Hello from Binghamton, New York! I like to call it “the Bing”.

I realized on the drive over here that I am approximately one million years old. Or a pussy. Or both.

I mean, honestly. It was raining – raining – for most of the way here. Nothing more. Nothing scarier. But I drove as if I were terrified. And at times, I was terrified. My honda civic weighs about as much as a two-ply tissue and any amount of wind or water will send it careening all over the road. So I drove slow. Too slow, probably.

But I made it (eventually) and was greeted with warm friendship, hot spiedies (look it up) and cold beer. After some music and some Flight of the Conchords, Nick and I played a furious session of Connect Four and drank what will probably prove to be too many beers.

This leg of the trip has featured nothing preservation-related to speak of, unless you count some stressing over a phone interview I have scheduled for next Friday.

Tomorrow, I turn south and head to Baltimore, for an agressive schedule of catching up with friends.

Will I have time for fast food breakfast? Oh, rest assured, I will.

Happy Spring Break, folks!

Ok, well, not for you workin’ folk out there, but for lazy grad students like myself, it’s time for a week of fun and relaxation. A week of not doing much of anything. A week of moving slow and taking it easy.

Except, well, not.

This semester I’m, taking a class in Contemporary Preservation Policy and in that class we have an assignment to basically cast ourselves to the wind and learn about a current preservation issue in an area that is not Vermont. So because I like industrial history and because I like military history and because I like rural areas and because I apparently like spending lots of time alone in a car, I’ll be driving to Charleston, West Virginia to learn about efforts to nominate to the National Register the site of an early 20th century battle between mine workers and the national guard.

I leave in sixteen minutes.

I’ve packed way more than I need; enough that last night Emily asked “Are you going on a trip or are you moving out?” But I feel like I’m well prepared. I have a varied enough wardrobe to match whatever nature throws at me, I have a computer and a voice recorder to capture information as I learn it, I have a multitude of entertainment options (both paper and electronic), and I have a newly-refurbished car that (pleasepleasepleaseGod) won’t let me down.

I’m going to try to blog the trip and hereby tentatively commit to a-post-a-day schedule for the duration. I’ll be driving 5 hours a day from now until sunday to get there, so who knows how tired I’ll be at the end of each day. I’ll try to post something before I go to sleep, but if it’s first thing in the morning, don’t be surprised.

So, off I go.

Let the Spring Break Historic Preservation Fact-Finding Trip of 2008 (HPSBFFT2008) commence!