My Crush on America: the science-y and musical theater-y!

In the last post, I discussed some of the many reasons why I now have a crush on America, thanks to the great road trip of 2011. The love-fest continues in this post, in which I discuss America through the lens of things I love -- musical theater and science!!

America is SCIENCE-Y!

My inner former-interpreter-at-the-Franklin-Institute LOVED all of the great science we were exposed to on this trip. The Petrified Forest/Painted Desert National Park was great -- lots of pretty scenery (red white and blue mountains!? how patriotic!), fossilized wood, and a Route 66 memorial (can you have a memorial for a road?!).

I also LOVED the Garden of the Gods, right outside of Colorado Springs, Colorado, where there were tons of beautiful red rocks, perfect for a hike before heading south to Santa Fe. I was particularly excited to discover vertical stratification on this rock, which means that the sediment gathered horizontally, then the rock got smushed into a vertical position, and then it eroded away to look like what we see today. Fact: science is so cool.

Our last day, Mat and I went to the beautiful Griffith Observatory in LA, which included a lovely planetarium show (that I half slept through, not because it wasn't interesting, but because I am physically incapable of staying awake during those), a lovely hike towards the Hollywood sign, and a wonderfully well-curated and interactive set of science exhibits. The periodic table of the elements was my favorite (mostly because it made me want to sing the Tom Lehrer song).

America is musical theater-y!

This trip featured SO MANY opportunities to plays songs from musicals that featured the places we were visitings. This is not exactly a new phenomenon for me -- I'm pretty sure every time I go to New York, there's a different NY-related musical theater song in my head, but this was 3,000 MILES of musical theater references (it's a good thing Miriam likes most musicals, or our friendship would be in jeopardy . . .).

If you were following along with #3000milestoHUC, you'll know the answers to this game. First person to name a musical theater song or lyric to go with all of these places that we passed gets a drink on me!

1. Ohio

2. St. Louis, Missouri

3. Jackson County, Missouri

4. Kansas City, Missouri

5. Oakley, Kansas (okay, no musical actually goes with this place, but you should be able to guess what show was in my head)

6. Santa Fe, New Mexico

7. Los Angeles, California

OH, and speaking of musical theater – remember that time Lea Michele showed up in a sushi restaurant two tables away from us? When we got to California, I got to meet up with some of my favorite former DC residents, Seth and Stacy K. I asked them to give Schutz, Miri, and I an LA experience for dinner one evening, and they seriously delivered! We got to a snazzy (but not too snazzy) sushi restaurant in West Hollywood, and as we were walking to our table, Lea Michele walked in! We were very polite and didn’t take pictures or try to talk to her, but needless to say, we were very excited about this celebrity sighting.

Next up: more reasons why this road trip gave me a crush on America: it contains a lot of yummy food and it's surprisingly energy-diverse!!

My Crush on America: the Pretty, the Historical, the Friend-ly, and the Huge!

I officially have a crush on the United States of America (but not in a worrisome, nationalistic way). I’ve been going around saying that for the past three weeks since Miriam and I finished our epic Road Trip across the country, but it’s still true. Want to know why? I’ll tell you.

1. America is PRETTY.

We saw the greatest sunset ever, in the most unexpected place (ever): Salina, KS!

We saw some of the prettiest rain (yes, rain can be pretty, too!) in Santa Fe -- there was a rain storm in FRONT of us, but we weren't in it, so we could take pictures from the side.

Yes, the photo below is of an entire field FULL of sunflowers. This happened multiple times throughout Kansas. How could that not be a wonderful state? Yes, the picture next to it is of clouds -- we ended up identifying the shapes of a bunch of clouds throughout the trip, but these were my favorites, because they looked like writing!

2. America is HISTORICAL.

The first bit of history we got on the trip was some family history for me, when we visited Bexley, Ohio, the section of Columbus where Miriam’s Aunt lived and where my mom and her siblings grew up!

My other favorite bit of history was the Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri. Truman has been one of my favorite historical figures since high school, and I've been talking about visiting Independence since then. (For your reference, current Other Favorites include Teddy Roosevelt, Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, and James K Polk). Needless to say, I was VERY excited to go and learn, and the museum did not disappoint -- it was beautifully curated, and really moving at parts (there were great sections on the recognition of Israel, the Cold War, and civil rights), and I left feeling decidedly patriotic in the not-cheesy way.

America contains not-seen-enough friends.

I am one of those people who really likes all of my favorite people gathered in one place at all times. This is, of course, not particularly realistic, but it makes me a little sad sometimes. One of the best things about the road trip is that I got to see Seth, Stacy, Hilary, and Mat (who met us in LA), and got to meet Beni and Tyler, Miriam and Hilary's boyfriends!

Most wonderfully, this trip was a chance to spend hours and hours talking with my friend Miriam, who I see Nowhere Near Enough. We got to be ridiculous and silly and loud and just have a lot of fun catching up. I wish I could have a week off to do that with all of the people who are important to me.

America is HUGE

During our trip, I kept being reminded of one of my favorite Douglas Adams quotes:

"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may thing it's a long way down the road to the chemists, but that's just peanuts to space.

So America is clearly not THAT big. But it is big enough that we drove over 3,100 miles, for seven days, over 12 states (four of which were new for me). That's crazy! Check out the awesome Foursquare-generated map of everywhere we stopped:

Stay tuned for Other Reasons I have a Crush on America -- hints: it's science-y, yummy, and musical theater-y!