Staying Connected (Andre)

So, we have been away from home (Rhode Island and the Northeast) for some time! It has actually been 4 months since we drove out of Rhode Island and our former lives in a small snow storm. It was a frenetic time as we were quickly finishing up our jobs, packing, and storing and preparing for this big and ongoing adventure. We knew there were great unknowns ahead of us but we also knew that we would never really leave (nor could we leave or want to leave) our pasts behind us.

Certainly it took a while to get nostalgic for home, but as the weeks have turned to months, we have enjoyed spontaneous and intentional opportunities to reconnect.

Some of the common spontaneous opportunities are seeing a vehicle with a license plate from the east coast, NY, NJ, MA, CT, PA, and the like. We have seen only one RI license plate – it was on an old VW camper van in the Panther Junction visitor center a couple of months back. We walked excitedly to the van to say hello, but were greeted by a woman who spoke German and very little English. The best we could get was that she has a friend who lives in FL and allows here to store her van there and was not sure how she ended up with a RI plate!

A very common occurrence in the visitor center is when a Texan will say, in the middle of a conversation after listening to our accent (though we surely don’t have one) that “you’re not from around here!” But on some fun occasions, a visitor after listening to our non-accent, will excitedly ask where we’re from and then say that they too are from fill in the blank – NY, NJ, MA, CT, VT, PA, VA, etc. We have had a few great conversations with these folks reminiscing about the northeast and east coast. Not a surprise, we have yet to have a RI visitor, that we are aware of, in the park! (I say not a surprise since when we have travelled, people often comment that we are the first RI’er they have met!)

A funny incident happened a couple of weeks ago when we getting ready to close…. (I must stop this entry for an important announcement – while writing this entry in the visitor center, I just had the same experience described above and had a great conversation with a young couple from the Philly area!)

Back to the entry and the funny incident: we were getting ready to close the visitor center and a young couple were sitting in the visitor center enjoying the air conditioning. They said they overheard us talking to another visitor saying that we were from RI and they shared they were from Delaware. We shared that our kids went to the University of Delaware and they excitedly said they did too. At that point the young man looked at Laura’s name tag (yes we wear name tags), saw our last name, and broke out in a big smile. “No way!” he exclaimed. “Are you Dylan’s parents???” It turns out that the couple knew both Dylan and Nick from UDEL, played ultimate Frisbee with them, and the couple went with Dylan to New Orleans during their freshman year as part of a mission trip to help rebuild housing after Katrina! Top that for a small world, even out here in West Texas!

There are also intentional ways we connect with back home to both stay connected and grounded in our east coast and northeast ways – we aren’t Texans yet!

 Certainly calls, emails, and other communications with our friends and family are important parts of our days and weeks. We appreciate them greatly and look forward to each one! This blog has kept us connected as we share our experiences and thoughts and hear back from you about our adventures! We are greatly anticipating that Dylan and Nick will be visiting us in the park in a couple of weeks! To keep us connected with the RI scene, my friend Sue has been mailing us the Providence Phoenix and other such local papers. We have been enjoying the Bruins in the Stanley Cup as while we don’t have TV here, we can watch the games online! And, when we really need a back home fix, we watch Providence newscasts, read the Providence Journal, or listen to NY news radio stations online.

It’s a funny life we are living and we are figuring it out as we go along!