The Cal Young family requested it, and I responded! Many of you asked that I keep in touch with you. The easiest way to keep each of my former students updated is to blog it! Thanks to Mr. Schiff, I know how to do this now. I haven't uploaded photos yet, but they'll be coming!
I hope you are all having a wonderful summer full of books, travel, imagination, outdoor activities, and time with friends and family. I sure am! I started out the summer by packing up and shipping my things, then setting off on a road trip across the USA. We passed through 20 states, visiting friends and family all over! For those of you who want to look on a map--that's all of you, of course--we traveled across Oregon and into Idaho, then on through Jackson Hole, Wyoming. After visiting Yellowstone National Park and seeing buffalo, mountain goats, deer, elk, and a wolf as well as amazing geysers, we headed into Montana, passed the site of the Battle of Little Bighorn, and headed to South Dakota. We drove through the Badlands and past Mt. Rushmore, then into Minnesota and down into Iowa. Then we crossed Illinois and Indiana on our way to Cincinnati, Ohio and Covington, Kentucky. There's some fascinating history about the escape of slaves in that area! We traveled across Pennsylvania, stopping at Gettysburg to visit the battlefield. If you ever get the chance, this place is worth the visit! I know Ms. Huling is jealous! We went on to Baltimore, Maryland, down the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia and along the coast of North Carolina before heading inland to visit Duke University! After driving into the mountains of Asheville, NC, we turned south towards Greenville, South Carolina and then Atlanta, Georgia. We took a side trip with family to Alabama, then went on to Florida. We drove almost 5000 miles!
We boarded a plane for Germany two weeks ago, and we've been settling in ever since. The first problem was the time difference. It's nine hours ahead of Oregon, so when it's 9 in the morning for you, it's 6 pm for me. We found a house in a little village outside of Munich. The church bells tell the time here, which is pretty cool. The weather is a lot like Oregon in the spring. Today was warm, but it was rainy over the weekend. We have a lot of the same plants around here--roses in the yard and grape vines growing on the balcony.
I'll be sending along a lot of impressions on how things are different here, but for now I'll just say that you should put down your video game controller and take a look at the map of where we've been. Then find a map of Germany and locate Munich. It's a big world, and hopefully you're out there enjoying your piece of it. Oregon is one of the prettiest places I've been!
Enjoy your summer--I know I'm enjoying mine!
Ms. K
