Summertime 2013!

After completing an exam this morning, the Spring 2013 is officially wrapped up and the time of year I affectionately refer to as “summer” is here. Summer for a graduate student is not the same as summer is for an undergraduate student. This is a concept lost on many people, including my mother. For a graduate student, summer is the time they have to delve into their research without the distractions of classes and (usually) teaching responsibilities. This is when dissertation topics are developed (but rarely proposed—after all, your advisor often needs a vacation, too!), field work is completed with reckless abandon, and we often carry our laptops and books outside and enjoy a campus virtually devoid of the otherwise ubiquitous undergraduate student.

My plans for the summer are to do much of the data collection for my dissertation. I may even kindly solicit the help of you, my blog readers, for parts of this data collection. I’m also working on proposals and still that big project that pays the bills. That other thing that many do not understand, if you are a funded graduate student, school more resembles work. Despite the fact a schedule similar to a 5-day work week is adhered to, over the summer there are a few opportunities for a long weekend adventure or two (or five?).

I’ve had a few ideas (fantasies?) for summer adventures, for those more experienced, I’d love to hear what you have to think or suggest:

The Delmarva Peninsula and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel: Any bridge where locals make piles of money driving folks from out of town across (because it’s long, high up, and freaks people out) sounds like something I must check out. As for the Eastern Shore of Maryland (and the neighboring bit of Virginia), like with Western Maryland, you don’t hear much about it. It seems like a quiet, pleasant place (except possibly for Ocean City on a hot July day).

Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina: I’ve had the opportunity to explore other areas of this state, but I’d like to see where it was that North Carolina became first in flight. I hear the beach is nice, too, but beaches are far more ubiquitous than the first controlled, powered airplane flight. I feel like it would have the same kind of strange ambiance as discovering where Marconi transmitted the first telegraph from the US to England. Though, I can’t imagine getting the solitude of the Cape in October on a North Carolina beach in a warm month.

Paddling Stonewall Jackson Lake: Earlier this year, when it was particularly frigid out, Chris and I spent a wonderful night at the Stonewall Jackson Resort (near Weston, WV), which sits right on the lake. At that point we also learned that, included in the room rate, are several recreational opportunities, including kayaks. I would love little more than to spend a day on the lake (with A LOT of sunscreen!) pulling up on the little islands and peninsulas beyond the reach of walking men… and it’s just incredibly beautiful out here.

Camping at Rocky Gap State Park: As a kid, the idea of camping sounded like some kind of hell. Yet, over the past few years, as I’ve assimilated into Appalachian living, the idea sounds more and more appealing. So I’ve reserved a cabin for what I’m calling “baby camping.” I use the term because it is a cabin with electric and it’s across the lake from a resort. Though, given we’re going with coolers full of meat with plans to grill, I think I’ll survive.

Tubing on the Shenandoah River: I tried tubing on the Juniata River in Mifflin County, PA last year. It got off to a rocky start when I did a really lousy job of getting myself into the tube (and consequently slamming my knee on the bottom of the river—slick granite—leading to a few months of physical therapy). Though once I got going, I had a great time. The biggest surprise was the amount of pain my whole body was in the next morning. I’ve really made tubing sound freaking miserable, but I would like to do it again, and I’d like to do it in a nice, clean river like the Shenandoah around Front Royal/Luray and all that good stuff.

I believe it was the month of July last year where on four consecutive Saturdays I signed some kind of liability waiver that used the word “death” multiple times. It was a pretty good month. I’d do that again.