Category: United States

It’s the anniversary of my move to Washington DC! One year ago today, Sam and I boarded a plane, each of us having checked luggage to bring just enough to be able to camp out in an apartment while we waited for our worldly possessions to be shipped across the country. We had about 15 apartment tours lined up over the next few days so that we could try to get a lease signed before I left for a week in Mexico and Sam left to visit his family for Thanksgiving. It was a real whirlwind!

Now, a year out, I am so glad to have made the leap. There were a lot of things to love about Utah. I miss a lot of our friends there, as well as the incredible feeling of living in a house that we owned – it was a bit of an adjustment back to having a landlord, although it’s nice not to have to call our own plumber when things went wrong. And the hiking and natural beauty in Utah is unparalleled. But at the same time, I had been living there for about seven years, and I was looking for a change. And I’ve loved living in DC so far!

The best change has absolutely been how walkable the city is. We sold our car in Salt Lake before we moved, and I’ve been loving the ability to go pretty much anywhere on Metro or via bus. Also, I love walking through the city. I love trying to identify the flags at the embassies and coming across new monuments. Salt Lake’s urban design is a lot more car-centric.

Related to that, we are so connected to everything. This is the first time I’ve lived east of Chicago in the United States, and it blows my mind how interconnected and close everything is on the East Coast. We’re only a few hours from Philadelphia or New York, and there are Amtrak connections all up and down the Eastern seaboard. We have three airports, two of which are international, so the amount of direct flights that are available is incredible (even if more of them are on American Airlines).

It’s still strange that the national news is essentially our local news now – a visiting dignitary or a NATO conference can disrupt traffic or close metro stations. I somehow expected the politics to impact me more. I haven’t made any friends who work in politics, which is fine by me, but it means that I have felt strangely disconnected from all of it so far. It’s always a belated realization that the street I need to go down is currently hosting the IMF or something. We’ll see if that changes.

What I love about it being the seat of government, of course, is our proximity to the embassies. I have gone on a lot of trips lately that have required visas. When I went to Djibouti in January, the evisa wasn’t working for me and it was a game changer to be able to show up live and get help applying for a tourist visa in person. I’ve had something of a marathon of visa applications for the trip I’m currently on. It gave me options – for one of them, going to the consulate was just up the road and meant I could get the visa in advance instead of doing it on arrival, so I could carry less cash and have one less that I had to worry about at a border.

The Smithsonian museums are incredible as well. They are world class cultural institutions, and they’re free. It means there are more options of what to go do on the weekends and what to show visitors. I’ve made it a goal to go to all of the Smithsonian museums here, which is definitely a marathon and not a sprint, because it is possible to get museum’d out.

This is the first time I’ve moved to a city where I’ve actually known people. The other times I’ve moved as an adult – to Chicago for school, to SLC for my first job, and to a lesser degree, to Copenhagen and Strasbourg for temporary educational opportunities – I’ve known no one. Moving with Sam obviously made a huge difference, and it was nice to actually have a bit of a network out here already.

The types of people who are interested in moving to DC are more of my type of people as well. While I made amazing friends in Utah, the type of person who would move to Utah as an adult was often so outdoorsy that we had little in common as far as hobbies go. Sam and I once went to a party where every single other person we met did backcountry skiing. The DC vibe is more internationally minded, and more interested in indie movies or trying a new restaurant than hiking a 14er.

DC isn’t perfect. No place is, because life is messy and unpredictable and there will always be stressors. But I’ve had a pretty great first year here. It’s impossible to know what the future holds, but at least for now, my future is here in DC!

It’s wild that after all the time I spent living and traveling through the Midwest, I never made it to Michigan. On my way back from Washington Island, I decided it was time to change that! I took a flight path that took me through Detroit and had one full day there.

I didn’t have a particularly ambitious itinerary for my visit. I wanted to go to the Motown Museum, but it was closed the day I was there. Instead, I explored the city center. Detroit is such an interesting city – for probably 50 or 60 years, it was thriving due to the automotive industry, but when the industry left, it felt into decline and for a while, Detroit considered the most dangerous city in America. Lately, there’s been somewhat of a resurgence. Definitely not back to where they were prior to going through urban blight, but there has been a concerted effort to improve the city and bring back more cultural institutions.

Part of how this manifests is through street art and outdoor spaces. There are a lot of monuments and murals throughout downtown, and there seem to be a lot of new parks or spaces for bars and restaurants to serve outside. It seemed to me as if some of that was working – while there were areas where I didn’t see anyone else out walking, there were a few streets that had a lot of residents out and about.

Canada is just on the other side of the river, although I didn’t cross over. I’m not sure if there’s anything particularly interesting to see on the Canadian side. I wanted to walk along the Riverwalk, which is meant to be pleasant, but it was closed off for some sort of event.

The main goal, besides exploring the city a bit, was to get Detroit style pizza! I ended up meeting a friend for dinner and trying it. I love that it was invented as a way to reuse the automotive plant parts, and I thought the end result was absolutely delicious.

I came away wishing I’d had a little more time in Detroit! I had a nice time exploring, but I didn’t get to go to any of the museums or anything, and it felt like the city had more to offer. I love seeing cities that are working to change negative perceptions – from what I could tell, Detroit is doing an amazing job to work on rebuilding itself after the deindustrialization that happened in the 70s and 80s. I would definitely be interested in going back.

This is the year that I turn 30. To celebrate, my high school friends and I did a mini-reunion where we all went up to Washington Island together! One of my friends arranged for us to borrow her aunt’s cabin for a long weekend. Washington Island is a tiny island off the tip of Door County, which is that long skinny tip of Wisconsin that juts into Lake Michigan. We flew into Milwaukee and rented a car, and after about a four hour drive, we had to take a ferry to get to the island. Also, a note about the Milwaukee airport: they have a section officially labeled the “recombobulation area” after security, which I found charming and delightful.

Door County is adorable! It feels like the Midwest’s answer to Cape Cod, with boutique shops and local produce off the side of the road. We had stocked up on groceries and each of us brought a craft to teach the rest of the group, so we were ready to have a relaxed weekend of spending time together and exploring a bit of the island.

The main sites of Washington Island, in no particular order:

The local Norwegian-style stavkirke. Fun fact, there are only 9 of these in the United States – most are in northern US in areas that had a large number of Scandinavian immigrants, but one of them is in Epcot in the Norwegian pavilion. So I’ve now seen two of the nine in the US, I suppose.

The lavender farm. For an extra fee, you can pick a bouquet of lavender, which we did, and then they have a café with a bunch of foods that incorporate lavender. The lemonade was excellent!

Schoolhouse Beach. No sand, just rocks! We swam in the lake, which was chilly but doable.

Nelson’s Hall Bitters Pub. I’m going to link to the Atlas Obscura entry here, because their description is pretty thorough, but basically it is the oldest continuously-operating tavern in Wisconsin. Founded in 1899, it managed to survive Prohibition by “prescribing” bitters, which was challenged in court and won. Nowadays, if you do a shot of bitters, you get a card that you sign and stamp with your thumb declaring you a true islander! I wouldn’t do the shot of bitters again but it was a fun night out.

Washington Island was amazing. I cannot recommend it highly enough. We had such a good time exploring the island, and when we weren’t out picking lavender, we were learning how to knit and embroider and basket weave together. I also saw my very first fireflies, which was magical! I would definitely recommend it if you’re looking for a cool destination in the US.

Moving from Salt Lake City to DC, I did wonder if I would be able to find good hiking and outdoorsy activities out east. While I stand by the statement that Salt Lake is the best place in the country if you are outdoorsy but also want to live in close proximity to a city, it was fun to explore our closest national park: Shenandoah!

Our friend Chelsea came into town and the three of us headed there for a weekend in June. This isn’t necessarily the time of year I would recommend, as it was brutally hot in the afternoons. We did a couple hikes but we made sure to get up bright and early so that we could beat the heat as much as possible. While I would have preferred a slightly later wake up time, it was beautiful to see the sun rise over the mountains.

The hikes were nice – mostly wooded trails, with a few rocky sections, and a nice payoff of views out over the landscape. We also saw quite a few deer and some raccoons (which, incidentally, is the first time I’ve seen them in the wild. I often heard them rattling around in the trash cans of my college campus but they were concealed).

We spent one of our afternoons avoiding the heat in Luray Caverns, which is a massive cave system in that area of Virginia. The rock formations were incredible! There was one section, called Dream Lake, with a perfect mirrored illusion reflecting the stalactites in the water, and it felt like something straight out of a fairy tale. They also had a pipe organ set up in the cavern near the end that was attached to the stalactites, and we got to watch them play music on it, which was a pretty cool way to end the visit.

The one thing I would say about Luray Caverns is that I struggled with the fact that it was privately owned and operated, instead of being managed by the National Park Service, like the caves I’ve been in up to this point in the US. It felt wildly commercialized, and I’m much more interested in spreading a message of conservation and education – some of the behavior that was allowed in the caves, like throwing coins in the water, was absolutely shocking to me. I would still recommend visiting, because the cave system was amazing, but it is something to be mindful of.

All in all, it was a great weekend trip from DC! Once we rented a car, it was easy to get to, with good hiking and activities, as well as nice local restaurants in the small towns surrounding the park. I would definitely go back. Hopefully on my next visit, the weather is a little cooler!

In my quest to see all 50 states, most of the ones I had remaining got markedly easier once I moved to DC. None of those was quite as straightforward as West Virginia, which was only a one hour train ride from DC! I went on a whim, booking the train ticket on Thursday and heading out the following day after work for a quick weekend trip.

Know that I am by no means a Civil War expert, but my understanding is that the Confederate Army took it over at some point during the Civil War and then spent so much time and effort to keep it that it actually helped the Union defeat them. There is a ton of Civil War history here, as a lot of battles were fought in and around this area – much of Harpers Ferry is under National Park Service jurisdiction, so it was fun for me to get the stamps and go through the various exhibits they set up!

Beyond its historical significance, Harpers Ferry is a cute town. It seems to be thriving, with more locally-owned restaurants and shops than most small towns in America. I had some amazing food while I was there – my fav was a place called Snallygaster’s Café and Wine Bar.

The biggest draw of all, though, is the hiking! Fun fact, Harpers Ferry is pretty close to the halfway point in the Appalachian Trail, and you can hike towards Georgia or Maine if you want to. It also has several other trails branching out from the town. I was there in March, which is still a little early for prime hiking season – there was a ton of rain, which I imagine would have been pretty miserable as a backpacker – and I still saw plenty of people who were hiking and camping along the way.

I did a hike called Maryland Heights, which is where the quintessential pictures overlooking Harpers Ferry come from! Technically, the trailhead starts in Maryland, but you have to start in Harpers Ferry and cross the bridge to get there, and all the views are looking back toward West Virginia. It was a good hike, and I had great timing because the sun came out just as I arrived at the overlook.

Harpers Ferry has the best hiking I’ve seen since I moved out east, and I would definitely be interested in coming back for another weekend and exploring more of what West Virginia has to offer! Like my visit to Oklahoma, it’s always nice to explore a place where I didn’t have many expectations and find it a pleasant surprise.

Remaining states: Michigan, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee

As part of my effort to get to all fifty states, I ended up doing a stopover in Oklahoma City on the way from Denver to Washington DC! It was January, so… not exactly peak tourist season in OKC, if such a thing exists. That said, I loved my time in Oklahoma and found it to be one of the friendliest places I’ve been.

I stayed at the Skirvin Hotel, which is beautiful and historic and, according to the Uber driver who picked me up from the airport, haunted. I loved how central it was. I loved the historic vibes, and it was pretty reasonable for the cost, all things considered.

What I most admired about Oklahoma is the intention behind what they’ve built in their city. I started in Bricktown, which is along a canal and has light San Antonio Riverwalk vibes. I got dinner here and while it was pretty quiet, there were still people out playing mini golf and going to some of the restaurants along the water.

There was also a lot of street art, including the one above referencing the famous musical of the same name!

By far the most famous historical event to happen in Oklahoma was the Oklahoma City Bombing. On April 19, 1995, the Federal Building in downtown OKC was blown up in a domestic terrorism attack. To this day, it remains the deadliest domestic terrorism attack in American history. I wanted to go to the memorial and museum to learn about it and see how they represented those events. First of all, highly recommend if you’re there – it was a really impactful museum, covering the events of that day, the first responders and search and rescue teams and the incredible work they did, and the long term effects, as well as the hunt for Timothy McVeigh. Second, it is even more incredible to see what they’ve done with the city after that. If you asked most people to name 20 cities in America, Oklahoma City probably wouldn’t make that list. Even if you asked them to name 50, it still might not. And for this city to go through what it went through in 1995, rebuild, and come out with smart urban planning and a strong identity, it’s pretty amazing.

The next morning, I headed to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art! They have a Chihuly exhibit, which, if you’re not familiar with his work, he does some spectacular glasswork. There were a lot of pieces across the museum that I enjoyed.

Beyond the specific sites, one other thing that I want to shout out Oklahoma for is the friendliness and warmth that I saw exhibited across every part of my visit. Every Uber driver, bartender, patron in a restaurant – everyone local that I spoke to was so nice, and so happy to talk to me about their city. I think a lot of them were surprised I was there as a tourist in January, which, fair (I got so lucky with the weather). I went to a great breakfast place which was clearly very popular and busy, and when I told them it was my first time in Oklahoma, they comped my coffee and gave me a free pastry for the road. It was a wonderful experience, and I would recommend Oklahoma City to anyone who’s looking for a nice city break!

I went to Great Basin National Park twice last summer, once with friends and once with my parents. It was almost back to back, but I did different activities both times so I felt like I got to see a wide range of what the park and surrounding area of Ely could offer! It’s a great little weekend trip from Salt Lake.

We stopped by the Salt Flats on our way to Nevada, which is one of the most interesting landscapes in Utah. It’s the first place I can remember ever seeing mirages for real, and while they don’t look like how they’re represented in Looney Tunes, it is pretty wild to not be able to trust your eyes.

Ely has a lot of interesting history! We took the scenic railroad, which was a fun activity and made for a good primer on the early years when the town was settled. We also went to go visit the Charcoal Ovens. They were part of the mining process, but the more fun claim to fame is that outlaws used to use the ovens to evade the police. The drive out was quite pretty as the sun set but it was slow going with the dirt roads and a herd of cows that also laid claim to them.

There are two main aspects of the park: the mountains and the caves. My friends and I did a hike in the mountains, which was a little harrowing with the snow on the trail – definitely a few slips as we made our way over, it might have been nice to have spikes or something. But the view once we got to the lake was incredible! I loved the mirrored reflection of the still-snowy mountains, and I think it would be equally nice in the later summer once the snow was more melted as well.

The cave tour was also a great activity. It had cool formations, it was fairly accessible, and the history of the discovery of the caves was well told by our guide. Definitely worth doing if you’re in the park! Overall, I would say Great Basin is a bit smaller than most of the other national parks I’m used to in the west, but I still got two great weekends out of it.

Back in COVID, Sam and I had split a virtual pass to the Sundance Film Festival. This year, like so many other events, it went hybrid! We still got our virtual pass, with new rules this time, and supplemented those movies with four more that I wanted to see but that were only offered in theaters. By the time I was done with the week, I’d watched 14 full length movies and over 50 short films. My goal during Sundance is basically to melt my brain with indie films, and in that, I definitely succeeded.

Some highlights:

Scrapper: This movie was SO good. I watched it by myself and sobbed. It ended up winning the international film dramatic prize. Basically, it’s a tough-as-nails little girl who is living alone after her mom dies, stealing bicycles and pretending to be her own guardian to the social worker. Her dad comes to the house and tries to take care of her, even though he wasn’t around and she doesn’t want adult supervision. I’m not sure how wide a release it’s going to get, but if you have a chance to see it, do.

Fair Play: This one got acquired by Netflix so I know it’s going to be available at some point. Two hedge fund managers are secretly dating, despite it being against company rules, and one of them gets a promotion to be the other one’s boss. The effects ripple across their power dynamics and their relationship. It was so well done, and was one of the best movies I saw over the week.

Onyx the Fortuitous and Talisman of Souls: Honestly, the dark horse of this festival week. This was one of the last movies I watched, and my whole household was movied out, but I was determined to finish out the challenge. I put it on while we made coffee and by the time everyone was halfway through their first cup, they were sold. Really fun, and takes itself exactly as seriously as it should (read: not very). 

You Hurt My Feelings: Julia Louis-Dreyfus is one of my all time favorite actors, and I thought she was a delight in this. It’s all about the little white lies we tell each other, and the unintended consequences of that.

Infinity Pool: So the real reason to see this at Sundance was to see the official “director’s cut,” which was officially NC-17. This is the only NC-17 movie I’ve ever seen in the theater. It was wild to get carded going to a movie. Honestly, not the most violent or grossest horror movie I’ve ever seen – there were a few very specific scenes that I imagine can’t be shown when things are rated R, but I had honestly expected it to be more upsetting. That said, I think it’s an interesting concept and it was done well. It went in a different direction than I expected but I liked it.

Theater Camp: It’s truly a love letter to being a theater kid (which I wasn’t, but as a dance kid, I was adjacent and I love musicals enough that I almost qualify). I went to dance camp for three summers in a row and they captured the energy of those arts camps. The kids they cast were crazy talented and it was a fun watch.

Magazine Dreams: I’m not sure if I would recommend this movie, if we’re being honest. It’s Black Swan meets bodybuilding, and it is a very intense watch. But Jonathan Majors was INCREDIBLE in it. Yes, I’ve read recent headlines, and it’s a real bummer to see the domestic violence allegations. It still stands as one of the best acting performances I’ve ever seen.

I’ve been to almost all the states in the US, but I have a few glaring omissions that I haven’t gotten to yet. The one that seemed to surprise the most people was that going into this trip, I hadn’t been to Pennsylvania! Sam and I had been talking about it for ages, because he went to school at Penn and absolutely loves Philadelphia. After my visit to the mid-Atlantic, I could see why!

I actually visited four new states on this trip – Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware. Both New Jersey and Maryland were day trips. As it turns out, I don’t have any pictures of Maryland, which means that I was having too good a time exploring small towns like Havre De Grace and eating macarons and wandering through thrift shops! Embarrassingly, the only picture I have from this portion is the sign when I re-entered Pennsylvania….

New Jersey was the day trip that everyone thought I was crazy for taking. Yes, I understand that Camden is not the nicest part of New Jersey, and also that New Jersey is one of our country’s favorite states to joke about, and I probably should’ve gone one of the times I was in New York, but this was convenient. And it was on a train line that Sam hadn’t been on, which is really all it takes for him to be excited to go anywhere. The views from the train were pretty cool, actually.

I felt like Camden had a lot of potential. There were some cute areas, but it didn’t seem like anyone was out and about. It honestly felt to me a little like that period of COVID when no one was really out and the cities were emptier than they ever had been. We saw very few cars and very few people. And yeah, the area by the train station was not great, but otherwise, it felt like that shouldn’t be the case? It was the middle of the day on a weekend. I don’t know. I think Camden could be a lot more lively than it currently is and I think that would go a long way to making it a more fun place to be.

I spent most of my time in Delaware working. I mostly had Emmy’s house to myself, with just her cats around during the day. It was an unusually busy week so I was pulling longer hours and by day three, her husband was like “??? Erin hasn’t seen anything, she hasn’t even been outside when it’s light out? She needs to see something of Delaware.” We did find a good night to head to one of their favorite breweries to visit, Mispillion River, which is quirky (as you can probably tell from the lime green beer on the right). Plus, we went to a beach and I saw the ocean, so that counts, right? Yes, next time I’ll come visit in not-January, and we can actually go to the beaches that Delaware is known for. (that’s right, it’s not just a tax haven for LLCs!)

For my actual daylight outing in Delaware, we headed to the Air Mobility Command Museum, which is adjacent to the Dover Air Force base. That’s what had brought Emmy and her husband out to Delaware, and it was fun to visit with Wade! One delightful thing I’ve discovered since knowing him is that every pilot I’ve met is obsessed with planes. Truly, deeply, in a way that you don’t often see with people and their jobs. So he knows tons of facts about planes, and made the tour much more interesting that it would have been if I was wandering around by myself.

Anyway, the part of the trip where I got to be more of a tourist was Philadelphia. I loved Philly! A lot more than I expected, given that my knowledge of it before this trip was primarily from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which…. isn’t the best representation. Most of the tourism is focused on Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, so we started there. My parents have always done the US National Park Service passport books, getting stamps at each site, so Sam and I tracked down as many as we could while we were visiting. We also toured Independence Hall, which was cool and free after we waited in a medium long line and went through security. I also went out to Valley Forge, which is nearby but a little outside of the city.

We wandered around the old town, we went to Penn’s campus, and I visited my first Wawa, which was apparently the most important thing I did all weekend. We tried to go to Betsy Ross’s house/museum, but we were slightly too late to actually go through the exhibits. We also met up with some of Sam’s friends. When Emmy joined me, she and I went through the Magic Gardens, which is a mosaic art exhibit that reminded me a lot of Fusterlandia in Cuba – it was one of those overwhelming but really cool areas to wander through!

One other note – Emmy and her husband and I had gone to a bar, and I know that Philly is intense about their sports. Like, I listened to a podcast about Eagles fans once. I know the stories. But what I was not expecting was the music to pause and then an entire song about the 76ers to play at top volume in the bar, and then to be immediately followed by the Eagles-related song. I guess they’ve got a lot of city pride?

I’m down to my last eight states! I want to hit all fifty, because I think it’s important to travel in the country that you live in. Going to university in the Midwest made it abundantly clear that some of my classmates had not spent time outside of the coasts before moving to Chicago, and while there are some amazing places on both coasts, that ignores so much of the United States. Most of what I have left is in the southeast, since that’s the farthest from where I’ve lived up to this point. Stay tuned!

Our first weekend in New York was an absolute whirlwind of trying to see a bunch of friends, which meant by the end of the weekend, we needed to recover from the unrelenting social activity. Luckily, we had just the thing planned – Colin and I were headed upstate to spend a few days with our friend Jess and her family!

This was my first time seeing any of New York outside of NYC. Jess lives in Canandaigua, which is not far from Rochester. We took the train up, which was very pleasant. I got a lot of reading done, and the views were pretty. A good portion of the trip goes along the Hudson. We were lucky enough to have fall colors for our trip, which certainly helped the views!

I would love to visit in the summer, when I imagine you can actually go boating on the lake, but we still had a great time even with the colder weather! We did lots of wine tasting, both at the Lake House and at actual wineries like Ventosa and Three Brothers. Most of the places were pretty quiet, although maybe that’s because we were going on a weekday afternoon – nonetheless, we had great service as well.

The whole region also has a lot more civil rights history than I expected. In particular, Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony lived in and around Rochester. As we explored the area, Jess would point out some of the famous sites. We were even able to go tour the Susan B. Anthony house! I learned a lot about her life, and it was so cool to see a landmark where so much important US history happened.

It was amazing to visit Jess, and we were so thankful that the weather was beautiful during our trip. Buffalo, just an hour and a half away, got a brutal amount of snow, and if Jess and her family had chosen to live there, I doubt that Colin and I would have made it to our next stop – Portugal!