Sami's Married!

My little sister got married this weekend in Wilmington, NC.  She had a gorgeous ceremony & reception!

First things first - I and her friend, Meredith, were in the wedding party, so we threw her a bachelorette bash Thursday night.  I can't give you the details to protect the innocent, but we started with dinner and ended at 2am at a Cowboy Bar called City Limits.  Sam had a great time as you can see form this photo (all others have been destroyed. :)

Samantha holds her own on the mechanical bull!

I also got stopped near the UNCW campus by a mandatory drunk driving checkpoint.  This was pretty fun, since I was probably the only sober person on campus that night.  The cops, however, apparently didn't believe that I hadn't been drinking (I don't think anyone in that town believes that the MN driver's license is real), so I got to take a breathalizer test on the spot!!  Double zeroes, baby.

Sam recently moved to Massachusetts, so this may be the last time we visit Wilmington and we needed to live it up while we had the chance.  Nathan and I stayed at the Blockade Runner hotel on Wrightsville Beach.  Although it was too cloudy each day to see the green flash, we did enjoy the very beachworthy weather (80's in October!) and took full advantage of the beach (we saw dolphins almost every day)!  I also met up with a woman who was on the Corporate Service Corp Tanzania 3 team, Gloria.  We'd worked together via the phone, but had never met in person.  She showed me around the South side of Wilmington and took me to Carolina Beach State Park.  I bet you thought Venus Flytraps lived in abundance in the deep forests of the Amazon, right?  Me too.  Apparently, they only live within 75 miles of Wilmington, NC and that's it!  They are also incredibly tiny!  I got to see two patches in the wild, which was, well, wild.

Wild Venus Flytraps

Ok, back to the wedding.  Sam had been planning to have the wedding outside in Greenfield Park, but all week it was threatening to rain.  It was touch-and-go there for a while, but we all arrived at the park at 3:30pm to sunshine.  The place is gorgeous - a lake, beautiful trees, and Sam walked over to the ceremony on a bridge.  Colors were ivory and wine.  Look at Sam all grown up!

 

The ceremony was short and this turned out to be key.  Five minutes after it ended, we heard thunder.  We scrambled to simultaneously take pictures and get chairs and music equipment into the cars.  Just as we'd finished taking the basic set of shots (the last few were quite dark), it started to rain.  We'll have a good picture of the wedding party running to their cars.  About a minute after we got into the cars, it started to pour.

The reception site was the Best Western Coastline Convention Center in downtown Wilmington, a cute little brick building on the river.  Dinner was awesome, then we danced the night away (wait - did I say we?  I meant Adam's family - they are much more outgoing and comfortable with their moves than we are!).  Actually, I felt a little overpowered by Adam's family; our side being so far away, we barely rounded out one 8-person table.  The rest of the 63 guests were Adam's.

Anyway, Sam had fun.  She and Adam left in style at 9pm, riding in a limo all the way to Raleigh to catch an early flight to St. Lucia for their honeymoon.

It was a VERY successful day.  The only thing that "went wrong" is that the black chairs Sam ordered turned out to be white.  This is by far an improvement over Nathan and my wedding, in which the officiant forgot to have our witnesses sign the marriage certificate (the one thing that needed to happen to make it official)!

Congrats Sami & Adam!!  Here are some pictures for you to enjoy!

  

Getting Ready

Meredith, Sami, & Me

Sam & Adam (Picture Courtesy of Nathan King Photography, Inc)

Table Decorations

Cake Cutting

 

First Dance 

 

Amber & Nathan

Mom & Dad

Ring

Dancing - Sam & Adam's Dad

Get-Away Outfits

Appomattox

I'm learning a lot about the Civil War and no longer find it excruciatingly boring.  We've been to Gettysburg and Fredericksburg, and now the place were it all ended, Appomattox Court House.  I felt a greater connection to this event and site, which brought the country back to peace.  To me it was all the more impressive after being at the other battlefields and knowing that hundreds of thousands of people died to get us to the surrender at Appomattox.

McLean's Parlor

Reconstructed to look like it did when General Lee surrendered

Appomattox Court House is where General Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865.  He didn't actually do it at the town courthouse, he surrendered instead at the adjacent McLean residence.  (Appomattox Court House was the name of the town - I won a bet with Nathan about this so I must gloat.)  The park has the reconstructed courthouse, McLean house, jail, and several other key pieces of the town, kept as closely as they could be to how they were the day of the surrender.  You can see all of the places Generals Lee & Grant met over the course of several days and the road where Confederates stacked up their weapons. You can also learn all about how the Union basically forced an end to the war by cutting the South off from their supplies.  The surrounding countryside is kept undeveloped and the cute little town is frozen in 1865.  Well worth a stop - you may find yourself involuntarily imagining yourself watching the printer print Confederate parole notices and wondering if a hardtack (which looks a lot like the ever-delicious Dr. Kracker) really tastes as bad as they say.

Are those bite marks?

Shenandoah

We visited too many cities on our Tour d'East Coast and the mountains were calling us.  Shenandoah National Park is perched on the spine of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Western Virginia.  These mountains are beautifully different from the ones I've fallen in love with in Montana.  Instead of rocky outcroppings and grueling trails in excess of 10,000 feet, the Blue Ridge Mountains are a gently folding blanket of green trees with gorgeous sun-streaked trails.

The trees were just starting to change colors, but still monotonous enough to make every pull-out look the same.  The road is nice, but the hiking trails are spectacular.  We only had time to do two short trails.  The first one was the Old Stony Man trail, which leads you up to the second-tallest point in the park, a mere 4,010 feet.  We stayed in the Skyland Lodge, which is right next to the Old Stony Man trailhead.  By the time we got checked in and put our gear on, it was 45 minutes until sunset.  Even though the sign at the trailhead told us it would take 2 hours to complete the circuit, we left with 30 minutes to spare and got to the summit to see the sun dip behind a neighboring mountain and were down in less than 45 minutes.

Sunset over Shenandoah Valley

Old Stony Man actually starts on a portion of the Appalachian Trail, which spans from Georgia to Maine, so now I can officially claim I've hiked the Appalachian Trail. :P  It was impressively lovely, especially this time of year with the trail lightly covered in leaves and the sun shining through the yellowing trees.

Appalachian Trail

The next morning, we tackled Hawksbill summit.  We did a three-mile loop that also encompassed part of the Appalachian Trail and ended up on the rooftop of Shenandoah, 4,050 feet.  The view was nice, but there's something to be said for busting your butt all day to get to the top of a really tall mountain vs. doing a jolly 2-hour hike to the highest peak in a park.  I miss Glacier.  Still, there was a fantastic view at the top that is worth the easy walk.

 Hawksbill Summit

South of the park, the Blue Ridge Parkway, which connects Shenandoah to Great Smoky Mountains National Park begins.  I actually liked the scenery on this road better than the parks' - it was a bit more dramatic and in some places more of the trees had begun to change colors so it was very spectacular.

 Trees Outside Skyland Lodge

Gettysburg & DC

If Europe seems light years ahead of the U.S. in terms of interesting history and architecture, then the East Coast is to the Midwest what Europe is to the U.S. We spent the last few days visiting Gettysburg, PA and Washington DC. Amazing. Amazing.

Gettysburg

I was only half-excited to see the famous Gettysburg Battlefield, now I can't wait to go back and see what I missed. Now a National Military Park run by the National Park Service, we skipped the pricey museum, movie, and cyclorama, and headed for the field with the bookstore's audio tour in hand. This was a good way to do it since Nathan had already started demonstrating his encyclopedic knowledge of the event - it would have been a shame to pay to hear someone else tell me the same thing. It also allowed us to get out there and imagine what it must have been like to watch the Confederates peter out at the High Water Mark and try to hold both your left and right flanks on Little Round Top as the 20th Maine. (Yes, I learned something!) The battleground is FULL of great stone monuments to mark almost every round fired. There's so much to see and do, you could easily spend a weekend or more there, even if you deplore learning about people killing each other like I do, I truly found Gettysburg fascinating.

Monuments galore at Gettysburg

Gouverneur (his real first name!) Warren who scrambled up Little Round Top to discern where exactly the Confederates were in the treeline below.

Washington DC

DC just proved to me that you shouldn't knock a city 'til you've tried it. I used to have the impression that DC was a dirty, dangerous, terrorist-ridden, political dumping ground destined to spontaneously ignite in the flames of its own disgrace. The truth? I think I could live there.

I liked everything I saw of DC - the metro: why doesn't every city have one? the museums: second to none! the restaurants: lots of amazing things I can't get at home! famous sites: check! access to influential people: check check! It's just a neat place to be.

Luckily Nathan's brother, Justin, just moved there and was able to show us around on the inside track. I met a colleague from IBM at a restaurant called Central that had excellent (albeit expensive) burgers and desserts. Thanks, Bobbi! Saturday night, we also did a circuit tour of all of the monuments lit up beautifully.


Sunday we did a marathon of all things tourist. Starting out at the Museum of the American Indian, we sat next to the pipes our friend Travis from Pipestone National Monument crafted. They are some of the first things each visitor sees in the museum and Travis has a key role in the museum video also!

Museum of the American Indian

Travis' Pipes

We got side-tracked on our way to the Capital by the excellent Botanical Gardens:


The capital...


We doubled back to the Museum of the American Indian for lunch. They serve all manner of out-of-the-ordinary native dishes. I myself enjoyed the Crawfish Fritters, Three Sisters (corn, squash, and black beans), and Yucca Fries in green chili sauce (slightly more dense than potatoes and sweeter). Justin stole the last of the Rabbit Pot Pie which I have just now forgiven him for.


Most of the afternoon was spent at the Air & Space Museum, then we trucked it up and down the mall to visit the Washington, Lincoln, Vietnam, WWII, Korean, Jefferson, and FDR memorials/monuments.


We ended the night with a trip to Georgetown and an Ethiopian Restaurant called Zed's. It might just be the fact that I'm about to move to a small Kansas town whose Sonic is 1/6 of the restaurant options, but I just loved the variety of everything you can get in DC. You want it? They've got it! I will be back.

Worth the Wait! Wait!

Yesterday Nathan and I checked off another one of the quirky entries on my life list – we went to a taping of NPR’s Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me, Live from the Chase Auditorium in Downtown Chicago. I think this might have been the best $22 I’ve ever spent.

But first, some news about the other excellent pieces of our East Coast Extravaganza 2009. We made a stop in Milwaukee to visit Nathan’s dad, who took us to an amazing Brazilian restaurant downtown called Sabor. This place had a fairly unique concept. Everything was all-you-can-eat, including the first course: the “salad bar”. It's in quotes because this was not your ordinary salad bar. Sure, you had some greens and dressings, but there was also exotic vegetable concoctions: grape/walnut/unidentified delicious white thing mixture, watermelon/yellow tomato/feta cheese mixture, fresh salsa, fish fritters, and a host of other options.

When you’re done with your salad course, you flip a little coaster that’s orange on one side, green on the other, to green. This signals the waiters that you are ready for your meat course. Did I say course? I meant courseS! There were 12 types of meat ranging from leg of lamb to bacon-covered beef and chicken, plus filet mignon served in small portions. The kitchen would just rotate through them and when ready, bring them out to the people whose stoplight coasters were green. You could try as many or as few as you wanted. We were able to get through 10 out of the 12 meats before starting to feel sick. Each table also had sides of beans and rice, mashed potatoes, and cinnamon bananas. Any positive adjective I use here to describe this meal would be an understatement. Yum!

Ambiance

The next day we headed to Chicago for Wait! Wait!, but we had an entire afternoon to kill. If you had an afternoon in Chicago, would you spend it:

a) Shopping?

b) At a museum?

c) Driving around looking for parking and wishing people would learn how to drive?

The answer for us was b, but sadly, we were stuck with c too. The Field Musuem was hosting a special exhibit called Real Pirates. Aye, it was well-worth the admission price, it was! Lots of info on a pirate ship they discovered call Whydah, including a reproduction of the ship and the only real pirate treasure that’s ever been found! It also dispelled pirate myths, so a few of my hopes and dreams were dashed when I found out that pirates didn’t really bury their treasure and that not a single pirate treasure map has ever been discovered. The museum also has amazing exhibits on evolution, dinosaurs, plants, animals…well, it was a museum.

We stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel for the night with a lake-sliver view through the surrounding skyscrapers. Nathan took advantage of the Check In, Rock Out program, which lets you check out Gibson guitars and use them in your room throughout your stay.

Ok, but none of this really compared to Wait, Wait, so welcome back to this topic. For those that have never heard Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me, go the website and download the podcast – you will not be disappointed. Each week, Carl Kasell, Peter Sagal, and some near-celebrity panelists (this week it was Charlie Pierce, PJ O’Rourke, and Kyrie O’Connor) make light of the week’s news in a quiz show format. The only prize? Carl Kasell’s iconic voice on your answering machine, which is enough to draw plenty of callers.

Wait! Wait! Stage

Charlie Pierce, Kyrie O'Connor, & P.J. O'Rourke, Panelists

For those that have listened to the show, you’ll appreciate this. The show last night started out with Peter chastising Obama for not arranging the Olympic Decision announcement for Thursday instead of Friday. Given that they are making that decision the day after they tape the show and a day before it first airs, we taped the beginning of the show twice – once as if Chicago won the bid, and once as if it hadn’t. Sneaky.

All panelists and hosts were present (they don’t call in). The callers who play games, including the celebrity “Not My Job” contestants actually do call in. The thing that impressed me most was that they taped the show all in one take – barely any mistakes. Then, we taped the alternate beginning. Finally, the producers went through and made them redo a handful of lines (really, only four or five) that they messed up or that were covered by some noise that made the lines inaudible. Peter promised us in the beginning that there were three reasons we would want to stick around until the end:

1) The chance to get WWDTM merchandise, including an exclusive bowling shirt (every one comes with the name Carl on it).

2) We got to ask them questions at the end. I chickened out of just asking outright if I could have Carl Kasell’s voice on my answering machine. I bet they get that question all the time.

3) The stars stick around after the show so you can meet them.

Nathan & I in front of the Wait! Wait! stage

While most people were filing out of the auditorium, Nathan and I made our way to the stage and got to meet EVERYONE. Really, we have autographs to prove it! I also got my picture taken with Carl Kasell and Peter Sagal. While standing there giddy with the excitement of meeting the people responsible for making me laugh so hard every weekend, I was tapped on the shoulder by a stagehand and asked if I’d like to have the script Peter Sagel used in tonight’s show? "YES!!"

Nathan & I with Carl Kasell!

Peter Sagal

The script had Peter's hand-written changes. It’s also fun to see how much of the show really is scripted and how much isn’t. On Peter’s script, the panelists’ witty quips are nowhere to be seen. That doesn’t mean that they are all spontaneous, but it does mean that they are not scripted – the panelists make up their jokes and jump in when they feel like it. The hints that Peter uses to help contestants win more often then not are scripted. Anyway, the net is that I got a pretty unique souvenir for free just by hanging around acting like a groupie. It might be the best souvenir ever.

Souvenirs

This is just the beginning of our trip, join me next time for more anecdotes from Gettysburg & Washington DC. If anything interesting happens there, you’ll be sure to hear about it right here on Amber’s Waves.

Endor Feast

There are eight of us in Rochester that are part of a Dinner Club. We rotate every two weeks cooking and have been doing this for a couple of years. As we've pretty much made everything possible, we started to have theme rounds. We had the "secret ingredient" round (a la cuisine!), a country round, and then we all just gave up and declared this round the "choose your own theme round". Last time, my friend Sara came up with the brilliant plan to have dessert for dinner and dinner for dessert. We had a cake (meatloaf with mashed potato frosting) with ice cream (mashed potatoes) and confetti (colorful vegetables) for dinner and then a burger (two sides of a vanilla cupcake with a brownie in the middle and frosting tomatoes/lettuce and fries (sugar cookies cut in strips) with ketch-up (strawberry dipping sauce) for dessert.

Dessert for Dinner

Dinner for Dessert

I had to think of something decent to follow this up and hence a Star Wars themed dinner was born. Invitations went out that started "A short time from now, in a neighborhood really quite close..." and ended with "So R2Detour over to Amber's for an 'Out-Of-This-World' dinner night".

The menu proceeded as such:

Appetizer
Obi Wontons w/TIE (thai) Fighter Sauce

Drinks
Jedi Juice (Crunchy Punch)
Bantha Milk (By Request)

Salad Course
Organakin Salad

Main Course
Ham Solo Burgers -or-
Millenium Falcon Filets
Vader Tots

Choice of Burger Toppings Included:
Pickled Lukecumbers
Empire Can't Catch-up
Mon Mustard
Gwalkermole (later dubbed 'Ewokamole' by Nathan)

Dessert
Princess Leia Cinnamon Rolls
Hoth Brand Ice Cream

A good time was had by all and we even drew Vader, Leia, and Ham Solo himself from all the way across the galaxy to the party!

Amanda (Vader) & Amber (Leia) with Handsome Ham Solo

May the course be with you!

Adventures of the Waning Days of Summer

Various people have started to wonder aloud why I haven't posted in three weeks and the answer is I can't keep up! Much has happened since the bat incident, which followed a perfectly fun weekend in Pipestone with my grandparents and parents. We spent a lot of time in Luverne, MN, visiting the Jim Brandenburg Gallery (he's amazing!) and Blue Mounds State Park. The highlight of that visit (besides seeing everyone) was hiking to the Visitor's Center, which is built right into a cliff with a beautiful look-out tower that used to house a writer's study. One whole side of the house is a quartzite wall, and that includes the bathrooms!

The Cliffs at Blue Mounds with some Contemporary Rock Art

The family - minus Grandma who is hiding behind the camera

The next weekend, ten of us headed back out to Split Rock Creek State Park for what promised to be a great camping trip. Good friends, tents, delicious camping food, kayaks, and yes, even a few perfectly legal beverages (if you're outside the park). However, reality hit when we couldn't leave our tents Saturday morning because of the rain. It finally subsided enough for the creation of what was henceforth known as the "party pod", which was my tent plus two giant IBM umbrellas plus four people MAX plus games! I got to introduce everyone to the best game on the planet, Werewolf. This is a psychological game I learned about from my colleague, Dirk Spannaus, in Tanzania. With a group of no less than nine people, you split the crowd secretly into wolves and villagers. The wolves silently kill one villager per round and the villagers discuss amongst themselves, trying to figure out who the wolves are. It's way more fun and interesting than I can make it sound, so if you help me gather up nine people sometime, you can try it out for yourself.

It was nice for everyone to finally go on a tour with Nathan at the park and Jess, Jackie, Amanda, and Danny earned their Junior Ranger Badges (lovely pictures of pipes and wildlife were produced by all)!! Later that night, the rain, thunder, and lightening were so horribly close, I decided to bail and headed toward our dry apartment in Pipestone at 12:30am.

Amanda, Jackie, Jess, & Danny with their Badges

Everyone, including Marie & Kris, had fun taking their pictures with the ranger

And that brings me to this weekend! Friday I went to Madison for lunch with my friend, Jas, who I hadn't seen in 500 years. The day was a PERFECT day to be there. After a two-hour lunch outside on State Street, I wandered around campus and enjoyed some delicious Babcock Hall Ice Cream on the terrace. I really miss that city.

Bascom Hall

I took a trip with my parents up to Horicon Marsh on Saturday. What a spectacular place! The scenery is beautiful and if you're into bird watching this place is heaven. We saw Sandhill Cranes and Egrets among a plethora of other birds. There were also frogs parked every 10 feet on the trail, a muskrat that ran a few feet in front of us, and a pair of River Otters in the marsh.




On our way back, we stopped at an unlikely roadside attraction: the Honey Acres "Honey of a Museum". Complete with a 70's era video that taught us everything about bees and beekeeping, this place was kind of funny, but kind of sad. I guess after visiting so many National Parks, I expect interpretation to be a little more artfully done, but I do admit that I learned something and will probably check for the Honey Acres label when I buy my next jar of honey. You can try out some honey and stare at a working beehive if you can get the little kids out of the way first.


A little preview of what's coming up soon - we've got a two-week vacation planned in October to the East Coast and I'm bringing my laptop to blog. Lucky you.