Beaches and the Beginnings of a Journey

Welcome! Welcome to the accounts of the journey of a teenage girl as she takes off of school to travel around the states for a year.

For starters, some background information. My name is Jenna (well, isn't that obvious?..) and I just graduated from high school. I was born and raised in central Illinois outside a town of around a thousand people. I have many hobbies including biking and art, but I don't know exactly what I want to do with my life (one of the reasons why I didn't jump on the college bandwagon right away, although I hope to end up there eventually). Instead, I've decided to travel around in hopes of gaining some life experience and knowledge.

So here I am. A week ago today I was standing in Union Station in Chicago with my train ticket in hand hugging goodbye to my dad, about to embark on my first solo adventure. I boarded the train and found a seat, starting my 10-ish hour ride to Ossning, NY to meet my cousin Ruth. You know, those seats aren't as horrible as I thought they would be, and I slept pretty well considering. I even had a pretty good breakfast in the diner car with some lovely company to talk to, but lunch was less than spectacular. I arrived on time around 5:30pm and spent the night comfortably at "Club Ruth".

We (Ruth, Great Aunt Mildred, and I) packed everything up in the car and set off to Cape Cod for the week. Cousin Peggy and her husband Paul rent out a house on the beach for a week every summer and invites her family, and there are 13 of us here now. Its a great time to bond with the family and they're a hoot to hang around. I've gone swimming multiple times, kayaking, walking, biking, and even whale watching! We boarded a boat Wednesday afternoon and rode out into the Pacific off the Cape and saw some really great humpbacks right next to the boat, plus a pod of dolphins. (I'll try to put up a couple of pics, but who knows if that'll happen or not..)

Whale Tail!

View from the back porch

Dolphin

Its been a fantastic week filled with great company and great, fresh fish and other assorted goodies, but alas, it must come to an end, and we pack up tomorrow to leave. But we're going to spend the last night on the beach watching the sunset and eating lobster.



 We're headed to Peggy's tomorrow (Boston), and then I'm headed up the Vermont with cousin Carol and her husband, Mike. More on the progress of the journey from there! :)

Sunset on the beach