Dreamers and Seekers

This morning we saw the light much earlier than usual, 7:00a.m. to be exact. With an estimated departure time of 7:30, perhaps that was pushing it. However, Mrs. Hamilton made sure we got a hearty breakfast of biscuits, eggs, sausage, and cheese. This was a good sign for what was sure to be a long day. Robyn took the wheel and navigated us safely for the four hour drive to Tiffany’s house in Johnstown, PA where we would eat a delicious lunch of pierogies, vegetable pizza type thing, and strawberry shortcake. It was quite fun to visit with Tiffany for a bit, especially since I hadn’t seen her much lately. She roomed with Robyn and Sarah this past semester, which is how I met her. We said “speciba!” and continued our merry way to Pittsburgh where we wanted to visit the cathedral at University of Pittsburgh, this random Jewish garden, and a cemetery (to satisfy me).

I had volunteered to drive since I had mastered D.C. so well, and when I asked my fellow road trippers, the cemetery got the primary vote, so I entered it into the GPS and followed its faithful directions. Due to an obscene amount of traffic as we approached this famed Allegheny cemetery we arrived later than we had anticipated, so we spent some time there and decided to cut out the rest of Pittsburgh and head straight to our host home in Grove City. Our timing was impeccable. We pulled into the driveway of Deborah Snyder and family at 5p.m. exactly. We were delighted at the beautiful home and the hospitality of Deb toward us, three sloppy recent college grads on a search for their purpose in life. She provided a magnificent meal of crab quiche, salad, corn yumminess and apple crisp for dessert. I’m amazed that we haven’t had any dessert repeats yet, especially since everyone has been providing dessert for us. After supper we chatted over coffee and tea about Deb’s previous work at Messiah and her current work at Grove City and our current and future plans. After this we were given a tour of Grove City College, which is incredibly beautiful and reminds me a great deal of Princeton and Oxford and what I imagine Cambridge looks like. Deb also gave us a driving tour of the city of Grove City (of Grove…) which was quite nice and revealed a larger town than I had expected.

All in all it has been a good day. Now a list of coincidences/ironies: at Nancy’s house in D.C. we discovered that one of her housemates for this month is Valerie Ong who participated in Hit the Road a few years ago and stayed at my (Ali’s) house. Woah. Secondly, another inhabitant of the house, Mary Stata, was an RA in the same building (or a close building) where my (Ali’s) brother was a Barnabbus at Calvin a few years ago. Thirdly, Deb Snyder has a daughter named Mandie Hoffman who attended Messiah and four years ago hosted me (Ali) as a prospective student for the honors interview day. I can hardly stand it. What will happen next?

By the way, sorry for the lack of new pics on our facebook photo album. For some reason my computer is not allowing me to upload pictures at this time. Perhaps soon this problem will be ameliorated.

Thanks for your interactions! Keep them coming!

Love,
Ali

Our stay in Harrisonburg has been excellent. Our hosts are the model of Southern hospitality. Welcoming home. Great cooking. We’ve spent most of our time here with the Hamiltons. We walked downtown for a little bit. Watched movies. Played games. Ali won Settlers of Catan. Ali and Robyn hiked in the Shenandoah Valley this afternoon. The highlight of the trip was a waterfall. I think we’re all sad to be leaving tomorrow morning.

This has been a nice relaxing stop on our trip. We haven’t really rushed around, and we’ve been able to leisurely make decisions. It’s allowed each of us to contemplate the future. That leads us to the question of the day:

Should Ali go to Kazakhstan next year?

- Sarah

This morning we invented and participated in the first “take-your-unemployed-friends-to-work day” when we followed Nancy (moving across three lanes of DC traffic in 100 ft) to her office in Virginia. She works for a Just Neighbors, a non-profit organization that provides legal services to low-income immigrants and refugees. We were impressed as she told us about her job, shared client stories, and offered legal advice in Spanish to Javier over the phone.
After we left Nancy and DC, our next stop was Sarah’s friend, Kathryn’s, house in Harrisonburg, VA. We wanted to get there via Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park, so we turned off the angry GPS and forged our own route using old fashioned AAA maps. It was fun to see the scenic overlooks, and Ali was excited to meet fellow Michigan folks at one pull-off point. Well, fun described our Skyline Driving for about 45 minutes, until Sarah started to get carsick and we realized that at the rate we were going, taking Skyline Drive to Kathryn’s house would take us all day. So we turned around, submitted ourselves once again to following GPS directions, and drove more directly to Kathryn’s. We’ll probably return to Shenandoah National Park tomorrow for some hiking (especially since we already paid for a multi-day pass, I’d like to get $15 worth of scenic Americana experiences). 
Now we’re at Kathryn’s lovely home and are headed out to play Frisbee. We like that people here have southern accents.
-Robyn

After what could have been a harried drive to the northeast corner of Washington, D.C. we arrived safely at the house of Nancy Sharpe who works for Mennonite Central Committee. Thanks to my mad driving skills we had little difficulty navigating round-a-bouts, spontaneous U-turns, and quick right turns. Sarah expertly navigated from the front and Robyn contributed to stimulating conversation in the back. Soon she will demonstrate her driving prowess, once we begin our trek to the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. But now an account of our first interview and our sight-seeing adventures in Washington, D.C. We began our trip to the first interview at 10:30 a.m. after sleeping in for a glorious time, our first true morning of summer now that exams, graduation, and check-out are behind us for good. Our location seemed quite simple: the Interfaith Conference on the corner Rock Creek Cemetery road and Allison Street, a close 15 minute drive from our host’s house in Trinidad. We were more than a little surprised to discover that the office we were going to was located in a cemetery. I was delighted by this, however, since I recently made it my personal goal to visit a cemetery in every city on our road trip. Obviously this is a sign that my goal is a good one.

The interview itself was really interesting. Reverend Mark Hoelter graciously agreed to be interviewed by us and answered our questions really well. We asked the obligatory three from the Career Center’s interviewing guide and then delved into our own, asking how he remained personally invested and renewed when dealing with faith issues all the time, what obstacles he faced to faith dialogue, and how internships in his organization work.

After the interview we drove back to our host’s house, got a tad lost, but turned around as we did earlier and zipped our way through D.C. traffic to an exciting lunch of peanut butter and homemade strawberry jam sandwiches and carrots. After that we walked to the bus and got on the D8 to Union Station where we met our friend, Kelly for an afternoon at the Smithsonian. We decided on the Natural History Museum and thoroughly enjoyed the mammal section, especially the bats, the soil section, the Korea exhibit, Western civilization, and the forensics lab, where we figured out the sex, age, and time of a person based on the bones, the nails, and shells found in a coffin in New England.

Thanks for those who have commented thus far! We appreciate your involvement in our adventure!

Love,
Ali

For more info on the organization Rev. Mark Hoelter is part of check out their website: http://www.ifcmw.org/

To see our pictures from today, check out this link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2061838&id=55303286&l=e4b840ce3c

We survived graduation. The tassels turned, then keys turned in the lock for the last time. We’ve left empty apartments and in a few hours we’ll be leaving an emptied campus. We’re officially homeless– nomads soon to hit the road.

Our first interview is tomorrow morning in D.C. Wish us luck!

- Sarah

Just reflecting on this whole process I find it interesting how fluid are plans can be. Initially we had certain ideas about where to go and how much time to spend somewhere. For instance, we were going to spend a day or so in Erie visiting a convent there. But as we began contacting people and we realized the convent probably wouldn’t work out for an overnight stay we started to shift things around and now we will be spending more time in Toronto and Boston. Also, I began wondering about our stop in Philly and if our time wouldn’t be better spent roaming the Shenandoah Valley, where I’ve never been. That way we could go to D.C. and then VA before heading up to Johnstown and over to Pittsburgh. I really love the flexibility of this road trip so far. Knowing that we are not necessarily tied down and locked in to all of our plans (aside from set interviews) gives me joy and helps me relax. It is as if I have some control over my fate after all…

Our team has been road trip planning in full force this week- finalizing people to see and places to go. As seniors whose lives will change drastically next week, channelling anxious energy into this road trip project is one drug of choice for maintaining sanity. When we leave the familiar pace of Messiah, graduation will feels like a huge shock as we suddenly collide with the real world. In physics this year, we studied the variables involved in collisions (when one object exerts force on another). For example, impact is defined as the force exerted on an object over time. That’s why people bend their knees when they land a jump; it lengthens the landing time and so your bones experience less impact. So four years ago we launched our undergraduate leap and will soon be feeling the force of the real world. I appreciate that the road trip will lengthen the graduation transition time and then decrease the impact of this major life change.