-
And the Aussies hit 50 US States!
Welcome back to our final US adventures tale—that glorious October week where we finally hit all 50 US states! It seems especially apropos that I should be posting about our final US adventures now, when it’s only a week until we move home(!). Despite arriving back from our Midwest travels mid-afternoon on Tuesday, we were back on the road again on Wednesday. Fortunately it wasn’t an early flight! After two flights, we landed in Buffalo, NY on Wednesday night & walked over the road to our hotel. From thence, we discovered two things: one good, one bad. The good thing was that the Buffalo Fairfield Inn & Suites offers free…
-
An Ironman and The Midwest
Sad to say that yet again I’m dreadfully behind on getting this posted, in no small part because we’ve been busy, but also because I wasn’t sure whether it was worth putting these posts together… Still, in my efforts to document our fight for 50 states, I couldn’t leave these adventures unchronicled! Thus, I’m here to recount how, in October, James became an Ironman and we ticked off the remaining states of the Midwest! If you’ve been following along on our journey so far, you’d know that since moving to the US in June 2016, we’ve been trying to visit all 50 US states. With only 10 left to go,…
-
San Francisco: Aussies Discovering New Adventures!
Well, it seems that our earlier 2018 West Coast roadtrip (here and here) just wasn’t enough to sate our beach-starved Aussie souls, and we’ve just done another trip back to spend the weekend in San Francisco. Why, I hear you ask? To qualify to ‘Take the Rock’ in our swim from Alcatraz next weekend, of course! Since we only spent a day in San Fran during our roadtrip earlier in the year, this weekend offered us a great chance to see a little more of the city and learn about it from some locals to boot. We walked—a LOT—and ate some great food—again, a LOT—and had an all-round awesome time,…
-
Learning Through Writing – 10 Things that 100 Days of Writing Taught Me
If you’ve followed me for a while, you probably know AZ Pascoe and writing go together like peanut butter and jam (or jelly, for any Americans). Well, at least in my mind they do. Historically, I’ve gone through periods of significant productivity, and periods of… well, not a lot of productivity, which seems to applies to a lot of writers. And I decided that I wanted to try and address that. The Plan The long and short of it is: in the past, I wrote sometimes—though typically not as many times as I’d like, or feel like I should—and other times, I really didn’t write much at all. I would go through…
-
Your Greatest Untapped Resource for Goal Achievement
Arraying Resources for Goal Fulfilment It goes without saying that if you have a goal, you need to gather the resources necessary to achieve it. If you want to get stronger, you need to spend time in the gym. Depending on your starting point and your end goal, you may also need to hire a trainer, ensure you have the appropriate clothing and footwear, and possibly even invest in some of your own equipment. Each of these actions demonstrates a resource that you’re harnessing to achieve the goal you’ve set yourself All of this seems fairly obvious. To get where we want to go, we need to ensure we have…
-
Our Weekend Portland Jaunt
Well, it’s a shock all-round, but I actually have something to write about: last weekend we went to Portland to watch two wonderful friends get married! And in fact, the Thursday night before we went was the 50th Anniversary of the US Army Air Defence Artillery becoming a distinct branch, and we went to a ball. See? Doing so many things! (But seriously: this was honestly one of the most boring events I’ve ever been to: if this picture wasn’t so nice and it wasn’t proof that I’ve been leaving the house and wearing human clothes lately, I probably wouldn’t include it at all). Friday, 15 June — A Taste…
-
Unplanned Escapades on The West Coast-Our Second Leg
I feel like ‘unplanned escapades’ really characterises pretty much all of the second leg of our mammoth West Coast road trip. Mammoth seems appropriate: as you can see in the photo below, we got in a lot in the second week: we calculated that we drove for about 100 hours total over a 2 week period. Newsflash: that is too much. Even after being home for about three days, late last week we were only just recovering from the trauma (emotionally: our bodies were still wrecked). In fact, our everything was out of kilter and I’ve been flogging myself to get uni done—hence the ridiculous lateness of this post. Over a…
-
Conquering the West Coast: The First Leg!
It’s been so long since I wrote a blog post that I hardly know where to start, but with the opening leg of an awesome West Coast trip seemed a good place! I returned last Monday from a three-week trip to Australia and in a pretty short turn around, James and I set out on Friday for our most recent slew of adventures: to tackle America’s gorgeous West Coast. We’ve got the full fifty (states, that is) firmly in our sights now, and we’re ticking off another three this trip. (It’s four, if you want to be technical, but since we’re visiting Oregon properly in June, I see no reason to…
-
Off to the Windy City – The Expats Visit Chicago!
Well, after a whirlwind trip to Chicago, Illinois is ticked off our ‘states to see’ list. And since we included some Amtrak-Enabled day trip to Milwaukee and Kalamazoo, Wisconsin and Michigan are done too: talk about a big week! We’re on the homeward stretch with seeing all 50 US states, with only about 13 or 14 to go. Exciting times! So what did we get up to? I’m glad you asked. Buckle in and hear all about our Chicago, Milwaukee and Kalamazoo escapades… Maybe you’ll find some recommendations for your own travelling adventures! Chicago We had an early start on Thursday and a long morning to boot, with a plane,…
-
Race and Representation in Popular Culture – What Black Panther Teaches Us
Representation of race in popular culture is, like many aspects of media consumption, a point of social contention. Marvel’s recently-released Black Panther provides a brilliant entry point for considering some key points about the issue. And having had the chance to watch Black Panther in cinemas last week, I felt inspired to talk about it. As a white woman, what do we mean when we say representation? Does it matter? If so, why, and what can we do about it? [DISCLAIMER: I thought this movie was brilliant. You’ll probably read that a few more times in the post. While I’ll do my best to avoid spoilers, just be aware that…
