Ending in Small Town Rhode Island

This morning Rae and I got up early to get a head start on our last day of the road trip. We departed Akron at 7am and drove more than half of the day through Pennsylvania. The drive through Pennsylvania may be long but it is beautiful. I cannot believe I forgot how pretty of a drive it was. It is lush, green, and mountainous. I would love to make that drive in the fall and see all of the different colors the forests would turn.

After getting through PA, the rest should have felt like a breeze...false. We ended up driving through the "garden state" part of New Jersey which was scenic, but once we crossed over into New York it turned a bit stressful. I have been home way too long, I have forgotten just how aggressive and plain rude drivers are up here. The culture up here in the northeast has fallen under and transformed into a complete lack of respect for authority and lack taking responsibility for personal actions. It's a vicious cycle. The speed limit is marked 45 mph, everyone drives 70+, what is a cop supposed to do? Pull everyone over? So then there is no reason to follow the law or even recognize the posted speed limit because you pretty much have to speed to keep up with the flow of traffic and the police can't really punish anyone for mild speeding, only if it is really ridiculous. Now, I am not ranting about this because of the speeding but just the lack of respect for the posted speed limit. Why have a speed limit at all if no one obeys it? When driving through Ohio, when there were additional signs saying "stictly enforced" underneath the speed limit sign, just about everyone drove the speed limit. The funny thing is we did not see a single patrol man but everyone respected the speed limit and drove the appropriote speed. It definitely has to do with culture. Is it something that can ever be changed? Or is it just how it is?

So after all of the stress and frustration driving through New York, we entered into Connecticut. No this time last year when I was driving up for the first time with my mom, CT was where I started panicking and wondering what I had gotten myself into. This year, just the nostalgia of that freshman feeling made me panic all over again. What did I get myself into? People here are so different than what I am used to. Should I have to harden myself to tolerate cold people? My life is completely different up here than at home. We have driven WAY too far to turn around now. To make it worse, traffic on I-95 was bad, not terrible, but it did delay our trip.

After crossing the Rhode Island border, somehow all of that anxiety subsided. We arrived in South County Rhode Island (Wakefield) as planned, right around dinner time. Tonight we are staying with some of Rae's old family friends in Wakefield, Mariam, Ben, and their two young children. I am so thankful for having a house to stay at outside of the city. It is nice to have a peaceful night here out in small town Rhode Island. The GPS took us through South Kingstown and the quaint neighborhoods, we rolled the windows down and enjoyed the warm breeze and scenery. After arriving we chatted and ate dinner all before 9:30pm, I was shocked, it felt like it was so much later. Since we got an early start this morning, we got here early, and now I have showered, blogged, and I am ready for bed before midnight. I need all the rest I can get because of a big day of moving into my apartment tomorrow.

Well this will be my last post on this blog for a while, maybe forever? I thought it was nice to start and end this blog in Rhode Island. You will be hearing from me in my mini-city as soon as I get settled in and I will have a whole new year of exciting adventures up here in my mini city of Providence, RI. Thanks for keeping up with my blog this summer, goodnight.

Travelling in the Midwest

After enjoying a cup of coffee this morning, Rae and I headed out for day 2 of our road trip. After typing in our next destination, we discovered that we would be getting to Akron, OH a little earlier than expected, so we decided to make a stop at the St. Louis Arch and take a look from the top. So glad we did it! What made it better was that we got there early so there were hardly any other people in the observation area and we could move through the tour quickly, plus we got an early bird parking discount! 

After our little tourist stop we headed across the heartland of America: the midwest. We drove by nothing but corn, corn and more corn. It was very pretty through southern Illinois, but then it started to get monotonous once we passed through Indiana and most of Ohio and still saw cornfields. After passing the Indiana border, we made a lunch stop at Cracker Barrel. I had my chicken and dumplings and even had room for some carrot cake for dessert, then back on the interstate. We arrived in Akron, OH at around 8pm. After eating dinner at Chipotle and dessert at Coldstone Creamery we finally checked into our favorite hotel chain (Holiday Inn Express) and now I am currently laying in my nice queen size bed relaxing. 

Not too exciting of a day. Tomorrow we'll be driving through Pennsylvania for a large portion of the day. We should be in Rhode Island around dinner time! I will be keeping you posted. Thanks to those who have kept us in your prayers, we have had an incredibly smooth trip. Unitl next time...

Meet Me In St. Louis

The time has come for me to go back to school. It has been a fantastic summer as I have expressed all summer on this blog. Saturday my mom and I headed down to the Dallas area to meet up with Rae Sunday. We made a stop in Plano to see one of my mom's classmates from China and then headed down to Danell's. Danell has been a long time family friend and was sort of my nanny when I was a kid. She used to live in my neighborhood and she is the reason why I am a Christian today ( long story short). She is a preacher's wife so her and her family have moved around the country a lot, but I think that they have finally settled down in Dallas, and are there to stay. It was very nice to catch up with her as well as go to Sunday worship services with her in the morning. The congregation they have down there is truly great. They are everything a church is supposed to be, a big loving family. After lunch, we headed back up to Plano to get Rae, we packed up the car with her things and made the trek back up to Oklahoma. Rae has finally met Shirley in person and I think she got a kick out of her. After getting home, my mom made steaks for a late dinner and the guys came over one last time. I'm glad they had a chance to meet Rae, I feel like I have talked about all of them to each other so much, we were all old pals. 

This day has gone so smoothly, exactly as planned.This morning Rae and I got up and got organized. We had some extra time before we needed to leave, so I took her around town and showed her the important things and stopped for some coffee at Espresso 911 and said good bye to Micah. Then we headed over to Grand China to grab a bite to eat and say good bye to the Grand China gang and my mom and Charles. Then Corbin met us there in the parking lot to see us off, then we met Trevor at the Log Store to get gas on the way out and have him see us off. Our stop for the night was only in St. Louis so we did not do as much driving day one. Rae has an old family friend here in St. Louis, Stacy, and she has been kind enough to let us stay in her home for the night. We got into St. Louis around 5:45ish, so it was still daytime. Stacy took us to some St. Louis classic places. We had dinner at J. Bucks and then went to Ted Drewes for some frozen custard. I had actually seen this frozen custard place on the Food Network not to long ago, it's Bobby Flay's favorite. They make what they call a "concrete" as mixture so thick you can hold it upside down. 

Tomorrow we're planning to be back on the road at 8am on our way to Akron, OH. Keep us in your prayers, and lets hope the trip continues to be smooth. I'll be keeping you posted, until next time...

Long Time No Blog

Hello all, I apologize for not blogging lately. I wish I could say I was just way too busy but that would be very false. I actually have had extended amount of free time. Just over a week ago I got the opportunity to go to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to go to a NACA Concert Management Institute. It was great. The Mindiola's returned the favor for staying at my house for a week by meeting me at the airport and taking me to where I needed to be as well as pick me up and drop me off at the airport for my departure. We stayed at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. I met some great people, learned some extensive things about major concerts, got to tour several different concert venues, and go to Summerfest (the largest music festival in "the world") courtesy of Johnson and Wales University. I even got to see the lovely Katelyn Spurr. Katelyn is doing her internship in Chicago at a talent agency for the summer, so she drove up to meet up with to at Summerfest. There weren't any bands at Summerfest that I was just dying to see but it was very fun going from stage to stage and people watching. There are some freaks that attend music festivals, there could be a whole blog just about music festival people. Coincidently the people that I had been hanging out with at the institute, a few of them had gone the year before and were friends with Kate too. Another coincidence was that my suite mate, Jamie, is the new main stage coordinator at Quinnipiac Univerisity in Connecticut who took the place of Meg Doyle, Katelyn's roommate from the institute last summer. Key highlights from Wisconsin would be: scavenger hunt, The Fonz, Pabst Theaters, drunk people on the way, at, and coming back from Summerfest, Noodles & Co, frozen custard, and Alterra Coffee.

On the plane back I did some extensive amount of thinking. Due to a crazy thunderstorm at home, the dinky little Delta Connection plane was in no hurry to get me back to Oklahoma. I have some big plans for UIB next year. I would like to re-brand UIB, make our posters simpler, less graphics, and straight to the point. I would like to advertise and reach out to other students who major in other things besides Hospitality to get involved with UIB. We are in need of some Business and Technology students, they're major plays a big part in UIB, it's more than event planning. We need some advertising and marketing students to effectively reach the student body and we need some tech students to make some more promo videos and maybe an UIB App in the future. I need to get that message out clearly to everyone this coming year. As for Wahoo, I am interested in getting some sponsorships, 1) they mean free stuff or 2) they give us more money to get a bigger name performer to appeal to our painfully mainstream student body.

At the beginning of school last year, I signed up to be a campus representative for TOMS Shoes in hopes of starting some sort of TOMS Campus Club, fail. Elise from TOMS shoes has contacted me letting me know that the Cultural Life Committee has gotten Blake Mycoskie (TOMS Creator) to speak at JWU this coming fall. This would be a great way to spread awareness on our campus about TOMS shoes. It is definitely not as big of a deal in the northeast, TOMS shoes that is. Of course out of the 5 or 6 campus reps at JWU that received the same email, 2 of us emailed back expressing interest and excitement. Great, I needed another responsibility to take on! Hopefully I can get some support and hopefully someone else more capable than me and head this one. I love TOMS and would love to do an internship with them one day, but I'm afraid of spreading myself out too thin. I have an education to get on top of all my extra curriculars too.

So much nothing has happened at home since I've been back from Wisconsin. My life pretty much consists of gym, class, wedding talk with Misty, watching The Bachelorette, Secret Life, Gilmore Girls, Arrested Development, Mad Men, and Pushing Daisies, and some working at the restaurant is sprinkled into the mix too. I am enjoying my time off, but you know me, I get restless and a bit depressed due to lack of activity, I must get it from my mother. Sorry for the long post, I'll try to get back in the habit of blogging more often so I can keep them brief.

That's all for now! Until next time...

Extended Stay

Tuesday Rae and I drove up to Dallas, the half way mark from San Antonio to Tahlequah. We left SA a little later than expected but we did manage to make it to Arlington to Cowboys Stadium in time for the very last tour. We splurged for the V.I.P tour of the stadium which included a tour guide and access to the almost most exclusive parts of the facility. We sat in the club seats, visited a club house, walked through the Miller Lite Club onto the field (the same route the cowboys take to enter the field), and we saw the players' and cheerleaders' locker rooms. This facility is massive.They say everything is bigger in Texas, and they were right. So many "World's Largests" was put into that. I didn't realize that the Cotton Bowl was there and OSU played at that stadium. That's a big deal. Nobody told me this. I even watched that game on tv. Rae can tell you a lot more about the facility since she did her Facilities Operations term project on it, (raerosen.blogspot.com). 

After we saw the stadium, we ate dinner at Chipotle and went to meet a dear friend of mine, Danell. Danell took care of me when I was a kid. Her family is like my second family. They moved away from my neighborhood right before I started high school and moved to Texas. They are now living in the Dallas area and Rae and I were fortunate enough to stay with them. I am so glad Rae got to meet Danell, they are a lot alike in a few ways I think.

After sending Rae off on the airplane back to SA, I went and spent the day with Danell and the girls that she nannys for. They are so precious and so fun. This is the best job Danell could ever ask for. She also took me to go see the Gaylord Texan, a big hotel and convention center, because I told her I was into stuff like that. After that we went to downtown Grapevine and had a picnic and shopped around before picking up the other little girl from school. After school they always go to the playground near the school and all of her friends are there too. There were a bunch of 9 and 10 year olds running around with cell phones and I thought it was ridiculous until I remembered that I got mine shortly after that age too. It's so funny how when you are 10 you feel SO old...at least I did. Now when I see a 10 year old, they are definitely still children. After the girls were fed, we met their dad at the soccer field and that's where we left them. Danell and I went and got some mexican for dinner and then she took me to a nature preserve, we hiked off our meal for a bit then headed back to her house.  I helped her husband set up a Netflix account that streams through their DVD player...I may have created a monster with that. But he seems pretty excited about it. We watched Air Force One last night. Good movie. Intense. I like Harrison Ford. I apologize if the verb tenses are off on this post, it has taken me two days to finish it.

Lone Star Adventures

The last few days spent in Texas have been fantastic. I've gotten to live vicariously through Stevvi in College Station to fulfill my want for a classic college experience complete with v-necks and Nike running shorts. I have also fulfilled my dream of living in the peak of white suburbia in San Antonio with Rae and her family. It's been so fun to meet everyone in her life in person. It's so crazy how iChatting can make meeting people on a computer screen so real. I feel like I've know Stevvi, Danielle, and Robin forever.

I love froyo. There are so many froyo shops here, I'm so sad that we don't at home. Spoons in College Station is the first self serve froyo place I had ever been too. I got to get however much yogurt I wanted and whatever flavor along with however many toppings I wanted and then I pay per ounce. Definitely something that I couldn't have all the time, that would not be very friendly on my debit card. Orange Cup in SA was really cool too. They had some interesting flavors and a really cute store at the LaCantera Mall. Oh the LaCantera Mall...beautiful and every store I would ever want. I didn't buy anything though...aren't you proud?  Last night Rae, Stevvi, and Danielle took me to the famous Riverwalk in Downtown San Antonio. I have mixed feelings about doing touristy things with locals, I'm not sure if I didn't think it was such a big deal just because it's not a         very big deal or if it would have been a big deal if I went with non-locals.

Well my bags are all packed and I am ready to head out and go back up to Oklahoma. Back to reality. We are making a pit stop in Dallas to see my lovely Danell and take a tour of the Cowboys Stadium. Rae and I are parting ways tomorrow, she is going to fly from Dallas back to SA and I will be driving home. This is gonna be kinda weird, we haven't spent much time apart in several months. It's a blessing from God that we aren't sick of each other yet. Much love, enjoy the warm weather, I'm still adjusting.

When in Texas...

This morning we left Mississippi and hit I-10 West all the way to Texas. The further west we drove, the less scenic it got outside the car window. We started off the morning right in front of the gulf and the coastline for a good 20 miles or so. The closer we got to the Texas gulf coast, the more oil refineries and flat land and highway there was. Also, soon after we passed the Texas border, the trooper was on it. Rae got pulled over for going 78 in a 70. Interesting since we managed to drive through 13 other states on this trip with the occasional speeding because of how sensitive my gas pedal is. Luckily we got off with a written warning, phew. We met with Rae's cousin Shannon and spent some time with her family in Houston before heading to College Station to see Stevvi! 

When we got to Stevvi's place, we hung out for a bit then went to Rudy's for dinner. Rudy's in as Texas as it gets. It's a BBQ restaurant where you buy the smoked meat and sides by the pound, BBQ sauce by the gallon, as much sweet tea you can drink, however many slices of bread to go with all of that meat you just got, and you eat on wax paper not plates. It was delicious. After dinner we headed back and started the long process of getting ready for a night out. Of course, I am the first to be ready. I have this awesome ability to get ready in 40 minutes max time including a shower, hair, make-up, and picking out an outfit. In that time I also blow dried and curled Rae's hair with time to spare. Since we were only gonna be in town for a short time, Stevvi wanted to show us what she does here in College Station and a good time. For the first time, I put on a sun dress with cowboy boots. Not gonna lie, I looked pretty cute. Disregarding the fact that chinese girl is wearing western wear. We went out two-steppin'. We left her apartment at around 11pm and poor College Station is dead when classes are not in session. 

Stevvi took us to this place called Daisy Duke's, a country dance hall. When we first got there, it was practically empty. After some wandering we wound up going back and the place finally started to fill up. It was unusual tonight because it was part country two-steppin' and another part night club. Somehow Rae and I had managed to bring the nightlife in Providence all the way down to College Station. Most girls were in their club ultra outfits, not in their cowboy boots., There also seemed to be a random bachelorette  party or wedding reception, I'm not really sure, I just knew people were unusually dressed up for this place. I learned to two-step. The first few dances were really rough since I was just kinda thrown out there was no lesson prior to, but I did manage to pick it up pretty quickly. I danced with a wide array of guys, some were nice southern gentlemen, others were drunk messes, and others were just a mess. We went to Stevvi's friends house for a "red cup party" afterwards and got to watch all the drunk people while we were sober, the best way to go. While we were there, they taught me a few more country dance steps. Good night/morning. I have had an extremely long day, I have been awake for way to long. That is all for now. Check out raerosen.blogspot.com for her perspective on our adventures.

Touring instead of Tour Guiding

This morning Rae and I took at tour of JWU Charlotte. It was pretty interesting being on the other end of a campus tour for the day. The presentation was a tad long but very informative for someone who is not a current Johnson and Wales student. The Charlotte campus is practically brand new. Its doors opened in 2004. The city of Charlotte actually paid for a significant amount for the school to be built there is a want to make Charlotte a destination for trendy restaurants and hotels. The campus is located just outside of uptown Charlotte right outside of the 2nd largest financial district in the country right after NYC. We stayed at the Double Tree Hotel which is owned by the university and just so happens to be right in between the admissions office and academic building. We took a look at the main residence hall and dining hall then continued into the academic building. They have upperclassmen housing call City View Towers which is similar to The Village and The Cove in Providence as well as nice condos and apartments surrounding the area too. The academic building is gorgeous and filled primarily with natural light unlike our John Hazen White Center and Xavier. Charlotte has a professional dress code and all classes are located in mainly one building. We got to take a look at the culinary and baking and pastry labs which can be seen from outside on the street. I was very impressed with the campus, they also offer a few minors at Charlotte unlike Providence. In order to make this transfer work for the fall of 2011, I am going to have to spend some quality time with academic advisors to fit in all of my advertising class this coming year in order to transfer since they don't have an advertising program there. What would happen is I transfer to Charlotte as a Marketing major and take my remainder general classes and marketing classes there for 2 trimesters leaving my 3rd tri for my internship in which I will transfer back to Providence, do my internship where ever I wish, and graduate in Providence with my advertising degree. Complicated, but worth it. Charlotte is an up and coming place full of job opportunities for recent grads. Next year is my opportunity to take full advantage of student life in Providence before moving into a more young professional setting for my JR/SR year of college.

The remainder of the day was spent driving through the rest of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and ending in Mississippi. Things I have noticed about the deep south: baptist churches every mile, Cracker Barrel at every town exit, and lots of interesting license plates. Tomorrow we are headed to Texas! We are leaving bright and early and hopefully getting to College Station in the afternoon. Goodnight all.

P.S. Check out  Rae's perspective of our road trip @ raerosen.blogspot.com

Southbound.

Hello all! It's Joy away from my mini-city, on the road back to Oklahoma. It is our 2nd day on the road and things have been going unusually smooth but fantastic. Yesterday I finished up my finals, loaded up the car, and hit the road. We made our first stop last night in Wilmington, DE at around midnight. Stayed in a Holiday Inn Express, I give it 2 thumbs up. It was fantastic, 2 queen beds, free wi-fi, and free continental breakfast all for just around $100. This morning we left Delaware at 9am and continued down I95 South towards Virginia. We stopped in Fairfax and had lunch with Rae's friend Ashley who goes to George Mason University. We could not have asked for better weather or a better location. The drive through Virginia was absolutely gorgeous. Since we took a detour to Fairfax, the Garmen strayed us from I95, we were skeptical at first but it ended up being a really nice and scenic drive. Along the way we rolled the windows down and listened to Taylor Swift, one of my favorite things to do!

We made it to Charlotte, NC at around 8pm. Figured out that the university owned Double Tree Hotel is directly next door to Johnson and Wales University Charlotte campus. Upon check-in to the Double Tree, we were given warm chocolate chip cookies. Now that is good customer service right there. Any business that hands out warm chocolate cookies is a winner in my book, like Midwest Airlines too. After we got to our hotel room and freshened up a bit, we headed out on the "uptown" to find some dinner. When we walked out, I heard music playing in the distance. I thought I heard Switchfoot. We followed the music, and were still unsure if it was them. Finally I whipped out the iPhone and saw on their website that they were indeed in Charlotte for the night. In excitement, I ran a block over to find a free outdoor concert. What are the chances right?! It was awesome, and being with Rae, we found our way to the near front. During the concert we were admiring the people with the lanyards with the all-access pass. After volunteering at so many events, I really dislike being a spectator anymore. After the concert we followed the herd of people and continued our hunt for dinner. We found the Epicentre which is like this outdoor mall of bars and restaurants. Of course all of them were carding at the door so the one place we could get into was the Enso Asian Bistro and Sushi Bar. The place was not packed with people like the other places. It was very cool inside. We sat at the sushi bar and watched the sushi being prepared in front of us. About mid-way through the meal we saw a group of people who were the all-access pass people come in. We said jokingly, "What if that is Switchfoot's people?" Of course 10 minutes later Switchfoot came walking in! Rae and I freaked out to eachother, but pulled it together and went over to talk to them and show them the pictures that we had with them from their show that was in Providence in November. They remembered and thought it was awesome that we stumbled across their concert by chance and ended up at the same sushi place. We got a fantastic photo with them, it's on Rae's camera, it should be posted soon for you to see. We also mentioned how we hated not being the people with the lanyards and they gave us the all-access lanyard as a momento.

Awesome trip so far. I am still a bit skeptical about maybe transferring to Charlotte the year after next. We're taking a tour of the school in the morning, hopefully I'll have a better idea after. I have heard nothing but great things about Charlotte and the Carolinas. The city is fun and full of young professionals or "yuppies" we call them in consumer behavior. Keep your eye out for more updates on the road trip. That's all for now.