, and most important, errand. We bought clothes at Value Village (because Laura is living out of a storage unit 75 miles away), we went to AAA and got a BUTTLOAD of books, maps and information galore. By the way, we love AAA, they're a godsend. We came home, did online financial mumbo-gumbo that I don't really care for too much, and went out again that afternoon. We looked at cars at multiple dealerships, came through rather unharmed, save for a few...run-ins with our Dad. Let me remind you that he is not too keen on this idea of a speedy purchase.

But this leaves us where we are now, writing a blog to tell all of you what we are doing. So, until next time,

Amy and Laura