Here in Cali

Sorry to double-post, but otherwise I'll never catch up. I'm in San Francisco right now, well actually Palo Alto, where I'm staying with a family my brother knows. Yesterday I drove from Portland down to Sacramento, where I had an interview with the class of '95 valedictorian, a lovely woman who is now a stay-at-home mom, and happens to be the kind of person who agrees to house you after a long drive for only the price of an interview. Deal.

Then this morning I stopped in Santa Rosa to interview an artist in his studio, and I ended up hanging out with him for several hours. He had all kinds of good stories and interesting theories about art, plus a backyard full of wildlife. I mean seriously, what else is there? Wine country was beautiful—I just love seeing all those plants in perfect alignment. Tell me that doesn't appeal to everyone's inner perfectionist! And yes, Dad, I said hi to Dennis Quaid. Anyone who doesn't get that can email me off-blog, because I don't want to embarrass my dad by revealing that his favorite movie is the new Parent Trap—the one with Lindsay Lohan. Oh, oops! :)

Then this afternoon I drove down to Oakland to talk with a superior court judge. He had some good prank stories, my favorite of which was sliding a manila envelope full of shaving cream under someone's door, open-side in, then you step on the envelope and all the shaving cream squirts out into the room. A great way to get someone, even if he locks his door. He was also fortuitously saved from being drafted despite having the number 26 and being classified as 1A due to the fact that he went to Notre Dame. You'll have to wait for the podcast to hear that one.

Now I'm in Palo Alto, and we just had an earthquake—my first earthquake ever! (Is there a "Baby's First Earthquake" or something out there?) Apparently it was a 5.6, but it didn't seem that bad. Not that I really have a point of reference. We all just kind of looked at each other and then it passed after about 15 seconds, no big deal. No one else made a move to do anything, so I didn't make a move either, not actually knowing what one is supposed to do. Acting nonchalant, while good in a nonchalant sort of way, probably isn't the way to go in the future, but there doesn't seem to be a clear consensus about what to do. Some say go outside, others say then the building might fall on you, but won't it fall on you for certain if you're indoors, etc. So I'm kind of just hoping I won't have to confront that issue again while I'm here. Now I'm going to bed for some hopefully quake-free rest.

Oh, and one more thing (shout out to Clare Burgess): When you're winding through the mountains going 75 mph, and you start to get kind of hungry, wouldn't you think that a minibox of Rice Krispies would be an ideal snack? Trust me, it's not.

OR they?

I had a great time in "the other Portland" as I like to call it. Same name, different coast, no other real similarities so I will not compare. I had a great time staying with my friend Danica's mom, Pam, who took ridiculously good care of me. I have never seen a fridge so well-stocked, and I even walked away with some beautiful, one-of-a-kind jewelry that she made herself. I'll keep you all posted when she has a website, because her work is amazing, and I say that as someone who rarely wears jewelry!

As many of you know, Portland is home to the University of Portland, which considers itself the Notre Dame of the west. I'll leave that one alone, but it is run by the Congregation of the Holy Cross (CSC--the acronym of their French name), the same order of priests and brothers that runs ND. I unabashedly love the CSCs. They are awesome guys, very positive and encouraging, and they are a really strong community of faith. Fr. Stephen Koeth, one of my interviewees in Portland, noted that the family atmosphere at ND is really just an echo of the CSC's community, and I wholeheartedly agree. All of the priests I had as professors were really incredible people, and I've stayed in touch with many of them since I graduated. Enough gushing, but I got to interview several CSCs while I was in Portland, since they all go through theo/philo training at ND, so they are all alumni. I got to hear some great stories about Fr. Moreau, the founder of the order who was just beatified last month, and who was apparently an accomplished mimic of his professors at the seminary. I won't disclose my source on that one :)

And it turns out I picked the right week to go to Portland, because my visit coincided with a visit from one of my favorite profs at ND, and one of my favorite people, Fr. Bill Miscamble. Fr. Bill taught me history at ND, and one of the best things about his class, aside from the fascinating subject matter, is the fact that he has an Australian accent and, as he says, a crooked arm that sticks out in the shape of a boomerang. He could have been reading from the dictionary and our class would have been riveted! He's the only person I know who calls me "sport" and "mate," and says "g'day" on his voicemail message without a hint of irony. We got to go have coffee at UP, just as we do when I visit ND. It was an unexpected treat. I was also reunited with my dear old (well, actually pretty young) German/chemistry teacher from Trinity, Mr. Clark. I got to meet his wife and 3 young daughters, the oldest of whom is 5 years old and came home with her first library card when I was there. She was also 75 pages into her book, which had fairly large print but no pictures. As if Herr Clark would have non-genius children! Anyway, that was a really fun interview, with some great stories about ND band mishaps and overzealous chipmunks.

Fr. Bill Hund spent nearly the entire day with me on Thursday, giving me a tour of the UP campus, taking me to lunch and introducing me to a bunch of faculty members, and then I went to "guest night" with their community for Mass and dinner and got to meet some PACE teachers. (PACE is the Pacific NW version of ND's ACE, the Alliance for Catholic Education, where young grads teach in poor schools and get their Masters in ed. at the same time.) It was a great day, and I felt very at home. But that night I had a really scary moment, the only one I've had on this entire trip. I was driving back to Pam's on this unbelievably windy (with a long 'i') road. On the way to the university that morning, it was a spectaculary fun drive—I thought it was almost too fun to be allowed; it was like a closed course you see on a car commercial. But on the way home in the dark, it was really unnerving, especially when I saw a deer hanging out by the side of the road. I would very much prefer to get through this trip without hitting a deer, so that definitely freaked me out. I think that's the only time on this whole trip that I've really felt like something bad might happen to me, which is strange considering what a worrier I am (as my brother Steve says, if I didn't freak out about things, I wouldn't be me. I prefer to say that if I haven't freaked out about something, it's not even a hypothetical, so how are we talking about it? Kind of a chicken and egg sort of thing.)

On Friday I interviewed Matt and Bob, a couple of profs at UP who are both triple Domers, and they team-teach a course on marriage. One's in theo, one's in soc, and they act like an old married couple themselves, so of course I had to interview them together. The best part was at the end of the interview, when I realized (while the mic was still on, thankfully!) that Matt's shoes had been off for the entire interview. I called him out on it, and Bob says, "I KNOW! He takes his shoes off every class, and I'm always tripping over them!" They went back and forth for a good 10 minutes, and I just tried to laugh on the inside so I wouldn't wreck the tape.

I took the weekend off. I got to go to the original Powell's on Saturday—the City of Books. I spent a few hours there, and managed to escape having purchased only two books, which I think shows remarkable restraint on my part. Being on the road must be having a good effect on my willpower. I went to a nice dinner that night at Jake's Grill, a historic Portland restaurant, with Fr. Hund and Peg Hogan, a prof at UP that I know from when I worked at Notre Dame a few years ago. Then I spent the whole day Sunday with Pam and her friend Paul at the Oregon coast, which was so relaxing. I have now officially reached the end of the Oregon Trail—without starving to death or having any of my oxen drown, thank you very much.

Finishing up...

I know I haven't been very consistent with the blog lately, but I'm doing my best! I'm actually in Portland right now (that would be the other Portland), but I wanted to finish telling you about my time in Seattle, and then I'll get to where I am now, probably tomorrow because I'm tired.

This past Sunday, I went to the aquarium with Kristen, Jim and the kids. We went to Pike's Market first for lunch, and here's a tip: don't go to Pike's Market for lunch with 3 children and an infant. It's not really set up for family dining. Kristen and I were saying later that sometimes having children in the city is a huge pain, but the payoff is that when you go to a place like the aquarium, you get a lot more out of it. Kids just have no filter, and they are not shy about letting you know when something is cool. So we WOWed around the aquarium for a few hours, and the kids pointed at the eels and squealed with delight at the otters, and sometimes just sat wide-eyed in front of the fish tanks. It was way more fun than going with older people. My whole time at Kristen's house was really fun—a nice break from work!

And there was plenty of work. I had a bunch of interviews this week in Seattle. A couple of the most notable:

—I talked to Jerry Kane, class of '38. I walked into his apartment at his assisted living place and started getting out my gear, and he asked me what I was going to do to him. I thought he was just being funny, and I told him I was just going to record our interview, like I had said on the phone. Turns out he's been sick lately, and he thought I was there to draw blood. We both got a good laugh out of that, and then he told me incredible stories about riding an open boxcar from Seattle to Chicago to get to school, and then coping with the death of his first wife from Alzheimer's.

—I also interviewed Karen Moyer, wife of MLB pitcher Jamie Moyer, daughter of famed ND basketball coach Digger Phelps, and certainly a force to be reckoned with in her own right. She's the mother of 7 kids, and she started and runs a foundation that gives grants for the research of childhood diseases and organizes camps for sick and bereaved children. And Steve Stone introduced her to her husband back when he pitched for the Cubs. I mean, seriously.

And one last thing about Seattle: Everyone knows it rains in Seattle. A lot. But everyone I met kept saying things like, "on a clear day, you can see Mt. Rainier from here," and I thought, so, you're saying one day a year you can see a mountain. Big deal. But as it turns out, I am the luckiest person in the world, because I experienced two clear days in a row in Seattle. And driving into that city on a clear day was absolutely incredible. To get there from the East Side, I had to drive across one of the floating bridges (520, for those of you who know the area.) As it approaches the city, 520 goes uphill a little bit, and as you drove up the hill on a clear day, you just see this row of snow-capped mountains in the distance. Then when you come over the top of the hill, you're on the bridge, with water on both sides (can't remember if it's the lake or the Sound, or both), and the whole city is right there in front of you, all these houses built into the sides of the hills, and skyscrapers off in the distance. It was absolutely incredible, and the best part was that I got to see it like that twice, since I had to go downtown on those two clear days.

So the moral of the story is, visit Seattle if you get the chance. Seattle, Seattle, Seattle. Ok, I'm done now :)

Attention, Trinity girls!

Guys, I got an email from our beloved Mr. Clark—or Herr Clark, as he was known to those of us lucky enough to take German. Turns out Herr Clark is an ND grad, and I'm interviewing him in Portland this Thursday. Let me know if you have any burning questions you've always wanted to ask him, or if you want me to ask him to re-tell any of his old stories for posterity. Like how he lost his Brooklyn accent because everyone in his new school in Cleveland asked for choowocolate ice cream...or the time his favorite chemistry class class brought him M&Ms for National Mol Day :) Email me your ideas!

Let's go, Buffalo!

This weekend, my dad's side of the family is having our annual reunion in Buffalo, NY. Every fall for the last 15 years, we've driven out there for a Bills game, but of course, we don't just show up on Sunday and then leave. On Saturday, about 40 people descend on my cousin Andy's house for pizza and wings, and we all watch the Notre Dame game (very unfortunate this year!), and then on Sunday we go to the Bills game, driving to Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park via my dad and Uncle Joe's "special route." It may look farther on the map, but woe to anyone who would question their expert knowledge of traffic patterns in the city of Buffalo on game day.

Obviously I'm not there this year, and I'm very sorry to miss it! I hope you guys have good weather this year. Go Bills!

Oh, the raindrops...

I've never been to the Pacific Northwest before, and I have really been looking forward to coming to Seattle. Seattle has always interested to me, having grown up in the grunge rock era, and also because I find that double t next to the l so appealing. Seattle. I could just spell it all day!

So far it's been alot like what I was expecting. When I arrived, Pearl Jam was playing on the radio, and it was...raining! I know, huge surprise, it's the rain forest. Driving in the rain is such a pain, because I can never get the windshield wiper speed just right. Too fast and it squeaks, too slow and you can't see. It completely distracts me. But residents say the beautiful mountains and the ocean make it worth the rainy climate, and I can see that.

Anyway, enough of this gripping weather report. On Thursday afternoon I drove from Missoula into Seattle, well actually Duvall, where my cousin Kristen and her husband Jim live with their four children. When I was 14, I was a junior bridesmaid in Kristen's wedding, and it's really cool to see her and Jim now almost 15 years later as parents. I'm blessed to come from a family of very competent women, and Kristen is no exception. She's totally on top of things, and Jim's no slouch, either! I know some readers of this blog will be happy to know that two of my young cousins are redheads :) As soon as I got here, I was pulled into a high-stakes game of hide and seek, and this afternoon we had a rousing game of "Katie Says." I'm hoping the novelty doesn't wear off on that one...for them!

Yesterday I had an interview in Everett with Bill O'Neil, a 1946 grad who was a track and field All-American and just recently returned from his 23rd trip to Ireland. He and his wife prepared a nice lunch for me, and she left us alone to talk Notre Dame. Bill had lived in my dorm (yea, BP!) for a year, so we had lots to talk about. Afterward I drove up to Vancouver to see Zack and Beatrice, friends from Portland and fellow Salties who moved out here for grad school. There was a LONG wait at the border, but it was definitely worth it! We went out to dinner at a hip little restaurant in their neighborhood, then went for a driving tour of the city. I heard on the radio that Vancouver is Canada's second most polite city (I saw a bus that said, "Sorry, out of service!" I mean, seriously, how often does public transportation apologize for letting you down?), and it is also home to a clock that runs off of the steam that in other cities just comes up through vents in the sidewalk. At one point we got stuck on what appeared to be an inescapable loop, but that was just an opportunity for Zack to solidify his status as my most patient friend. The thing is that in Canada, the signs are a little confusing, plus Bea and I were laughing too hard to be much help. This morning, we woke up and recited the Pledge of Allegiance—they like to keep it patriotic :)—then ate oatmeal for breakfast and talked politics, urban planning and documentaries. One of my newest paranoias (when do I not worry?) is that I'm not asking the right questions, and when I get to the end of all of this, I'll wish I had done all the interviews differently. But Bea very diplomatically pointed out that at the end of the day, I'll have what I have, and I'll make it work. That may sound obvious, but it's nice to hear. Despite the long drive, it was a very relaxing visit—thanks, guys!

Tonight, I'm doing laundry and indulging my inner old man...hoping to get to bed by 9! :)

Hiking the M

I'm staying in Missoula with Kevin and Susan Miltko, both class of '91. Kevin is president of the club here, and he offered me a place to stay after I cold-called him on his cell phone. The Miltkos are a really cool family—they have three young daughters, plus their "Brazilian daughter," a foreign exchange student who has lived with them for over a year and goes to the University of Montana. The girls are awesome, very enthusiastic and just fun to be around. Kevin and Susan are a dentist and lawyer, respectively, and both are very committed to the community through service work, and they also host a wide variety of guests on a regular basis, so staying here feels very comfortable. Last night after soccer practice Susan made us all brownies and then I wrote thank-you notes while they put together 200 invitations to their annual family Halloween party, now in its 11th year. Susan had bought a bunch of fun stamps, including Star Wars-themed, and 7-year-old Molly's job was to pick who got which stamp. Things went smoothly until Grandma got the Sith Lord.

Missoula is a university town, and you know what that means...yes, giant landscaped letters! Like the interlocking ND flowerbed (which recently bit the dust to make way for a hideously collossal campus entrance on Notre Dame Ave.), the University of Montana has a big M made out of concrete on the side of the mountain overlooking campus. The trail going up to the M—aka the M Trail—is a popular hike for students and locals, and Kevin recommended I give it a try. It was a good day for it. The foliage here is at its peak, and it's one of those fall days where it looks like it's going to rain but doesn't feel like it's going to rain, if that makes any sense. So I spent the afternoon hiking and then hanging out at the campus.

My interviews here have gone very well. I've talked to a few younger graduates, one a '99 alum who is about to have her first baby, and we hit it off right away, so it was a particularly fun interview. She did the ACE program and now practices law here in town, and she was very articulate and passionate. That one will be a tough edit. And the highlight by far was my interview with Bob Sullivan, a 1940 grad who played football and then coached for Frank Leahy for a few years after he graduated. He had saved all kinds of stuff, including playbooks, scouting reports, programs, his own notes on proper techniques for tackling, etc., and his old uniform! It's funny because those uniforms were really thick wool, and the jersey actually came up underneath and buttoned like a onesy! Bob laughed when I pointed this out. You don't live to be 90 without accumulating a lot of great stories, and he told me all about his late wife and his son who was killed in Vietnam, plus the football and ND stuff. He had a real instinct for radio, in the sense that he described what we were looking at in detail without being asked. I was there for a full 3 hours, which was exhausting, but we both were having such a good time!

I'm really enjoying Missoula (or Zootown, as those in the know call it), but it has to be a brief visit—tomorrow I'm heading to Seattle, where I'll be staying with my cousin Kristen and her family. It's a pretty long drive, but thanks to one of the guys I interviewed the other day, I know all the best places to stop and things to see on the way. He literally drew out my entire route and told me exactly which exits to take. This is the third time someone has done this for me, and I've enjoyed everything I've been tipped off to so far. One of the things about this trip is that from the outside it might look like a sort of individual exercise in self-reliance, since I'm traveling mostly alone, setting my own schedule, deciding who to interview. But I've actually found the opposite is true; I'm asking for even the most basic things (a place to live, food, laundry, etc.) sometimes from complete strangers. And so far they have completely risen to the occasion, and in most cases gone way beyond my expectations. So in the middle of Week 3, so far, so good.

Catching up!

The past couple days:

—I interviewed a guy in Deadwood, SD, whose dad was a Triple Domer (graduated from grade school, high school and college at ND), class of 1914 with Knute Rockne. He had all kinds of great memorabilia, etc., but I think one of my favorite parts of the interview was a story he told me about his roommate's dad, who lived and died by ND football. He would come to every game, and one Saturday, we weren't doing so well, and he was really upset, yelling at the team and the refs, and someone sitting behind him said, "Hey, you better sit down or you're going to have a heart attack." And he turned around and said, "I can't think of a better place!" That's the second time in 2 weeks of doing these interviews that someone has expressed the wish to die and be buried at Notre Dame Stadium. I think what I loved about this particular story was that it reminded me of my Great Uncle Harry, a fiery subway alumnus who recently passed away. I could see him doing something like that.

—Yellowstone was incredible. After going on and on about the Badlands, I won't go into it too much here, but I ended up spending two days at the park, hiking and driving through. Amazing. My usual hyperbole is totally inadequate.

—Yesterday I drove from Yellowstone to Helena, MT, where I stayed with the Smillies (pronounced "smiley"), a family my family was friends with way back in the early '90s when Mark was getting his PhD at Notre Dame. The Smillies are the kind of people who are always really busy, and then when they get an email from me, who they haven't seen in 15 years, asking them for a place to stay, they ask how long I need to stay and even bust out the nice dinner glasses. They have 8 kids, ranging in age from 21 to 3, and staying with them last night was so much fun! Mark took me on a quick tour of Helena and showed me around the school he and Donna started with two other families, because the schools in the area were so bad. It's a K-12 with 175 kids, and Donna is the principal. We spent most of the night around the dinner table, catching up and just hanging out while the kids did their homework and ate the candy their mom just brought back from a recent trip to Canada. The kids introduced me to the Kinder Surprise, a chocolate shell shaped like an egg, with a toy enclosed in a plastic capsule on the inside. I got a little green car, which Johnny showed me how to assemble and take apart. I'll need to leave it assembled, because I could not figure it out. And we looked through all of my change to add to Matt's state quarter collection, and apparently there are two quarters per state, one from Denver (D), and one from Philadelphia (P). I didn't know that, and I worked at a bank...But it was exciting, because coming from the east, I was more likely to have some of the Ps he needed for his collection. Anyway, the whole evening was fantastic and really relaxing--the sort of controlled chaos I'm used to at home!

This catches the blog up to this morning, but I have to go. I'm in Missoula for the next few days. More later.

Why, O Ming...?

Back in our junior year of high school, some of my classmates and I, led by my best friend Beaks, went through what some might call a phase, though others might consider it a way of life: We started coming up with what we called "state jokes." I put that in quotation marks, because looking back, they weren't really jokes...more like anecdotes, or on a bad day, bad puns. The idea was to tell a little story that somehow incorporated a state name. Hard to explain, so here's an example: A farmer named Ming went out into his front yard and began to dig a hole. Another farmer drove by and stopped to ask him, "Why, O Ming, are you digging that hole?" Get it? After every class, we'd compare notes and see what everyone else had come up with. This actually went on for quite some time, though I don't even know if we finished all 50 states. My personal favorite was Nevada: A guy down south walks into a pet store and asks the clerk for a dog collar and chew toy. The clerk asks, "Don't you think you should get a leash with that?" And the guy responds (read this with your best Southern accent), "I don't know. Never had a dog before." When I think of the hours we spent on this, it makes me think the school year could really be much shorter.

Anyway, for whatever reason that "Why, O Ming?" joke popped into my head today as I drove from Rapid City to Cody, WY. The drive was mostly boring, then scenic towards the end when I hit the mountains. But though it was beautiful, I was really tired, and with all the winding up and down the mountain, I actually was feeling a little sick. I didn't even know it was possible to get carsick while driving! I have an interview here early tomorrow morning, then I head to Montana via Yellowstone, and I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep.

Crazy Horse and crazy llamas...

The past couple of days have been really packed! A few highlights:

—On Wednesday I spent the day in Spearfish, which is a really cool town in the Black Hills. I spent the morning responding to emails and making phone calls in this great coffee shop with decent coffee for $1. Yes, $1. And I shamelessly stayed there using their internet for 3 hours.

—I talked to writer/media producer Paul Higbee at the Opera House he and his wife helped restore, which is such a beautiful old building. Paul's involved in all sorts of projects, many of which have to do with preserving SD history, so the interview helped develop my 8th grade understanding of the Black Hills area, Native American culture, the gold rush, etc. Then I went to talk to Molly Moran, who was in my class at ND (we even had a few classes together through the exclusive yacht club known as the Honors Program). Molly now works as an RN at a local hospital 2 days a week and volunteers at the Spirit of the Hills Wildlife Sanctuary 5 days a week. The sanctuary takes in all kinds of animals that have been rescued from abusive situation--lions and tigers bred to be pets, designer dogs that people don't want any more, leopards drugged for erotic photo shoots--that sort of thing. Part of it is like a barnyard with dogs, cats, chickens, llamas, ponies, etc., and then there was the area with the big cats, where Molly and I conducted most of the interview. It went really well, except for a few times when the lions in the background roared continuously for about 3 minutes, and we had to stand there and wait it out. Oh, those lions. One of the best parts was after the interview, as we were walking back to the parking lot, I was holding a little dog named Whitey on his leash, and he broke free and starting chasing a couple of cats around the barnyard and into the llama pen. Molly and I ran after Whitey but stopped short at the pen, and he ran after the cats for about 30 seconds before he realized he had about 12 llamas galloping on his tail. He raced out of the llama pen and I caught him next to the parking lot, sitting and looking rather subdued after his near-death experience. Llet that be a llesson to you, Whitey.

—This morning, Julia, her roommate Julie and I got up at 5:30 and drove the Wildlife Loop in Custer State Park. Before I write anything here, a warning from Julia: "Buffalo are dangerous animals. They may look benign, but they can turn on a dime, and they'll gore you." Just wanted to get the word out on that. No bad buffalo experiences, though we had a close encounter with a wild burro, and we did see a few buffalo, along with lots of deer and antelope. Yes, this is the range! After our drive and a quick stop for bagels, I interviewed Julia (she is the ND Club president, after all...ok, plus it was just fun!) Some of you who read this blog know her, but are you aware that our Julia is not only an accomplished film and radio writer/producer, with regional Emmy and Edward R. Murrow awards to her credit (the Murrow is the most prestigious award in radio), but she also hosts a call-in show for SDPR, organizes a foreign film festival in Spearfish, and is an accomplished children's book author?! I tell you this because she would never brag, but in case you didn't already believe it, Jules is amazing!

—This afternoon, I interviewed an ND dad who works at the Crazy Horse Memorial, which is a colossal rock carving here in the Black Hills. It's nowhere near finished right now, but when it's done, it will be 631 feet high, and the four heads of Mt. Rushmore could all fit into Crazy Horse's profiled head. Before going, I was sort of feeling like, what's up with people in South Dakota and carving statues out of mountains? But I have to say, the Crazy Horse Memorial has a pretty incredible story. One that I will not tell in its entirety because I need to go to bed, but you can find more info at www.crazyhorse.org. Anyway, Crazy Horse himself was quite an impressive person: He led the Native Americans at Little Big Horn, where they defeated Custer in an effort to keep the rights to the land that was promised to them by the US Government. The Govt had had a change of heart with regard to their treaties once gold was discovered in the Black Hills. When CH went to speak with white generals at a subsequent meeting, one of the soldiers mocked him, saying, "Where is your land now?" And he responded, "My land is where my people lie buried." So the statue is CH on the back of his horse pointing out over the Black Hills, where his people lie buried. I don't know how this will sound when you read it, but it was really moving at the site. AND the best part was that my interviewee hooked me up with a tour of the mountaintop, so I got to go up to the CH's arm, right under his head, with a guy named Jim, who gave me a fantastic tour, with lots of personal insights. I recorded the whole thing and got some great photos, but I'm not sure how it will end up sounding, since there was lots of wind at the top, plus I couldn't wear headphones since I had to wear a hardhat. But I did my best, and even if the tape doesn't turn out, it was an incredible experience.

I know I keep saying I'll post some photos, and I promise I will, but it's been hard since internet access is tricky, and most of my time goes into planning this trip! But really, photos soon...I hope. I'm leaving the Black Hills tomorrow for Cody, WY, then Yellowstone and Montana, and I'm looking forward to the next part of the trip, but I'm really going to miss this area, and especially Julia and Julie, who were great hosts. Seriously--they even inspired me to try a few new recipes (when I have a kitchen again), and that is no small feat. Thanks, guys!

Happy Birthday, Pete!

I wanted to put this post separately so Pete would get a shout-out in the title! Yesterday was my youngest brother's 17th birthday, and I got to call and wish him well from the Badlands—I know, enough about the Badlands, but this actually has some significance. As those of you who can do math have realized, Pete is exactly 10 years younger than I am, and although it was fun having him around at first, around month 4 or 5, it got a little boring. He was in that awkward phase of infancy where you can't walk or talk, but you're not really new any more, so your older siblings get a bit tired of you.

Of course, my other brothers and I were creative, and Peteball got to be a popular sport, but that ended abruptly when my mom rather forcefully pointed out the risks to Peter's health and to ours if that continued. In short, we had hit the Doldrums of Pete. To allay this phenomenon, my dad began "Conversations with Pete" at dinner. He would prop the baby up on his lap, and we would all take turns asking him questions about his favorite things. "Pete, what's your favorite fruit?" "What's your favorite unit of measurement?" And my dad would voice the answers, always emphasizing the letter 'p': "I like peaches and pears!" "amPeres!" And of course, "what's your favorite national landmark?" "The Pete-trified Forest!" So yesterday I got to wish Peter a happy birthday from a pete-trified landscape.

The BADLANDS

Yesterday was the most amazing day! I'm going to have to bullet point to get it all in...no points for style, but I've only got 15 minutes to write this!

—On the way from Aberdeen to Pierre, I saw signs informing me that Dances With Wolves was filmed in this area...ah, DWW, if only you had taken more time to show us your wonder... And when I got out of my car to eat lunch, I found that my car was covered in a thin layer of dust--much like Kevin Costner in every movie he's ever made. Pierre itself was a little strange--a nice town, but the capitol building is what you would expect to find in New England, but looks out of place among the rolling hills of the prairie.

—I drove down to Mission to interview a recent ND grad who is doing Teach for America at a high school on the Rosebud Reservation. The scenery just kept getting more beautiful. I think this was the first day that I really felt like I had left the Midwest and was in unfamiliar territory, and it felt great. The road to Mission has lots of hills and twists and turns, and you would come over a really high hill and then plunge down with the prairie on either side and mountains in the distance. Then I drove over the White River, which was actually kind of a milky white color, and as I said out loud (yes, I talk to myself), "Wow, was that river really white?", I came to Little White River, the miniature version, which confirmed my theory.

—Along I-90 on my way to Rapid City, I stopped at the Petrified Gardens of the Badlands. One thing I like about South Dakota is that they're not shy about their attractions, so after the 60th highway sign reminding me that the Gardens have been family-owned since 1954, I decided to stop in. I paid my $5, and went into the glowing minerals room (not the official name), which contained...well, minerals glowing under a blacklight. Then I opened the back door to the garden, and to my delight, I was surrounded by...piles of petrified wood. Literally, just little piles scattered here and there. But wait, there's more: the piles were all labelled with the most delightful captions and speculations: "Pile of Petrified Wood"; "This log looks like a beaver may have chewed on it"; "Nature flattened this log." I think my favorite part was the bench sitting in the middle of the garden, inviting one to sit and relax among these piles of petrified wood, wondering in the glory of nature as the semis roll by on I-90 about 20 yards in the distance. I'll upload the photos of this today if I have time.

—THE BADLANDS: Some of you may not know this, but my senior year of college, I tried to convince my friends to go to the Badlands for Spring Break. I mean, come on, everybody goes to Mexico or South Padre, but who goes to the Badlands? Those of us who burn easily (read: pretty much everyone at Notre Dame) should have the option to go someplace that doesn't cause cancer. And when you say it right: "the BADLANDS," I think it just sounds like what Spring Break should be all about. But in the end, I was outvoted. Well, I finally got to go to the Badlands yesterday, and it was SPECTACULAR. I don't even know what else to say. As I drove throught this amazing lunaresque landscape that seems to arise out of nowhere in the middle of the prairie, I just kept looking around and thinking to myself, this is so cool, it can't get any more amazing than that. And then you'd go around another bend, and it was even more amazing. I was there just before sunset, so the deer and bighorn sheep were out grazing, and I found a little colony of prairie dogs, and just sat for awhile watching them run around and dig for whatever they're looking for and listening to them "bark"--more of a squeak, really. Too cute to be allowed. I suppose I should put a disclaimer on this blog about my obsession with nature and national parks, but I grew up in South Bend, IN, which is the "safe" capital of the U.S.: we have no indigenous poisonous species, and apart from the occasional tornado or the strong undertow in Lake Michigan, it's pretty much natural-disaster free. But it's also a bit thin on spectacular views, so when I go to a place like the Badlands, I always feel like I can't tear myself away. In conclusion, we should have gone to the Badlands for Spring Break.

—I'm staying in Rapid City with Julia, one of my oldest and dearest friends. We've known each other since we were 4 (she remembers my 5th birthday party), and we survived Trinity together, which is a lifelong bond :) Oh, and of course, Notre Dame. She's been living out here for 4 years now, so I don't get to see her often, and now I can see her in her "home away from home," as she describes South Dakota. Jules is actually the president of the ND Club of the Black Hills, so she's been helping me make contact with ND people out here, so I'm going to be busy for the next few days!

Week 2...

A lot has happened in the past few days--I had a couple of interviews in Rochester on Friday, which went really well. One of the guys I talked to, Joe McBride, is originally from Butte, MT, and we spent some time talking about my route through Yellowstone and people to talk to in Montana. I walked out of his office with a map of Montana, a list of names and phone numbers, and a new pen. Not to mention some great tape, which includes a story of burning Fr. Ted in effigy over a losing football season. Well, four losing football seasons :)

On Saturday, I spent the afternoon just wandering around Minneapolis a bit. I took some photos which I'll post when I get a chance, and just enjoyed sitting in the sun by the Mississippi. And as Notre Dame was beating UCLA, I was watching Ohio State slaughter Purdue...I hate ABC! Oh, well, I fell asleep at 9:30 anyway.

This morning I left the Twin Cities for Aberdeen, SD, where I had an interview this afternoon. The scenery along the way was actually really similar to rural Indiana--it reminded me of driving Route 2, for those of you who have done that. So it was pretty, and relaxing until a huge storm came up. It was raining so hard that I couldn't see at all, so I pulled over into someone's driveway. I was tempted to ask if I could park in their barn when the hail started, but luckily it was over pretty quickly!

Tomorrow I'm going to Rapid City via Mission, where I'm interviewing a 2007 grad who is doing TFA on the Indian reservation there. I'm up to my ears in work, but I'll try to post some photos and some more interesting stories later this week...

Twin Cities

I'm in the Twin Cities right now. The ND Club here has been really helpful, and they actually put me up in a hotel for the week, compliments of one of their members who owns the place. I don't love hotel living, but I think it has been good to start off, since I'm figuring out a routine for myself, insofar as it's possible to have a routine on a trip like this!

So far, so good. The drive up here was really fun, thanks in part to my new best friend Sibyl. She's the lovely British woman who sits on my dashboard and tells me how to get from Point A to Point B without ever having to look at a map. She has a very pleasant demeanor and we get along pretty well, though I've come to dread hearing her say, "recalculating," which translates to "you're going the wrong way and now I'm figuring out how to get you out of this." Fortunately, she recalculates pretty quickly. I had also forgotten how much I love driving through Chicago in heavy traffic. Seriously--it's such a rush speeding down the expressway through downtown with skyscrapers towering on both sides, six lanes of cars all weaving in and out, merging on and off, rounding curves in perfect synchronization...I'll stop there, since I know my dad is reading this.

Anyway, I've done 5 interviews in 2 days, with 3 more tomorrow and possibly another on Saturday. Yikes. It's been a lot of work, and of course a lot of fun. I won't go into too much detail here, but I have learned a lot already. Yesterday I had a great surprise with an interview I didn't think would be that interesting exceeding my expectations by far, and then today I had an interview where the person just wasn't relaxed at all, and the best stories came out as soon as the mic was off. It was good to have both of these experiences early on, because it's a reminder to me that no interview is expendable, and that not everyone's used to being interviewed, so I need to work harder to help them feel comfortable.

I had a bit of time off last night, and had a lively dinner with the father of one of my ND roommates. We ended up hanging out for a few hours, talking about everything from the Steve Bartman phenomenon to papal encyclicals. We had a great time, and it was nice to see a familiar face!

I've spent most of my time in Minneapolis so far, and I had an interview in a really beautiful old neighborhood in St. Paul this morning. Everything here feels very clean and organized, and the weather has been sunny and unseasonably warm. I'm really looking forward to exploring more on Saturday and spending some time hanging out in the city.

And right now I'm late to go drink with the young alumni of the Twin Cities. Such taxing work...

The answer to my prayers

This morning I went outside to start packing my car, and I saw that one of my tires was going flat. I took it right over to the mechanic, who removed not one but two screws and patched the holes. The funny thing is that I prayed last night as I was falling asleep that if anything like that was going to happen this week, that it would happen while I was still at home. So the answer to my prayers was a flat tire. Yea!

The next time I write will be from the Twin Cities, where I'll be staying through Sunday morning. I've only been to Minneapolis once before, and that was only for about 48 hours. Looking forward to seeing more of it, and to getting on the road finally!