Holly: August 2005

On top of old smokey!

First Amendment
Originally uploaded by hollybrekken.

This past weekend was spent in a place I really never thought I would be. Shady and I drove up to Tennessee for a weekend in the Smokey Mountains with my mother. Its about half way between us, and proved to be an excellent time.

We left Florida Thursday evening, about a half an hour before the storm hit. One bonus about traveling during a hurricane: no tolls! ;)
We ended up staying the night in a random place in northern Georgia- easily the trashiest place I have ever slept- but it was an adventure. We got to the area about an hour before my mom the next day- so we went to the cabin rental office to check in- when we left with the keys Shady said to me, "I did not understand a single word that woman just said". ...and he thought I was exaggerating about the accent differences...

The cabin was wonderful. After taking several practically vertical roads we found it nestled in the mountains with rustic appeal but all the comforts of home. Well, actaully, a heck of a lot more comforts than our home... cable, pool table, king size beds, fireplace, hot tub... microwave... ha ha ha.

Our one full day, Saturday, we did the true tourist experience. A drive through the mountains up to the peak of Old Smokey- really- but unfortunately in was too foggy for us to see anything. This is where we found the sign on the right- at the end of the road where cars had to stop and people had to finish the route on foot. Apparently they wanted to make sure people knew that the summit of old smokey was a perfectly fine place the practice your "first ammendment" rights- as long as it was in the designated area and you had the proper permits of course.

We spent the rest of the afternoon/evening wandering the tourist town: candy factories, t-shirt shops, art galleries, mini golf, weapons stores... it was quite an eventful day. Sunday afternoon before heading out we even managed to squeeze in a helicopter tour over the town, foothills and mountains.

An additional unexpected suprise that the weekend had in store for me- kait alluded to earlier. Gaitlinburg Tennessee happens to be the home of none other than the famous Dollywood! Although I did not enter the theme park- we did see it. Quite exciting really. ha ha ha. That is definitely one place in the world I never thought I would be.

Its the little suprises that make life really great, isn't it? ;)

Butterfly in the sky, I can go twice as high!

Currently I am reading Guns, Germs and Steele: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared M. Diamond. Usually it does not take me this long to read a book. If I am really busy, a week maximum. But this book is difficult. Well, not difficult, you just really have to pay attention. And I, being a person who likes to think of 800 different things at one time, sometimes do that thing where you read a paragraph and start the next one realizing that you are not following the logic because you didn't actually absorb anything from the previous paragraph. So you have to go back and re-read. This is no dime store novel, where if you skip a chapter you can pretty much figure everything out anyway. But I love it.
Its one of those 'stop and think between chapters' kinds of books instead of the 'I get so enthrawled I can't put it down until I finish it' kinds of books. The writing is superb however, the logic and setup are so clear and easy to follow- so far it seems to be leading me toward that answer that I have always wondered about- "Why is our societal ranking set up the way it is today?" To find this answer, the author works quickly backward then slowly forward from the beginning of the human race. So far- and I'll be sure to let you know what I think when I finish it- it has proven to be an excellent read, thought provoking and challenging.

A few other things on my reading list:

The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century by Thomas L. Friedman -- Kait you are going to let me borrow that when you are finished right? We can swap.

and

New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer by Bill Maher

On my 'To Do' list as soon as this 'tropical storm' passes: get a library card so I don't have to spend a bunch of money on these puppies.

Does anyone have any awesome books they have read lately that they would like to recommend to me? I'd rather have books recommended to me from my friends than any best-sellers list.

Katrina

My first tropical storm- how exciting!
The rain is supposed to start shortly- within the hour- and continue through Friday- but no one seems to be overly concerned about this one- so I am not too worried. I think it is rather polite of Katrina to be mild at least until I get broken in.
I just hope this doesn't disrupt the weekend plans with Mom. A cottage in the Smokey mountains.
I guess it is time to break out Kait's gift: my travel the world umbrella!

but she won't discover that its him 'til chapter 3

Maybe it is the 'I'm not going to be starting school this fall' itch that is bringing this on- but lately I have been thinking a lot about starting a book club of some sort. I am a huge nerd, I realize, but I am ok with that- so you should be too. I wrote an e-mail to a few friends earlier, to see if maybe they were interested. But then, as my (jobless) day progressed I thought perhaps it would be a far better idea to start something on nomadlife. We could have a special blog for it- and people could nominate different world literature to read every, say, 2 weeks or so. Anyone who wanted to participate could, and we could post reviews when the time period was up.

Since so many of my friends are in different places in their lives right now it is very likely that not everyone would be able to complete a book every two weeks when different things come up. This way people could join in for whichever weeks they wanted without feeling guilt or pressure, because goodness knows we all have enough of that in our lives.

This all has only been churning in my head for the last 10 minutes or so- so it could use some refinement. Its an idea anyway- what do you think?

Siblings

my sister, brother and I
Originally uploaded by hollybrekken.

My sister, brother and I all gathered at a small going away dinner before leaving MN.

the homeland

cornfield 3
Originally uploaded by hollybrekken.

This is Shady in his first Minnesota cornfield just before we bagan the drive to Missouri. Doesn't he look at home?

tennesse

tennesse
Originally uploaded by hollybrekken.

Sorin, me and Boryana at a site-seeing stop in Tennesse. I must admit, however a slight mistake on my part. For miles I saw signs for this really cool place and insisted that we stop there. Everyone complied and we followed the signs to the place- well I decided to take a senic shuttle up the mountain instead of driving- and it turned out that the shuttle was the attraction at the spot. The thing I wanted to see was a ways away still. But by this time we had already wasted two hours. The mountain view was pretty cool though, right guys? And Boryana and I had Dip n' Dots- but hers were better.

Bienvenido!

Bienvenido!
Originally uploaded by hollybrekken.

We made it, finally! I know you can't tell- because at this time of night the sunshine state isn't very sunny- but those two shadows in the picture are Sorin and Shady.

Excuse the crudeness

our route
Originally uploaded by hollybrekken.

of this picture- but I thought it would be fun to show our travel route over the last few days- and I am not technologically advanced enough to do it any other way. Anyway- top to bottom- the grad tour of the country- well the northern/central/south-eastern, anyway.

I had fun pointing out the different accents along our path- my travel companions now can recognize a variety- and discerne them from the minnesotan twang. At some points I thought our travel would never end- but we finally made it in one piece. Probably due in no small part to "Shut de do" that Sorine and I played and sang at leat 50 times. Good times...

I move in to my new home hopefully on Thursday- more updates soon- but my temporary login at the local library is almost up!

Mr. & Mrs. Clark

Mr. & Mrs. Clark
Originally uploaded by hollybrekken.

The wedding this weekend was fabulous. Couldn't have been more perfect. This is a picture taken during the ceremony- its kind of fuzzy, but I think it looks dreamy. My handy photographer did a good job.

I think it is ok to call them Mr and Mrs Clark even though she is hyphenating right? Eh well- its my weblog.

Anyway- the ceremony was beautiful- weather perfect, setting divine, company fantastic- what more can you ask for?

Good friends... good fun... good times...

I love you guys.