Happy Thanksgiving Everybody!

 Our island life continued. We spent Thanksgiving Eve and Day on Little Talbot Island State Park in Northeast Florida. Florida's State Parks' slogan is "The Real Florida" which seems quite fitting because the sites are on dirt roads surrounded by tide marshes and beaches not condos and Humvees.

Thanks to the help of our incredible and enthusiastic Park Ranger pal we were able to find campsites for both nights at the park on this holiday weekend. Apparently it is a popular time for camping here in Florida, which makes sense to us now, but we have been so used to being nearly the only campers at most campgrounds that we didn't think of making a reservation earlier.

 On Thanksgiving day we woke up, had breakfast, and watched Hank hog-tie himself before embarking on an adventure. And I mean adventure - we took the bikes down and put Hank in my backpack and headed towards Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island. What we thought was a couple mile ride, ended up being a 10 mile push which Hank did surprisingly well minus some nervousness over a huge bridge with open water on both sides. After finally making it to the Beach with our angry dog was allowed to run around, play fetch, and meet other dogs. We think he has forgiven us for making him go through the bike ride. Afterwards we headed to the grocery store to get some last minute Thanksgiving meal ingredients: Tofurky Brats, S'mores, Chips n Salsa, and beer. To say that Hank was tuckered out was understatement, he could barely move for the rest of the night.

Before we started our dinner prep we wandered the campground and met some of our neighbors. As has been the custom in the south so far, everyone was more than nice inviting us to some of their food, beer, and chairs next to their campfires. We met a couple from Jacksonville who had the cutest Mini-Doberman (it was about 5 lbs and looked like a Doberman Pinscher) and were enjoying the Turkey Day football games on a 30 inch Flat screen(and we thought we were living the high life camping with our laptops). I was excited to hear that the Pack is still dominating every team they come across. We also met, John and Abbie, a couple from Idaho who had six years prior quit their jobs, sold their house, and headed off onto the road in an old plumber's van converted to an amazing mini RV with a pop-up top.

After our tour of the campground we got down to preparing dinner. With fire started and Port in hand we put together great picnic fair for Thanksgiving dinner: Tofurkey Brats w/spicy kraut and cheddar cheese, baked beans, and S'mores for dessert. After dinner was a little hazy for me(too much Port) and we retired shortly.

 On a sappy note: We we're thinking of all of our friends and family all day, missing being with them on the holidays but being thankful that they are with us via blog-reading or telepathic communications. Yes, we are very thankful to have all you wonderful people in our lives and we wish you the best!

Island life vol 2.

So we left Dreher Island yesterday morning and headed on down the road towards the Atlantic Ocean once again. As we bypassed Columbia, SC and headed towards another State Park (South Carolina's State Park system is fantastic by the way with great locations and good prices all across the state) called Edisto Beach. We once again arrived late and set up our tent in the dark before making dinner. After dinner we settled into our tent and continued to rough it with electrical plug-ins allowing us to watch a movie. [Ed. sidenote: you can get rustic tent sites at both the parks we went to but they are about the same price and aren't located in as nice of areas.] We watched Voy a Explotar an IFC film about two teens in Guanajuato, Mexico who just want to find something to live for "regardless of the consequences." Based on an old myth about the last romantic couple it is an interesting watch which is more frustrating than intriguing due to the characters immature stubbornness. Once the movie ended we were put to sleep by the patter of rain lightly falling on our tent.

Today we were greeted by a warm but dreary morning where we took Hank for a walk, then a jog, then packed up camp and headed to the Atlantic Ocean just a mile from our campsite. There, Hank got his first ocean experience. He was terrified. He kept trying to check the water, but when the waves crashed in he retreated to a safe distance. I on the other hand finally got to body surf for a bit before taking Hank on a beach run before we were pushed back by harder rains.

 With sandy shoes and one dirty/wet dog, we are pushing towards Jacksonville to see one of Jena's friends and camp for a couple days before meeting up with the Mangolandia crew sometime this weekend in Alabama.

Island Life... for a night.

Last night we camped on Dreher Island in a South Carolina State Park and today we awoke to gorgeous views over an expansive lake filled with giant catfish. Today, we head for the coast. How's that for wordiness, James?

Sir Hank.

If you wondering what I meant by saying that we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into camping at the Place on the River, I will now divulge that story. It goes like this - we awoke to a lazy, hazy, wet, overcast morning along the banks of the French Broad River. Stepping out of the Prius was a task and we knew that the Port had done its job. After showering, yeah whole other story, we started up the campstove and set to making breakfast as our fellow PRC residents slowly started stirring, shaking off the night before as they set to their tasks. We met even more people and chatted with some of the same characters from the night before, getting more of their backstories. The wife of our direct neighbor was a 42 year old woman who described herself as a "bonafied Tarheel" and "was born right down the road in an elementary school parking lot, in a snowstorm, in the passenger seat of a '57 Nomad." She showed us her Basset Hound named Hitch and her American Pit named Carmen before bringing us over breakfast and more anecdotes about herself and the community they had on the river.

But then everything changed for us. We met John and his girlfriend, Megan, who came over bringing with them two of the cutest puppies we had ever seen. When they reached us we played with each of them remarking about how cute they were. Upon hearing our delight over the pups, John remarked that they were free to a good home. Well this sent our minds a reeling, could we adopt one of these beautiful guys to be our own and invite him into our journeys. We tried to think logically for a while longer, playing the pros and cons over and over again before succumbing to our adventurous side we decided to adopt a three month old mutt, with no name, from a trailer campground, on the banks of a river in North Carolina.

 

So we introduce to you Sir Hank Albert Moriarty or just Hank. (I decided that he needed a full name but really he's just Hank) He is a bundle of joy, sleeps a lot, stays right with you off the leash, comes when called, sits on command, sleeps perfectly fine in the tent, and doesn't bark. We have had him for just over a day now and we still have no idea what kind of pup he is (so if anyone can give us some hints from the photos we'd be much obliged) or how big he's gonna get but we do know that we are super excited about sharing our adventures with him.

The Night Of

After we talked to the campground host and settled into our spot and before we could even start our fire the neighbors were already helping us out. Talk about southern hospitality, our neighbors stopped over right away bringing with them paper to get our fire started and offerings of firewood and dinner. Being that we already had dinner plans we declined that offer but ended up chatting with a bunch of different people who all lived in the campground semi-permanently and had formed a pretty tight-knit community in a gorgeous spot on the river. As our immediate neighbor commented "It sure does suck to be me" in her southern drawl doing nothing to hide the sarcasm dripping off of every word she spoke as she stared out over the river running through the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

After we finished our food we opened our bottle of Port and chatted in the firelight with more of the PRC residents before retiring to bed. Around about four or so in the morning some hootin' and hollerin' awoke me as our neighbors were having an all out rager at their site and at one point someone yelled at the top of their lungs "GITTER DONE, OOOOWWWWEEEEEE." Yep we are officially in the South.

Nov. 17-20th - Blue Ridge Parkway.

  Sorry for the delay in posts but we have been staying out of the cities, thus away from technology but we are back for a little bit. Anyhow this is what we've been doing. After leaving North Adams we headed down through New York and West Virginia before hopping onto the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Parkway was amazingly beautiful with new views around every bend and less brakepads after every overlook (yeah we stopped a lot and yes there will be lots of photos). We spent two nights at different rest stops along the parkway, cooking our food with an amazing stove (more on that later).

On Saturday the 19th we made it off the Parkway and into Roanoke, Virginia where we hustled our way through a Farmer's Market and a wonderful Natural Foods store with an amazing bulk section. That night we stayed in another rest area/overlook where we were able to cook an amazing meal with fresh vegetables and cheap beer.

 On Sunday the 20th we hustled our way down a long stretch of the parkway which included a couple hikes. One of the hikes was a 4 mile trek down to a gorgeous waterfall called Crabtree Falls. The waterfall was awesome, not an overly powerful falls dominated by the cacophony which is created by a large volume dropping somewhat vertically, but instead a steady rhythm of the wide stream pouring down a 75 degree rock wall.

 After the falls we loaded back up into our caravan and continued down the parkway to Asheville, North Carolina. After spending so many nights in parking lots, we decided that a campsite would be a great alternative. The first campground we tried was a mainly RV site and at 35 dollars a night for a tent site, the price was highway robbery. After talking to the managers at that campground we found out there was a couple more down the road so we continued down the French Broad River until we found the next campground, which was 29 dollars. We decided that was still not cheap enough and continued further down the river until we found A Place on the River Campground. The PRC was a modest plot filled with about 7 campers, a couple tents, and only cost $12.50 for the night so we decided to park ourselves there for the night. We didn't know what we were getting ourselves into...

Nov. 16th - Mass Moca + a HUGE post.

   

Yesterday we were able to spend our entire afternoon in Mass MOCA, the Massacusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, thanks to our friend Rachel which was fantastic. The museum was opened in 1999 in a huge old factory building and as of right now they have installation shows by Katharina Grosse, Nari Ward, Federico Diaz, Jorg Immendorff, and Sol LeWitt.

I'll get to the shows soon enough, but I think it will work better like this. When we arrived at the Museum we entered through an old wrought-iron gate made at the turn of the century, the other century, before parking in an enormous courtyard flanked by old factory buildings. As we began our walk towards the entrance we were overlooked by an amazing piece by Natalie Jeremijenko. I say overlooked because her piece is five trees, planted upside down and hanging from suspended planters. Even with their leaves shed for the season the piece is still strong. As we walked past the Jeremijenko we were greeted by yet another stunning piece this one by Federico Diaz titled, "Geometric Death Frequency-141," which was 420,000 black spheres made and assembled by robots. Both these installations were a fun introduction to what awaited us inside. The entrance seemed small compared to the buildings and installations which surrounded it but it held its ground with a large, painted, traffic yellow sign.

Once in we found Rachel she led us to Lickety Split, a small cafe in the lobby owned by one of her friends families. Normally lobby cafeteria's conjure up images of lukewarm coffee and plastic wrapped deli-sandwiches but not Lickety Split. The wonderfully expansive yet simple breakfast/lunch menu was adorned with handmade sandwiches, soups, salads, ice cream, wraps, and much more. Jena ended up getting a Turkey-Avocado-Brie half-sam with their Ginger-Butternut Squash soup and I ordered an amazing salad and a bowl of the mentioned soup. The food was delicious, the cafe was beautiful, and everyone was so friendly.

 After food, We went and saw a hallway lined with Wilco posters some of which were for a music festival at MOCA which Wilco organizes every year. Then Rachel took us on a tour of where she interned this summer, the Kidspace. I mainly wanted to see this place because they had awesome Shark Sculptures made out of recycled materials and a ton of handmade cardboard fish painted with vibrant colors. We ended up talking to a woman (I think Susan, or Sharon, or it started with an S, I'm so bad with names) who was in charge of all the kids demonstrations and such for the Kidspace before touring the installations which were all quite nicely, and brightly done.

 Once we had our fill of sharks we headed into the Workers exhibit. The Workers is a multi-faceted, multi-medium exhibition which showcases how labor is seen today and how some workers see themselves in today's society. The show brought artists from all over the world to create these different pieces which are really powerful, especially in these Occupy times.

 

After the Workers we headed up to Nari Ward's show which was enormous and included a full fishing boat, a 60 foot wood sculpture, 7? large foam/capacitor snowman-esque sculptures, and a wooden stall installation piece. The size of the sculptures and the fact that he found almost all of the materials in Mass MOCA's factory outbuildings made it all the more substantial.

 From there we ventured into Katharina Grosse's football stadium sized installation of painted soil and shaped Styrofoam. This piece was so large and impressive it was hard to quite grasp the whole piece and/or explain it via text. Just take a look for yourself.

 

 After Grosse, we went and saw 105 Sol Lewitt pieces in his Wall-Drawing Retrospective. Yep, they have 105 LeWitt pieces split into periods of his life via floors; 1st floor was his early works, 2nd mid-career, and 3rd was the newest, with one piece he never saw completed before his death. It was amazing to be able to see so many of these incredible pieces in front of me. Not only was I intimidated by the size of most of the pieces, but the line work and the colors (especially in his later works) are so intense and vivid you become engulfed by the pieces.

 We finished our tour with a quick run through of an exhibit called Memery, which was commenting on today's internet trends and society before they kicked us out for the day. All in all the museum is incredible, so intimidating and yet so open that you don't feel cramped even with the size of the exhibitions. We had a fantastic time and are a bit jealous that Rachel gets to spend her time here everyday. We ended the night with pasta, salad, garlic bread, PBR, cider, and some wild BananaGrams. Thanks again for everything, Rachel!

 To read more about the galleries, go here - http://www.massmoca.org/search_results.php?st=2&search=11