PA-NY-MA-NY #CollegeRoadtrip

Hello and welcome to another cheerful Saturday at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is June 8th, aka the day after my birthday.

On my birthday, the single greatest feeling I have is gratitude. When I reflect on this past year, I've done lots of writing, lots of traveling, lots of meeting new people, lots of dreaming and lots of loving of family and friends. Maybe it's the roadtrip that's making me woozy with nostalgia, but honestly, I am just so gosh darn thankful.

Last week, I left you in Pittsburgh in the dark. In the morning, we discovered just how beautiful it was! Lush green foliage and gorgeous architecture abounded. But, I think my favorite part of this stop was the "frankenfridge" of our homebrewing Airbnb host.

Frankenfridge - Airbnb host offered me a Mocha Stout w/ Vanilla.

The entirety of Pennsylvania was a delight for the eye. I always imagined Pennsylvania to be flat and filled with golden wheat (Nebraska-ish? Kansas?) Instead we saw mountain after mountain of gorgeous forest right into New Jersey.

We spent the weekend in New York City. We had an Airbnb by Morningside Park in Harlem where we got to see turtles and cats. We breakfasted at Amy Ruth's and made sure to pick up some New York bagels. We stopped into Melba's, but dinner didn't start until 5pm and we already had to hit the road.

Turtle sunning itself at Morningside Park

Me and the Cake Boss

For the Sienfeld Fans

We tent camped in West Sutton, MA for a night where we met a group of Bruins fans watching the Stanley Cup and enjoyed the fresh air of the great outdoors - an especially sweet treat after New York City. Nothing bad against New York, but it has this decidedly pervasive odor that we can't exactly pinpoint except to say it's like a cross between stinky socks and really old cheese.

While camping, in the middle of the night, I heard this loud, asthmatic, animalistic huff outside our tent. Not once, not twice, but three times. Right outside our tent. My mind went to two things: Bill Bryson's book, A Walk in the Woods, in which he professes his greatest fear was meeting a bear on the trail and, in the event that would happen, that he would "sh*t himself lifeless," and to fellow WA writer, Steve, aka Wannaska Writer, who has undoubtedly found himself in a tent with only a thin fabric separating himself from an unknown wheezing animal.

What would Steve do?

I hope what Steve would do is cower in his sleeping bag and wait it out as the sounds receded, which is what I did.

Sunny West Sutton, MA

Then two days in the Boston area. An important thing to note about Boston is that it doesn't have suburbs. Each town is distinct in its own identity - and THEN there's Boston. We spent the morning in Medford. (Boston is 4 miles away!) Which made me think about the Twin Cities and how we lump it all together under one phrase.

Beer Flight in Boston  Cambridge

Fun Fact: The schools on the east coast have a swimming requirement, you know, in case you fall into the river or if you have to get to one side to the other in case of an emergency and there are no bridges. Interestingly enough, the engineering students are exempt from this requirement, after having made the case that, in the event of such emergency, they would build something to get to the other side.

We've also been enjoying the variety of mascots schools lovingly rally around. Goats, elephants, tartan (you know, plaid - but a Scottish terrier fluffball gets all gussied up for big events.) MIT "technically" has a mascot - the beaver - because it was the very first engineer. But we couldn't find any beaver statues or other tributes around. I'm still kicking myself for not buying the baseball cap that said, "Wicked Smaaht." Not because I boast any impressive level of intelligence, but just because I like saying it.

Then we turned inland, the first of our westerly adventures, signaling the beginning of the return trip.

I'm leaving you in upstate New York. We head out to explore the Finger Lakes before we visit another college and then we have the whole weekend to do whatever we want as long as we end up in UP Michigan ready for our last college visit on Monday morning at 9am.

Kids' Corner 

Welcome back and the WAKWIR is back with less (I don’t know how many) stories to tell than ever!

So recently, I had to get up at 3:30 in the morning to catch a flight to Toronto; at Toronto I got on an Air Canada Rouge Boeing 767-300 on a flight to Prague, Czech Republic( or how the EU says it: Czechia). It was a graceful total of eleven hours in the air and I watched most of Bohemian Rhapsody, and I played lots and lots of Minecraft on the international flight.

So enough of planes and Minecraft (ok not Minecraft. That’s my signature game). We stopped at a grocery store where my dad left to Germany on a train, and me and my brother were given 900 crowns (Kč) to buy food for the way home( Vizovice, Zlín Region.) It was a long 4-hour drive which I slept at least ¾ of it. We then went to Brno, where one of my 3 uncles picked us up and went to his house. This was not planned. After we watched the Czech Republic hockey team sadly lose to Canada, we finally went home.Then, for a whole week, we did nothing. And then, my second uncle called saying that we were going to go to an airplane museum. And we did. It was fun so on Wednesday, my dad came back from Germany and now on Friday, we are going to go to my second uncle's house to look at an old car museum.

Well that’s all for today. Other than that I learned how to ride a skateboard and I watched a lot of YouTube and played a lot of Minecraft. Well, I’ll be back soon, and bye bye!

David (aka Wannaskan Almanac Kid Writer-in-Residence)

On This Day

Historic Highlights (credits)

1987 - New Zealand becomes a nuclear-free zone
The New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987 barred any nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships from entering the country. New Zealand was the first country to legislate towards a nuclear-free zone in the 1950s.

1972 - Nick Út takes his famous “napalm girl” photo
The Pulitzer Prize-winning image officially entitled “The Terror of War” depicts nine-year-old Phan Thị Kim Phúc and other Vietnamese children fleeing a napalm attack. It has become one of the best-known symbols for the indescribable sufferings in armed conflicts.

1949 - George Orwell publishes Nineteen Eighty-Four
Orwell's nightmarish description of a totalitarian society set in the year 1984 is one of the most significant works of English literature and one of the best-known novels of all time. The phrase, Big Brother is watching you, stems from this work.

1937 - Carl Orff's Carmina Burana is premiered
The cantata, especially Orff's breathless rendition of the medieval poem O Fortuna, has been featured in countless works of popular culture, including The Simpsons, Last of the Mohicans, and Jackass: The Movie.

1887 - Herman Hollerith patents his punch card calculator
The U.S. data processing pioneer, one of the grandfathers of the technology company IBM, used his revolutionary machine to process the large amount of data collected during the U.S. census of 1890/1891.

Happy Birthday to You!🎶 

1983 - Kim Clijsters, Belgian tennis player

1977 - Kanye West, American rapper, producer, director, fashion designer

1921 - Suharto, Indonesian soldier, politician, 2nd President of Indonesia

1916 - Francis Crick, English biologist, biophysicist, neuroscientist, Nobel Prize laureate

1867 - Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect, designed the Price Tower, Fallingwater

Remembering You

2009 - Omar Bongo, Gabonese politician, President of Gabon

1982 - Satchel Paige, American baseball player

1924 - George Mallory, British mountaineer

1809 - Thomas Paine, English/American theorist, author

632 - Muhammad, Saudi Arabian prophet

Celebrate a birthday, get outside and make it a great Saturday!

Kim