Jacksonville, FL. March 2013. 

(I was only there for like an hour, haha.)

Charleston, SC. March 2013. 

St. Joseph, Missouri.

July 4, 2012.

(Don’t mind me, just going on an uploading-old-photos spree.)

Some photos from the Missouri History Museum and art museum in St. Louis.

1-2.) Posters from the 1904 World’s Fair

3.) In the special exhibition all about the evolution of women’s undergarments: “The Ladies of Creation-The results of bloomerism: The ladies pop the question.” 

4.) A political cartoon about MO in the Civil War. 

5.) Missouri refugees during the Civil War

6.) Order 11, by George Caleb Bingham. I dunno if this is an original version borrowed from Cincinnati for the special Civil War exhibit or if it’s just another copy. 

7.) The raid of Lawrence, lithograph from I think Harper’s Weekly. 

8.) This painting…my heart…it’s a little dog with his dead master. D: Why would you paint that whyyy

9.) Another one of my favorites.

10.) Thank you Stacey for suggesting this place. <3 

Being touristy in St. Louis. 

Day 1.

Now…to decide what to do tomorrow. :) 

Some pictures from my architectural tour of Chicago earlier today. We took a boat out in the river and it was awesome. :) I can’t remember the exact names of all the buildings but I know the different styles. 

It was like Urban Planning 101 all over again, lol. 

The funniest story our guide told was the one about how Chicago changed the course of its river to send all its sewage downriver to St. Louis. 

Yeah…

Many things make sense now. 

Hmm…Asheville. Oh Asheville. Where should I begin? First of all, you are so very lucky to live in such a beautiful place. I was seriously in awe the entire time I was in that area. The mountains are simply gorgeous, a panorama in different shades of blue. I love the way they fade into the sky, the farther away you look. I think I could just drive up and down the Blue Ridge Parkway all day. It’s so pretty up there, feeling like you’re in the clouds. Skyline Drive in Virginia kind of has the same effect, but still, I never realized how gorgeous the Appalachians could be until I was up there on the parkway. It’s the kind of thing that makes me wish I was better at painting landscapes, so I could do it justice. But at the same time, nothing can do it justice except just being there. I think I’ve told you how much I love mountains, particularly the Appalachians. It’s something familiar and at the same time unfamiliar. The mountains I’m most used to are in Maryland, and while very pretty in their own right, they honestly have nothing on the Southern Appalachians when it comes to sheer majesty and size. I suppose I can see how you would take it for granted having lived there for your whole life, but I think you ought to look around you and appreciate all the beauty around you. That goes for everyone, haha. It doesn’t matter where you live, Mother Nature has something awesome for you to see. 

Okay, and now before I start to sound like a TOTAL hippie, I should talk about the city itself, right. The fact is that we didn’t spend all that much time in Asheville proper. If we’d known you lived closer to Hendersonville—or realized that Hendersonville was kind of far away—we probably would have stayed there instead. Nevertheless, the first night we were there, we went out to dinner downtown. The parking meters downtown are very strange. Two cars share one meter, and it took us awhile to figure out if our money was going in for the right space. And then we continued to freak out about it throughout dinner. :P I forgot where we ate, like what the name of the restaurant was, but they had grilled Caesar salad which both my mom and I thought was very strange. Why the heck would you grill salad? Salad is supposed to be cold and crisp, not warm and limp. So yeah…it was interesting. From our table we had a great view of all the wildlife—I mean, street life. I definitely saw what you meant about Asheville being slightly out there. We saw this older gentleman come and sit on the bench right outside the window and light up this rolled cig, and our first instinctive reaction was, “oh he’s totally smoking pot.” Our next reaction was, “Is that even LEGAL here??”

Watching for a little while longer and eating our main course—I had fancy schmancy salmon—I saw a bunch of other interesting people pass by the window. There were a couple guys wearing skirts and bras—and only skirts and bras. A lot of hipsters. And a lot of rednecks. And a lot of redneck hipsters. And just a bunch of tourists like us. The people we talked to all seemed pretty nice to me. My mom, however, had serious issues with iced tea throughout the entire trip. See, we’re northeastern-minded Midwesterners. Serious sweet tea to us is just too sweet. But in the south, it’s the default. Cue my mom asking for “unsweetened tea,” expecting it to be just that—unsweetened—putting just a few packets of sugar in it, and having it turn out to be the sweetest of sweet tea.

I suppose I should talk about Biltmore next, since that was really cool. When we first saw the price of admission we about had simultaneous heart attacks, but then once we heard everything the ticket includes we decided it might be worth it. Believe me, it was. I can’t even begin to describe how big this house is. I mean, I knew it was the largest private residence in the nation, but never before had it occurred to me just HOW BIG this thing was. It just blows my mind that all of it was built for basically one guy—George Vanderbilt—and of course eventually his wife and daughter. If this house is not the perfect example of Gilded Age excess I really don’t know what is. Everything was just so impressive and ornate. I’m pretty sure my entire house could fit in just the front entryway. It reminds me of the kind of house I used to have dreams about living in when I was a kid, the kind where you can just run around forever and play hide and seek and always win. I’d probably get lost in a house like that though. I wonder how George Vanderbilt managed to keep an eye on his daughter. Of course, I’m being silly—that kid probably had a freaking army of nannies or something. I seriously don’t know how to describe Biltmore other than that, you really can’t grasp its immensity until you visit. I’ve been to Europe—Scotland, England, Ireland, Italy—and seen huge palaces built for royalty which are bigger than Biltmore, but to see something like that in the United States is kind of crazy.

Okay, I’ve rambled on a lot. Haha. I hope this gives you a little bit of an insight into my impressions of Asheville. :)

My Summer 2012 in numbers: 

So…April wanted me to do something like this. :P 

Between May 13 and August 23

States visited: 17 (Counting Kansas, Illinois, and Missouri plus Wyoming, Colorado, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New York)

State capitols/capitol buildings visited: 10 (Cheyenne, Denver, Topeka, Lansing, Columbus, Charleston, Frankfort, Albany, Dover, Annapolis)

Major cities visited: New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, DC, Denver

Friends visited: 5 (Michelle, Brittany, Mika, Nick, and April)

LSATs taken: 1

Books obtained/read: 10

…

Mischief managed. 

April suggested that I do like, a little summary of every state I’ve been to, like random observations and stuff, but that would take forever, lol. So if you have a question about one place in particular or one aspect of a place, then you can feel free to ask me at any time. :P 

I’ve never seen so many onion rings in my life D:

At Sanford’s Grub and Pub in Cheyenne, Wyoming

While I wait for my recent pictures to upload, here’s some photos from my 2010 Colorado trip. :)

1.) Glacial lake in Rocky Mountain National Park

2.) Rocky Mountain National Park near Estes Park

3-5.) Views from Trail Ridge Road, a winding road through the mountain tundra up to a maximum elevation of 12,183 feet—well above the timberline. 

6.) Sunflowers at the Denver Arboretum.

7.) View from the Georgetown Loop Railroad.