2012-2013

I rang in 2012 in Piazza San Marco in Venice, Italy.  During the remainder of the year, I taught my first workshops in Brazil, I chaperoned 40 teenagers in Israel for three weeks, and I returned to Italy for two more weeks.  I worked my ninth summer as Director of Dance at Camp Alonim, I got un-engaged, I drove cross-country, and I arrived in Florida in time to help nurse my mom through quintuple bypass surgery.  My road trips took me to and through 21 states in the last three months of the year (and a district and a province!), and I'll watch the calendar turn over with a dear friend in Panama City, Panama.  I turned 35, I dragged a friend through a half-marathon on a whim, I saw the President.  I learned many things, including just how many amazing friends I have all over this country.  As Lewis would say, Dear 2013:  You have some pretty big shoes to fill, but I'm looking forward to seeing what you have in store for me.  

Happy New Year Everyone!  

On The Road

I left Los Angeles 8 weeks ago today.  What a long strange trip it's been.

Lila baila!

Um, you know my dear sweet wonderful friend Lila is in the Peace Corps, right?  Serving in Panama?  And that she keeps a blog about it?  And that it's great and you should read it?  Right.  You did.  Ok.

Laila Baila en Panama!

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Sweet New England; Or, RDB Gets a Tick on Her Back and Almost Dies

So, I'm a little bit behind on blogging The Great Wanderlust of 2012.  I did a decent job with documenting the West Coast Edition of the Teach Erica Something World Tour and summarized road trip one ("up").  Next came the trip cross-country ("over"), which was captured mostly in pictures from here and there, and summarized by the numbers.  Since then...  well, these trips began 9+ weeks and 21+ states ago, so I have some catching up to do.

My first stop on trip three ("down") was the Bardo Farm in New Hampshire.  I was there nearly three weeks and could have stayed much longer. I did quite a lot of learning, and my trip was bookended by two big events:  seeing President Obama on the first day and walking the Manchester City Half-Marathon on the last day!

 In between, I spent a lot of time with great friends, helped (by some vague definition of "help") with an assortment of farm activities, and basically spent as much time with power tools as possible.  Here I am with the log splitter, the chainsaw, and a weed whacker.  Lord, could I even get any handier?

I spent some time shooting guns of all sizes... mostly at paper, plastic, and metal targets, but I did manage to shoot my share of (exploding) zombies at the Zombie Apocalypse party!  

And since I've become a little bit obsessed with PhotoGrid, here's one more collage of me and various farm animals and farm vehicles - a four-wheeler, a three-wheeler, and a two-wheeler.  It's hard to tell how adorable those piglets are from the picture but trust me:  A. Dor. A. Ble.

Other adventures in NH included getting to visit my fabulous cousin, the Deputy Field Director for Training and Internships at Obama For America; helping hold down Shadow, my friend's poor dog, while we extracted porcupine needles from his mouth (ouch!). Oh, and ALMOST DYING FROM A TICK ON MY BACK.  I hope to be back in May :)