On the road again..

I am making my trip across country now. At the moment, I am in Nebraska. Today we will finish up with Nebraska, cross through Iowa, and stop in Illinois. I am already missing those mountains though. To compensate for the lack of mountains, my mother and I are stopping at as many oddities as we can along the way - a house made of dinosaur bones, a giant indian at the buffalo bill ranch, a water tower with aliens painted on it...the whole sha-bang. It is quite fun and interesting. I wll post more when I am back in NY. (Side note: I have updated my flickr page with some Venezuela pics.)

38.46

My New Car!
Originally uploaded by nyjenn313.

Miles Per Gallon! Woooo!!! I took the new car for a little spin down to Salt Lake City and back to Idaho Falls. Stopping at my favorite indian reservation, Fort Hall, I checked my trip odometer, looked at the amount of gas that my car required to fill it back up, and realized that my new baby had gotten almost 40 miles per gallon. But, luckily, I had a calculator with me to confirm my mental math. Quickly performing the division, I found that the car had gotten exactly 38.46 miles per gallon, including going through at least a half hour of one of the worst rain storms I have seen in ahwile. Way to go kid!

Important News!

In looking for random things to go see during our road trip across america, my mother and I stumbled across this notice...


QUIRK ALERT
The Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health is looking for a permanent home. Planned displays include an actual menstrual hut, the history of menstrual objects, customs and advertising, and current women's health issues. Until recently the museum was in the private home of a bachelor, but folks were reluctant to visit the museum in that location. The museum's founder, Harry Finley, has amassed 4,000 items relating to the subject.

Web: www.mum.org

Pajama Party and Im invited!!

Okay, it is 4:15 pm and I am still in my pajamas... WOOO... I'm such a bum.

BUT!! what that means is that I am back in the country and back in Idaho. Okay, I have been for a few days, but I needed that time to readjust to American life before I could actually blog.

My time in venezuela was amazing. I am going to be uploading pictures and inserting stories, daily probably since I have enough time to be sitting in my pajamas still in the middle of the day. For now though... a brief summary...

3 days - leadership training in Miami.
2 days - training with the kids (46 students, 40 of which were a group from Ohio)

First 2 weeks in venezuela - drama evangelism. We performed a 20 minute skit 4 times a day in different neighborhoods, parks, churches, street corners, plazas. My team was mostly in poor village type areas.
(kids flew home after 2 weeks)

Next week in venezuela - medical works. Each day, the team (3 docs, 2 nurses, 3 other adults and 4 kids) set up a medical clinic in whatever space the community had given us (churches or schools mostly). We saw 250-300 patients a day. We saw everything from dehydration to parasites to a woman having a heart attack at that moment.

Back in Miami 2 days - readjusting and debriefing before sending the kids back home and before we left. (Only myself and 1 other person were there all the way from day 1 until day 28).

Free day activities : Week 1 - supposed to be the beach, but because of hurricane Emily it was shopping.
Week 2 - Beach (sunburn!!!!)
Week 3 - horseback riding, hiking, swimming under a waterfall in the Andes mountains.

That's the "pack a whole month of incredible experiences into a brief posting" style summary. Like I said, stories and pictures will be posted regularly as I enjoy my relaxing time in Idaho. ahhh... home...