It's time to go.
My parents have been really great this summer: letting me gallivant around without much question, not minding my trips, being reasonable about the job thing...
With that said, I need to be doing something. The fact that I have all August to do whatever and have not felt "busy" since May, is not good. I have become anxious and am more difficult to please.
This past week I took a roadtrip to see some friends and family and celebrate my 21st birthday. Obviously I don't really have the money to spend on gas so my parents' present to me was paying for my gas for the trip [and a yoga mat!]. I have the schedule listed before, but at the end, I just saw a lot of people and had a really good time in 5 different states.
My first stop was in Chicago to spend my birthday with my sister and her boyfriend. They took me out for the 3rd and the 4th and I had a really good time. The second night we even went to Guthrie's Tavern where you can play board games! I would definitely like to go back with more people just for the games. Jeff, Anna Jo and I also ate slices of pizza [bigger than your face] at a place next to Wrigley's Field. Anna Jo and I went to a brilliant vegetarian restaurant [the name of which I'm now forgetting] to make up for it. My sister and I ran one day. It was a good recovery day [her from her half-marathon and me from my 5k].
On the 5th I drove to Holland and had lunch with Joe [making him late getting back to work] and then played Marion Party with Jackie B. as we shared our abroad experiences. I knew I missed Hope, but spending time with Joe and Jackie just made me miss it more. As I drove past Timmer all I wanted to do was park in the grass and sit on the porch in my undies, eat cereal and wave to people as they passed by. I didn't. I am going back to Holland in 2 weeks for the weekend when everyone moves in. I am so glad the girls are letting me stay with them that weekend. I miss my friends. So maybe Hope is conservative and not always accepting, but I still love the community of friends I have there. I miss running with friends and sitting quietly or not so quietly on our orange and blue school bus. I miss the yellow house and I miss sophomore year as a whole.
I found out one of the guys I ran with now lives in Lakewood. It's a small world, but not always small enough.
In the evening I went to Michigan City to pick up Rachel from the train station. We got Subway and the guy who made our subs joked with us the whole time. We went to Warren Dunes State Park and met up with Tim. We put up our tent and drank tea. We then went to go climb some dunes and enjoy Lake Michigan. As we wondered back from our late night appreciation of the earth we went the wrong way for awhile and took the extended route back to our tent. We enjoyed another cup of tea and then headed off to bed, after realizing all the other campers were asleep because it was around 3 or 4 in the morning.
The next day we ate oatmeal for breakfast and then indulged in late morning s'mores by using our neighbors' fire after they headed home [we arrived too late to buy wood the night before]. We packed up and Tim took us to a river which we walked through to the lake. Poor Rachel had blisters on her feet, but struggled through them [I hope the cold river water was good fro them] as we walked to the beach. This river has a lot of clay in it and kids often cover themselves in clay and then walk back to the beach to wash it off. We were all dressed in our regular clothes otherwise I definitely would have tried this clay-skin-treatment. Tim and I left Rachel on the beach and walked up a large dune nearby. After climbing the dune we regrouped and enjoyed some Lake Michigan waves. This just made me miss cross country season more.
After enjoying some snacks Rachel and I left Tim and headed off to Chicago. I dropped her off near a train station down town and headed back to Anna Jo's. I went for a run and Anna Jo's friend Tina from Belgium arrived. We ate delicious Chicago style pizza and spent some time relaxing before going to bed.
This takes us to the 6th. I'll finish the story of my roadtrip later. Pictures are on facebook at the end of this album.
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