{"id":13763,"date":"2013-12-06T22:00:11","date_gmt":"2013-12-07T03:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=13763"},"modified":"2024-12-03T16:14:12","modified_gmt":"2024-12-03T21:14:12","slug":"staying-alive-the-final-five","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=13763","title":{"rendered":"Staying Alive And The Final Five"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"06<\/a>Linda Burton posting from Annapolis, Maryland <\/i>\u2013 Psychologically we love countdowns. We count down the twelve days till Christmas. We countdown rocket launches, till we arrive at blastoff, or the mission is scrubbed. We countdown the Final Four in basketball every spring, when the world of college sports reaches fever pitch. I counted down the days in the month before my 16th<\/sup> birthday; I was on pins and needles to get my driver license; something everyone in my little town did back in the 50s when all the cars had fins and all the girls wore bobby socks. The year I went to Antarctica \u2013 that was 2005 \u2013 I counted off the weeks till my Seattle departure at Pagliacci Pizza. I happened to go for a Friday \"06<\/a>night pizza at the 17-week point and noticed they had 17 pizzas on their menu. \u201cAha,\u201d I thought, \u201cif I begin with the Original, when I get to the Verde Primo it will be time to fly to South America.\u201d I called for grandson help on big-meat pizza nights; Matthew for Spicy Pepperoni; Andrew for Extra Pepperoni; both of them on Grand Salami Primo night. The AGOG was my favorite \u2013 mushrooms, roasted garlic, Kalamata olives, goat cheese, Fontina, Mozzarella and parsley over olive oil; fresh tomato slices added after the bake. The journey through the Pagliacci menu \"06<\/a>was an experience; I developed new tastes, and learned some things I didn\u2019t know before. I dealt with whatever came next; I adapted as needed. You know where I\u2019m going with that thought. Annapolis finishes the countdown through the Final Five; the Journey Across America <\/i>is 100% complete. This mission wasn\u2019t scrubbed; we made it\u00a0all the way (adapting as needed) \u2013 the Scion,\u00a0the cats, and me. We\u2019re travelworn and frazzled, but completely AGOG with success. <\/p>\n

\"06<\/a>An old disco tune is playing in my head (staying alive<\/i>); I feel like dancing; maybe it\u2019s reverberations from a few hotels back where they played disco music in the lobby. Except, I do feel like dancing; I can see that Travolta strut; hell yes, we\u2019re staying alive. Even as recently as the 80% mark I wondered if we\u2019d make it to the end. It\u2019s been touch and go with Alex Cat; there was his near-death in Cheyenne last year when he lost a third of his body weight; a persistent drippy nose plagued him throughout this summer. \u201cIt\u2019s probably a growth,\u201d one vet concluded when no treatments helped. But that has finally \"06<\/a>stopped; his breathing is fine. He and Jack are ready to eat every morning at 6 (I can feel their stares in my sleep). Jack has gained weight; the hair on his fat belly is turning from black to gray but his temperament remains love-bug sweet. The Scion delivers every time I have to pull away from an overbearing truck; it\u2019s had all its checkups but is layered with pollution grit and I missed its autumn scrub-down; its innards are covered in cat hair and the cargo \"06<\/a>area is scuffed and scraped. \u201cI\u2019ll get you fully detailed when we get to Arkansas,\u201d I promise, every time I unload. \u201cI\u2019ll plant hostas along the fence,\u201d I promise Alex, who used to prowl through our hosta beds like a jungle cat. I promise Jack a goldfish pond, with a little bridge across, and some catmint growing by the edge. I want to replicate our Seattle yard, only bigger. I\u2019ve given up the idea of a DC highrise for a year, instead going straight to small-town living in a place we\u2019ve never lived before. We deserve a little R & R; a quiet place in the country, to ponder and reflect.<\/p>\n

\"06<\/a>And to write. For writing is the next phase, writing, and organizing everything I\u2019ve learned, from Austin to Annapolis and all 48 stops between. But today I\u2019m summing up the Final Five; the October pumpkin fields of Halloween in Hartford; the Hershey sweetness around Harrisburg; the Trenton traffic buzz; the peaceful Dover flats; the waters of Chesapeake Bay that define Annapolis. Some awesome contrasts as autumn has progressed, like the changes in the trees. When I arrived in Dover, a showy six-foot orange-red shrub marked my parking spot. Then it stormed; the next \"06<\/a>time I went out not a single leaf remained. Mother Nature\u2019s way of protecting trees from winter ice; less weight to break the limbs (staying alive<\/i>). I\u2019ve endured more blustery days in the Final Five than not, but that\u2019s okay. My red wool scarf is festive; I feel like a party when it\u2019s wrapped around my neck.<\/p>\n

This last segment was the shortest one, totaling 1,058 miles (compared to 4,368 in Segment One, when I drove from Austin to Salt Lake City, via Phoenix, Sacramento and Carson City). These last five capital cities were the least populous; 333,657 people compared to 2,967,264 in the \"12<\/a>first five. But my enjoyment of place, and the elements of discovery, remained high. George Washington popped up everywhere; colonial memories are flaunted in the colonial states and why not; there are so many stories to tell. Stories of the early settlement days; of hardships and prosperity; of confusion and dissent; of declarations signed with a flourish and fiery speeches made. The Revolutionary War; the beginnings of a new country; the headaches then (and now) \u2013 I want to take each life and each event, and look. That\u2019s how I\u2019ll use the year ahead. Meanwhile, here\u2019s a recap of what I\u2019ve loved about the Final Five.<\/p>\n

\"x<\/a>Hartford (left<\/i>) \u2013 I loved the Mark Twaininess of the city; the fussy Victorian mixed with shiny modern stuff; the wide-open parks and the manicured lawns; the neighborhoods with the New England look (it is New England, after all); the newspaper that goes way, way back; diversity.<\/p>\n

\"x<\/a>Harrisburg (right<\/i>) \u2013 I loved the overrich lushness of the capitol-building art; the big-town small-town feel with farm-surround; the working class; the river and the wooded atmosphere; Mr Hershey’s legacy\u00a0just down the road, the sweetest person of philanthropy; chocolate and love.<\/p>\n

\"x<\/a>Trenton (left<\/i>) \u2013 I loved the birds and the bees, symbols of activity; the involvement of kids, adults, and everyone; the knee-deep history and battlegrounds and houses where things happened we still talk about today; the Princeton vibe, buildings of stone and Einstein\u2019s brain.<\/p>\n

\"x<\/a>Dover (right<\/i>) \u2013 I loved the cozy Green that centers in a hometown feel; the spacious flatlands where chickens are raised and tidewater creeks creep in; the reeds and ocean grasses and houses on stilts; Elevation 1 on the GPS in the Safeway parking lot; Dover Air Force Base.<\/p>\n

\"x<\/a>Annapolis (left<\/i>) \u2013 I loved the paint; <\/em>the authentic colonial blues and reds; the houses, each one spaced against the next; the narrow circling brick-paved streets; the wood-domed capitol (no nails, just pegs); Maryland crab and Old Bay seasoning and Ego Alley in the harbor for showing off your boat; the USNA.<\/p>\n

Countdown complete. After a brief stop in Washington, DC and a visit to the National Capitol, you can find the Scion, the cats, and me (staying alive<\/i>) in Arkansas. I feel like dancing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Linda Burton posting from Annapolis, Maryland \u2013 Psychologically we love countdowns. We count down the twelve days till Christmas. We countdown rocket launches, till we arrive at blastoff, or the mission is scrubbed. We countdown the Final Four in basketball every spring, when the world of college sports reaches fever pitch. I counted down the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4587,1741],"tags":[3103,1500,3102,2955,1336,3100,3099,1824,2911,2956,3101],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13763"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13763"}],"version-history":[{"count":41,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15157,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13763\/revisions\/15157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}