Day in the Life of an Idiot

We are getting prepped for our annual drive across half of this great nation to Connecticut to pick up Mason and bring him home for the summer. As long time readers know, my family loves road trips in general and our motto is always, "Might Be Worth a Detour." Last year, on the drive home Mason was not terribly interested in too many side trips or meanders because he had a summer internship starting almost immediately upon his arrival back in Minnesota. This year, he's struck out. (As an aside, I don't know why. I suspect that he just hasn't yet figured out the magic to looking good on paper. Gods know that when he CAN get into the interview stage, he rocks it. So who knows? I do know that summer internship are kind of hard to come by generally, so there's that.) At any rate, the good news for us is that this means there's opportunity for meandering on the way home as well.

The first time we drove east, I kind of fell in love with Pennsylvania. The rolling foothills felt like larger version of the coulees and valleys I grew up in (in Southwestern Wisconsin, in the Driftless Zone.) So, we have long talked about getting to Pennsylvania and then stopping, as it were, to see more things. The last time we drove through, Shawn noticed a plaque at a roadside stop that talked about the Pennsylvania Wilds. So, we decided to spend out extra day there. We're going to make a stop in Punxsutawney, the home of Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog of Groundhog's Day. He apparently lives at the local library, when he is not determining the upcoming weather on February 2nd. I am unreasonably excited to see this stupid rodent. When I was growing up, my family resisted Christmas cards (not being Christians) and New Years was my mother's birthday, so we had a funny little tradition of sending out Groundhog's Day cards to friends and family. 

From there, we're planning on seeing the Kinuza Skywalk. I may puke walking out on it, but it seems like a "must see."

I just got off the phone (yes, us Olds still talk on the phone) with a friend of mine who lives in Allentown, PA, about places he would recommend, so now I have several other things to add to our list:

• Bushkilll Falls: https://www.visitbushkillfalls.com/
• Pine Creek Gorge (the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon)
• Knobles Amusement Park: https://www.knoebels.com/
• Bellefonte: https://bellefonte.net/
• The Choke and Puke Diner, and possibly
• Valley Forge: https://www.nps.gov/vafo/index.htm

So, it should be fun, especially since if we don't hit some of these things this time, we can certainly consider checking them out next time we go this way--which given that Mason will be a junior next year, is at least a couple of more times. 

The other thing I've been doing is watching a lot of episodes of Bakuman. This is an anime based on a manga series by the creative team that brought us Death Note (Ohba Tsugumi and Obata Takashi) and which is kind of an intensely self-referential work about two manga creators struggling to get a hit series. It's also structured as a romance, which the anime highlights a lot more than the manga did. I loved the manga for its insider vibe to the world of manga creation and publication. As I was telling Naomi the other day, the thing I especially like about Bakuman is how much the two heroes FAIL.  It wouldn't be fun if that was all they did, but Ohba and Obata do a great job of sprinkling just enough success that you are always hopeful, and so that when the failures hit, it feels... real?  Even though these kids are WILDLY and kind of unreasonably successful for "real life" people, it still feels more like real life than is usually shown in movies and TV about writing and writers in the US.

Otherwise, here is a picture of my cat:


Image: snoozing Rhubarb