Gone Walkabout: A Syra-cutie of a Weekend

Writing from a couch, sporting short sleeves and bare feet, chewing over life at this moment, in recent moments, and visions of moments to come. Splitting up the time since I last posted into two bits because there's just too much goin on for one.

Since I last wrote, I went to Syracuse, New York, to visit my friend Laurie's family. Syracuse is a 7 hour drive from Lewiston, so it was no baby of a trip. While there, we did many Syracuse things around the entirely Orange-wear clad population of the city.


The Erie Canal (above) runs throughout New York

Signs of life

A bridge at the Erie Canal/#emo

The famous Wegman's grocery store was a high priority on our list of things to do.

THE MADNESS OF WEGMAN'S!

A fish at Wegman's showing its support for the Orange.

Later that day, after getting a car inspection, visiting the Erie Canal, grocery shopping at the Weg, and eating "the world's best tenders," we went over to the university and toured campus highlights, or at least I did since Laurie is an alumna/current grad student at Syracuse. We went to the Syracuse-equivalent of Franklin Street in Chapel Hill and tried to get on the news, gallivanted around quads, visited important places, etc. The two great highlights were participating for a bit in Syracuse's Relay for Life event in the Dome and watching the game at the most popular student bar on campus.

The Arts & Sciences building was one such highlight. The Adams Family House was based in design upon this building.

This is called Dome Stomping. You go into one of these little spaces all around the sides of the Dome and jump up; when you land, reverberations from the jump travel all the way to the top of the column, which is several stories high. It's really neat!

I met Otto, the Syracuse Orange, who is the happiest, squishiest mascot ever known! I was shy to approach him, but he pointed at me and ran at me for a hug! It was beautiful!

The first of the two great highlights: Relay for Life at the Dome. Relay is always emotional when I've participated in the past, but was even more so since my Grandma Skip passed away this August from a battle with cancer spanning well over a decade. I made her a luminary and cried and felt a solid sense of solidarity with the other people and families represented by the luminaries all around the field.

Cartwheeling in the Dome before everyone arrived for the event.

The second of the great highlights of the day: watching the game. Please view this video below for an LG Octane camera view of the madness.

K, now you can look at legitimate iPhone video thanks to Laurie.

Any school that sings "Call Me Maybe" together during commercial breaks is fine by me.

It was very sad when the Orange did not end up winning the game, so we went back to Laurie's house and ate some Cap'n Crunch. The next morning, we woke up and went to Dinosaur Barbeque with Laurie's parents for lunch (which they very kindly treated us to), ate so much it hurt, and then went all together to (attempt to) walk it off at nearby Green Lakes State Park, home to beautiful glacier-carved meromictic waters.