Over the past few days I have been gearing up for our big trip to the other side of the earth. While I'm very excited about this adventure, I am not looking forward to the amount of time spent cramped in an airplane. I'm most concerned about staying hydrated, staying comfortable, and eating healthy.

Luckily, our travels will be interrupted twice. I welcome the layovers as an opportunity to get out of our seats and walk around.

Our Itinerary:
On Friday, September 26th, at 12:15 p.m., Ryan and I take off from Reagan National Airport and head to Minneapolis, Minnesota. (First flight: 2 hours 40 minutes)

From Minneapolis we fly to Tokyo, Japan. I've always wanted to go to Tokyo! Even though we will only be in the airport, I will cherish to two hours we are there. (Second flight: 12 hours 25 minutes)

From Tokyo our final flight is to Singapore. (Third Flight: 7 hours and 25 minutes)

We arrive in Singapore at 1:55 a.m. on Sunday, September 28th. That's 25 hours and 40 minutes of traveling. Remember, Singapore is 12 hours ahead of us, so it will be 1:55 p.m. on Saturday, September 27th, in the States.

Hopefully we will get to our hotel without any problem, tuck in for a snooze and awake bright and early to explore.

Monday I head to the plant to begin the press-check for Modern Masters: American Abstraction at Midcentury, the book I recently designed. We are printing 5,000 copies and the publication is 255 pages. We will be working 24 hours a day and if all goes well we will finish in three days. That leaves Ryan at least three days of solo exploration. He will be equipped with the camera and already has strict instructions to snap away.

We will have a computer and I hope to keep you updated throughout our trip. But if I get to caught up in the moment, I will be sure to report back just as soon as we return home.

Whenever I stop contributing to my blog, I'm typically looking around, frantically thinking about what to write next. And like every aspect of my life, the more pressure I put on myself, the less apt I am to get anything done. I can assure you, an entry will come soon.

A few mementos from our trip to Asheville.

While the general mood of the beach is similar to the relaxed nature of the mountains, traveling six hours to the south felt like traveling to a different country. The crisp mountain air changes to a warm, humid breeze; the rolling landscape, so dense with life, relaxes into a cool horizon. Again, I was experiencing everything for the first time, but Ryan was seeing the landscape for what it once was and what it had become.

After living just a few years of his life in Dayton, Ohio, Ryan and his family relocated to Carolina Beach and later, Wilmington. From the moment we arrived, we began piecing together all of the memories. From the view from their first condo:


To Ryan's elementary school, where he, as a mere six year old, lusted after little Drew Barrymore, a young actress enrolled at Carolina Beach Elementary while filming Firestarter.

Having never grown up on the beach, I simply can't imagine spending every weekend on the water, hanging out on the dock at night or worrying about the boat being stolen. (OK, maybe this isn't a common concern, but after the Flynn boat was stolen and later abandoned sans motor, I would think it became a concern of theirs.)


The best part of our trip to Wilmington was spending time with Ryan's sister Lisa, her husband Curtis, and of course, Ryan's nephew Ben. As we caught up on life and all that has been going on since we last saw one another, each of us took a turn (or two) attempting to transform Ben's transformer. You would never guess how difficult those things are!! It was addictive and I didn't not want to give up until Bumblebee was as he should be. At least a couple of hours later, Lisa figured out the final trick and it all came together.

After reluctantly vacating the boulders, we stopped by the hotel, got Salinger settled, cleaned up a bit and headed to Blowing Rock, NC, to have dinner at Canyons. Until 2001, when the restaurant changed hands, Canyons was known as The Emporium. Ryan worked at the Emporium for three years while he was studying at App State.

The forty-five minute wait for an outside table was well worth it. We were seated just as the sun was setting.


During our entire dinner, I barely took my eyes off of the view. Each morning when Ryan would arrive to prep the kitchen, he would have the opportunity to sit out on the deck and watch the sun rise over the mountains. I couldn't help but to start digging in my heals, dreading the moment when we would have to return to DC.

But I didn't dwell.

Instead, I soaked up every minute of it, hoping I could make the memory last until the day we relocated to somewhere so beautiful.

Spending time in downtown Boone the following day solidfied my love for the town. The downtown area is tiny, consisting of one main street that splits the University campus and a hillside community with a spectacular view. After vacating the Coffey Break Apts, Ryan moved into a cute little house in the neighborhood just above the main street of Boone. He was within walking distance of the downtown shops and restaurants, the town green, a state park, and the University campus. We spent the morning touring campus, shopping, and simply enjoying our last day in the mountains. That afternoon we set out again. This time, our destination was the North Carolina coast.

Though fairly close to Boone, Ryan didn’t spend much time in Asheville when he was a student at Appalachian State University. We were tourists in Asheville. We spent much of our time walking around, shopping, looking at local art, sampling local beer, and talking to bartenders, waiters, and the occasional artist. When we set out for Boone, our experience changed drastically. For me, each moment was new and inspiring, but this was a trip through the past for Ryan; each moment was flooded with memories of how life once was.

After driving the narrow and winding roads through the mountains, Ryan veered right and parked the car in an abandoned lot on the side of the highway. We got out of the car and he motioned across the street to his first apartment in Boone.


While the Coffey Break Apartments weren’t much to look at, I was thrilled to be standing before a place that I had heard so much about. But that wasn’t what we had pulled off of the road to see. On Ryan’s heels, I struggled down a small cliff, grasping at branches as my feet slipped on the gravel. He’d told me all about “his boulders,” the rocks on which he would sit each evening, but until now, I never quite knew what to picture.




Ryan forged ahead, jumping over rocks and pools of water, ending up atop the largest rocks in the center of the stream. I was slower. My flip-flops were worn and had absolutely no traction. Also, I was stopping a lot, looking around, trying to absorb the scene. This is about the time in the trip that I started shaking my head in disbelief. Granted, there had been lots of head shakes in the car as I stared out of the window, overwhelmed by the beauty of the mountains...but now it was different. This was a place that Ryan had lived. This was a beauty that he was fortunate enough to experience every day.

As I made my way over the water toward the central boulders, I leaned down and gripped a fallen limb to steady myself. I put my weight on the tree, it shifted, apparently disturbing its resident. A large spider zoomed out from the shadows, and though I couldn't see its face or its beady little eyes, I could feel him looking at me. Annoyed.


Ugh. Spiders. The one insect that I would need to learn to deal with if we moved to the mountains of North Carolina. Even after four years of living in a city crawling with roaches I was never able to get used to them... and I think I might be even more terrified of spiders.

I took a dramatic detour to avoid the nasty beast and finally, I joined Ryan on the rocks.

Once we were satisfied that we had covered the cemeteries in town, we gave up on the notion that we were going to find any more of the Morgan family. So, we continued on with our trip to Boone.