iSad

As the whole world knows, Steve Jobs died last week. Well, I walked by my local apple store and came across this in memorandum. Pretty cool to watch people take pictures using their iphone, complete full circle! There were plenty of notes, pictures, and apples there in his memory!

Montauk, New York

Back in August (yes, I am a bit behind blogging about it...don't know why!) my boyfriend and I took our second roadtrip to a place called Montauk, New York. A few things I learned this trip:
1. We should not road trip together.
2. Damn his family can drink and its probably best if you don't try to keep up.
3. Its pretty chilly out on the furthest most tip of NY.

Haven't ever heard of Montauk? (Yeah, me either) Behold:
It's that tiny red dot. Population 3,851.

"Why in the hell did you go there?!?!?!" you ask. Good question. Apparently my boyfriend used to be stationed there a few years back and they have this annual fishing trip that I got invited on. (Don't worry your pretty little heads, I did NOT in fact actually go fishing...gross!) but I did come along for the debauchery.

We started our trip off with driving to NYC and staying the night and meeting up with my friends Will & Dana and also his friend Kate. We met up at this bar called Rodeo Bar, complete with ridiculous stuffed animals on the wall and endless peanuts (which about two handfuls somehow ended up in my purse...guess I knew I'd be hungry later?!?!), had a bunch to drink and waaaaay too many shots. Had to call off the fun and make an early-ish exit back to the hotel room.

The next day we set off to Montauk and passed several several cute little towns and even through the east hamptons as well. We eventually got there and met up with his family and their friends (when I say family/friends I really mean like 5 guys....and myself). After a hard day of partying we finally went to bed at like 3am...they had to get up at 6 am. Another reason why I didn't go fishing...no thanks! I spent a glorious morning at the beach catching up on my gossip mags.
If you ever find your way out to Montauk, you HAVE to HAVE to HAVE to experience a sunset at this bar called Montauket. I had too much to drink by this point so I kind of missed some of the sunset, but here is what I captured:

Apparently the boys had one of their best fishing trips ever, so I guess this road trip was worth it!! Here is a picture of the marina with several pricey boats:

Note to self: If you must go on vacay with the boy again, make sure to FLY not DRIVE.

Other interesting things about Montauk you probably didn't know:

• The Memory Motel is in Montauk on Long Island in the same town as the Church Estate (also known as Eothen) that Andy Warhol bought in 1972. The Rolling Stones stayed at Warhol's estate when they were on tour in 1975-76. (They were good friends with Warhol, who designed the Sticky Fingers album cover.) The Memory Motel was said to be the only place in the area with a pool table and a piano, and The Stones were purported to come by and hang out at the bar. The song "Memory Motel" was written during this period.
• Montauk is nostalgically praised by singer/songwriter Billy Joel, who had summered in this posh hamlet for years. The song The Downeaster Alexa, from his album Storm Front, tells the story of a Long Island fisherman's journey through Montauk Sound on his ship, named after Joel's daughter.
• Montauk is the site of the alleged government Montauk Project.
• The character Quint from the movie Jaws, played by Robert Shaw, was based on Frank Mundus, a shark hunter from Montauk. In the movie, Quint also mentions he "caught a 16-footer (shark) off of Montauk."
• Singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright lives in Montauk. He refers to Montauk in the liner notes of his album All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu.

Now don't you feel more informed???

Brownstones and Bodegas

My amazingly talented friend Will takes spectacular photographs all over NY city and this one of our friends Hannah (in his quirky English accent, it comes out more like "Hanner"). He has a blog called Brownstones and Bodegas in which he posts artistic photographs that he's taken all over the city and a variety of subjects.

Here's a bit of background:
Hanner lived with Hadi in London. Hadi is Will's good friend. Hanner had a party where she and I met Will. When I moved to London, I reached out to a Phi Mu Myspace page (hey, it was 2007, give me a break) and asked if there were any Phi Mus in London. Hence Hanner and I met Lora. Dana is Lora's good friend from college (also a Phi Mu). Dana met Will through Hanner and I. Cue forward to present day, Dana and Will are now dating and live together in NYC.

Can you keep up? SMALL WORLD!!!!

Anyways, Hanner and I went to visit Dana and Will in September. Stay tuned for more pictures!

20 Year Anniversary Party

That's right...Lambda Epsilon has been at Christopher Newport University for 20 whole years!!!! That's AMAZING! The chapter was chartered on April 20th, 1991. I can only imagine the hair and awful outfits that happened that day...j/k! What started as just 30 sisters has now grown to hundreds within the last 2 decades!

We had a weekend-long full list of activities planned however I could only make a few of the events, ok ok, I could only make it to one event, the Sunday Brunch. I never pass up an opportunity for brunch, much less a brunch with my favorite girls!!


It was AH-MAZING to be in a room full of such Phi Mu love and to hear stories of years of parties, weddings, bad hair, ugly wardrobes, and beautiful friendships. Barbara (I aspire to be her one day!) and Julie (our very first chapter adviser) and Maggie who has held many different advisory positions over the years were at one table and you could just sense the love and friendships that have evolved over the years.

From the outside looking in, you can never understand it, but from the outside looking out, you can never explain it.....

Noland Trail

I ran the Noland Trail about a week after Hurricane Irene (yes, I know that was last month and I'm just now getting to blog about it!) and it never occurred to me that the trail could be dangerous or hard to get to. Duh, total blond moment. Trees that are hundreds of years old can sometimes fall on a running trail. Not my brightest moment.

Big trees down

Never fear, the diligent workers were chainsawing trees that had fallen on the trail and I think I might have scared one of them when I came running by. I guess loud chainsaws ruin your hearing. I ran the trail a couple of times in college (it's right next to CNU) and I remember not liking it very much. Well guess what, I still don't like it. I forgot that its an actual trail and I had to keep my head down otherwise I'd trip over tree roots or the little (sometimes REALLY FREAKING BIG) steps someone's laid down to get you up the hill successfully. Needless to say Noland kicked my butt. And it hurt. And it was hot. And humid. And sticky. Ok, now I may be making excuses.

The trail is really super pretty and I would love to walk it sometime. However you need to be with someone fun, 5 miles of walking is really slow. And painful. And did I mention REALLY SLOW?

I never really gave much thought about looking up the history of the trail or the Mariner's Museum where the trail is located. So in all of its glory, here is the history thanks to Wikipedia (seriously, what did we do before Wikipedia? Dust off an encyclopedia? Nah, I just went about my business a little less knowledgeable).

The museum was founded in 1932 by Archer Milton Huntington, son of Collis P. Huntington, a railroad builder who brought the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway to Warwick County, Virginia, and who founded the City of Newport News, its coal export facilities, and Newport News Shipbuilding in the late 19th century.

Archer and his wife, the sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington, acquired 800 acres (3.2 km²) of land that would come to hold 61,000 square feet (5,700 m²) of exhibition galleries, a research library, a 167 acre (676,000 m²) lake, a five mile (8 km) shoreline trail with fourteen bridges, and over 35,000 maritime artifacts from around the globe. After acquisition took place, the first two years were devoted to creating and improving a natural park and constructing a dam to create Lake Maury, named after the nineteenth-century Virginia oceanographer Commodore Matthew Fontaine Maury.

The Museum’s collection totals approximately 35,000 artifacts and is the home to the U.S.S. Monitor Center. In 1973, the wreck of the ironclad U.S.S. Monitor, made famous in the Battle of Hampton Roads in 1862 during the American Civil War was located on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean about 16 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. The wreck site was designated as the United States' first national marine sanctuary. Monitor Sanctuary is the only one of the thirteen national marine sanctuaries created to protect a cultural resource, rather than a natural resource. The Monitor National Marine Sanctuary is now under the supervision of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Many artifacts from Monitor, including her innovative turret, propeller, anchor, engine and some personal effects of the crew, have been brought to the museum.

One of the entrance signs

Interesting sculpture

The wife of the creator of the Mariner's Museum created this sculpture

And here is one of the four lions on the Lion's Bridge....photo op of 8785347957430 Phi Mu photos!