I'm Planning A Road Trip

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I'm Planning A Road Trip

Looking For Suggestions

November 2014

I'm planning a USA road trip. I want to go to Columbia University and meet the young woman carrying her mattress around campus in protest to her rape. Then I want to go to Westboro Baptist Church to talk to some of those church members, then on to Ferguson, Missouri and then to the Texas border where the young Mexican children are crossing the border. Then I want to go to LA to the section of the city where hundreds of homeless live. Then I want to go to Slab City which I think is in NV. Have I missed any other points of conflict in our country?

55Mandy Tao, Debbie Metzgar and 53 others

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• Bobbie Wickline

  Well, Bridget E Kelly, how many square miles are there in the U.S.? That pretty much sums up the situation, in my opinion. You would also need to visit my neck of the woods, where a neighbor told me a couple years back that I had bought into the liber… 

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• Bobbie Wickline

  And I heard that Boner said that the president's plan to take executive action regarding immigration reform would totally mess up any chance of Congress getting on board. LOLOLOLOLOL

  

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• Tom Myers

  I'm thinking you should make a video diary. I would be more than willing to help you produce this project should you choose to do so.
• Chrisy Sorrenti

  Sounds like a wonderful plan!

  Slab city is in California- and I want so badly to take our kids there!
• Bobbie Wickline

  Oh,Tom Myers, this sounds like an absolutely incredible project!!!

  

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• Heather Organtini Laziuck

  Adelanto California - home to one of the California's largest immigration detention center.

  

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• Katie Prible Cole

  You go girl!

  

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• Hannah Ford

  Bridget, this sounds amazing. Please create a video diary to document this & get Robert Ford to help you with a website!

  

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  Bridget E Kelly

  it is my intent to make short vidoes of each place,

  

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• Kris Bakken Mooney

  Points of conflict in our country... Wouldn't that be Washington D.C.???

  

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• Sam Klein

  My god i'd love to be your staff photographer for that. Talk about a dream job!

  

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• Arthur Conquest III

  You should take a religious with you

  

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• Stephanie Serfass

  I wanna go!!! Do ya need a nurse????

  

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• Peter Kallinteris

  Call me when you come to LA!!

  

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• Arthur Conquest III

  See, we can build a B. Kelly detail...religious, nurse etc

  

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• Debra Ward Metz

  God sure is using you for an instrument of His love..

  

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• Arthur Conquest III

  I have said, she would look great in a clerical collar...

  

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  Lucinda Taber

  Just be careful Bridget

  

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• Jackie Reviello

  I spend 6-8 weeks of my summer in McAllen, TX and the Rio Grande Valley each year. You're more than welcome to join me this year!

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  Bridget E Kelly

  Jackie Reviello what do you do there?

  

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  Bridget E Kelly

  I need a name for this project.

  

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  Lucinda Taber

  Not a real good name but here goes What's happening Here? Project

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• Brian Caufield

  Slab city, I think, is in CA outside San Diego.

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• Arthur Conquest III

  The BK principal project

  

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• Jackie Reviello

  I'm do project management for school furniture installations. My whole summer is spent there. I've seen a lot and it's sad:(

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• Karen Carty

  America's Truth....you can feature the conflict as well as the individuals who fight everyday to make a difference

  

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• Jaye Pedante

  You just described my ideal vacation!

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• Kevin Staudt

  "The Roving Rabble Rouser"

  

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• Roger Prudden

  Detroit is always an interesting topic to cover, make it out here and I'll take you out to dinner!

  

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  Ginni Outlaw-Buongiovanni

  Plight of America

  

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• Dennis Higgins

  Let me know when you come to Columbia! I'll make it a point to head into the city!

  

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  Jamie Downs

  Go Bridget

  

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• Jacki Budicker VanGorden

  Congress. Don't forget Congress.

  

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• Brittany Fox-Williams

  That sounds like a wonderful road trip! Please set aside time to have coffee or lunch with me if you visit Columbia/NYC. 

  

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• Maureen O'Reilly Naylor

  "It only takes one person to start a movement"

  

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• Selia Wang

  I remember we were lost in the subways in New York and were never able to find Columbia University. And that arrogant woman at NYU

  

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• Judith Luther Wilder

  Fabulous trip! Every city sadly has thousands of homeless children. Sacramento is a city where runaways sleep under the freeways. When are you doing this?

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• Richardson Jean

  just add little haiti to that list.

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• Alana Brown

  callan and I are going to be roadies! love this idea bridget.....

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• Alana Brown

  when do we leave :>)

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Waverly Brewery

 Waverly Brewery

Baltimore,  MD 

This is a big brewery that caters to the neighbors who like to spend an afternoon in a pub.  he day was beautiful but this place was packed with people. There are nine beers on tap.  A flight consists of four 4 oz beers for $9. Pints are $6.  I tried the Local Oyster (stout), the Double Kicks (Double NE style Pale Ale), 83 South (an American IPA) and Jerkwater (Double IPA) and the O'bay which has coriander, old bay and lemon.


I liked all of these beers but of course, the Jerkwater was my favorite. They also serve wine and cider.  A guy sits outside and sets up a restaurant that sells all sorts of sausage sandwiches which smell delicious. 

This brewery really knows how to caters to its clients.

The Rathskellar

  Rolling Rock

@ The Rathskellar

AKA The Skellar
State College, PA

In my youth, there was only one bar and one lager that I can drink  for hours and hours and hours and that was at the Rathskellar Beer Garden in State College, the hometown of Penn State University.  When I was a student there, Rolling Rock was sold by the case for $5. You were given a bottle opener but that had a fifty cent deposit.

A group of us would skip class on a Friday afternoon and  park ourselves in one of the booths and spend the afternoon, engaged in one case study after another.

The bar doesn't sale cases anymore and I could no longer sit there and make much of a contribution to  drink a case of beer.  NowI can  only drink one pony bottle (7ozs) for tradition.  But then, that's it. I'm done and ready to move on to something more flavorful than a lager.

Fruit Fetish

 Fruit Fetish

Tart Fruit Ale

Levante Brewery

West Chester, PA

Nope, it was too sweet and, at the same time,  too sour and didn't taste like a beer at all.  It wasn't a bad beverage but it wasn't a beer to me.  I don't like to taste Snapple when I want a beer.  If I want a Snapple, I'll buy a Snapple. I want a beer to taste like a beer.

Perpetual IPA

 

Perpetual IPA

Troegs brewery

PA

YUP!! This is one delicious beer. It is full of flavor. But then, all of their beers are great.  This brewery is located about 2 hours from my home so it's not a lot of effort to get there and it is worth the trip.

Craft Beer in New Zealand

Craft Beer in New Zealand

Auckland, NZ

February 2015

 .

I stumbled upon this beer festival. Craft beers and small breweries are just making their way in the mainstream of beers in this country. I am a beer kook so I found it to be great fun to talk with these brew masters. It appeared to me that I was the only one concerned about the quality of the beer.  The other drinkers were just so happy to drink free beer that they didn't care what was served to them.

Tasting the beers. I was the only female amongst the group of guests.

Epic Brewery

George's brewery

This security guard decided to have just one quick bottle during her break.

This brewery offered an IPA and a breakfast IPA, both good beers.

Liberty Brewery- my favorite IPA of the day

Unexplainable Incident #3- A Floating Light

Unexplainable Incident #3 

A Floating Light 

Caprenter's Point, MD

Summer 2017

It was a dark, clear night.  Maybe it was around midnight.  I stepped outside my house to take a dip in my hot tub before I went to bed for the evening. No one else was around. Nothing was moving or stirring. There was just silence on a dark night.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a light in my butterfly bush.  At first I just assumed that it was a lightning bug. But the light was about the size of a tennis ball.  And it just seemed to hang there among the branches. I couldn't figure out what it was.  And then it moved up higher in the bush. And it lingered again. It didn't flicker. It was just an intense glow.

Now this thing had my full attention. I stood in clear view of it as it got slightly larger.  And then it moved above the bush and hovered over it. For a few seconds, nothing changed and then it zipped off and in to the sky and the dark night.

I have no explanation or speculation as to what was going on.  I don't know what it was but I know I saw something unusual and I can't dismiss it.

Hanging With My Students

 

Hanging With My Students

Sias University

Henan Province, China

Spring 2012 

It's been four years now since I taught these students in China.  I still hear from many of them.  To the best of my knowledge, only one is married.  Many are working in professional jobs in Shanghai and Beijing. Several of them are in graduate programs in China, England and the USA.  All of them have experienced success beyond what they would have imagined before they started our program. I was lucky to teach them.

 

Hearing From Nadia

Hearing From Nadia

Former Student

Sias University Student

Henan Province, China

November 2020

In 2012, I taught leadership skills to college women in China.  They were wonderful students.  And I always like to hear from them. Today, I heard from Nadia.  I hadn't heard from her in eight years. But she heard, through the grapevine, that I am coming back to China as soon as Covid sets us free again.

 Hi Bridget,

I'm Nadia,How are you ?  I'm glad to receive your email.Has The COVID-19 affected your life? at China,I  wear a mask every day on my way to work.  En...Bridget,I have worked  as an accountant for five years in the Certified Public Accountants Co.Ltd. I enjoyed this Job. It gives me a chance to  visit different parts of my country.I also firmly believe that one day I will visit America.Because you often said "I CAN ，I Will”.

OH! Bridget,I  have changed my email address since graduation,this is my new email address"1551@qq.com", Its also my Wechat !

 I am sorry Bridget,I have not use english for long time, Now I'm learning English again，I hope we can communicate no language barriers. 

Welcome to China again！

 

BEST WISHES TO YOU !

马瑞华

Nadia

 

TEL:1833

QQ:155

Wechat:1551

Email:1551

Ballentine Beer

 Ballentine Beer

My grandfather drank this beer.  I haven't seen it around for years and years.  Then, last week, I found a six-pack in a liquor store in New Jersey.  It was only $4.59 for the six-pack. 

 So I had to buy it.  Surprisingly, it was pretty good. It had a strong, bitter beer taste and was cold and refreshing. I don't know, I might buy another six-pack some day.

Banana Beer

Banana Beer Bar

Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

February 2016

Walter, our guide, has talked about this beer all day long. Knowing that I’m a beer connoisseur he tells me “you will love it. It’s a local beer only made in this region. We will try it this afternoon.” 

We then proceeded on a long, treacherous trip to the waterfall. The hike is way beyond my physical abilities and I’m struggling in pain and humiliation.

“ Just think Bridget soon when you get to the top to have a banana beer.”  

At this moment, that is not a motivator.  But once the damn hike is over I do look forward to trying this beer. I like banana bread and pancakes and pudding. so of course I’m going to like this banana beer.

We drive to a rundown hut and are greeted by a woman who looks to be my age. She speaks English and welcomes me to her bar. We sit on the porch and enjoy the late afternoon breeze.  She holds a wooden gourd attached to a long stick. She tells us that history of the beer and then there is silence.

 “She is waiting for you to sip the beer”, Walter tells me.

“ Out of this wooden cup” I ask. “It’s all for me?”

“ No we all will drink from this cup. It’s a tradition that we share this beer. Take a sip and pass the cup.”

 So I take a sip of this substance, which smells like apple cider and looks more like watered down oatmeal. There is no banana taste that I recognize. The texture is gritty and I find myself chewing this beverage. I am glad I tried it once but I’m not going to try again.

 Then some bottles of banana wine are brought to us. This taste is much more agreeable to me. Again I don’t taste any semblance of banana. The cup is passed to me a few more times but I decline.  I am still chewing on my first swallow.

 We leave the porch as we are invited into the bar, which is no electricity. So it is pitch dark. In one corner is a couple who sits in silence and shares a large cup of beer.  Occasionally one speaks to the other. But there isn’t a lot of conversation.

Four women sit by the window. Mostly women come to this bar as a social gathering place.  The men go to another bar and drink by themselves.  Sometimes, on weekends, couple will come here and drink together.  But mid-week, the crowd is mostly separated by gender. 

The bar owner is also the beer meister. She started this business after her husband died. She tells me this was the only way she could make a living. I asked her if she has children. She has three, “one is a gentleman and two girls”.  They’re in their 20s. This throws me a bit.  That now puts her age to be about 45 but she looks to be about 60.  She tells me that she used to teach nursery school at the church and that is where she learned English. She doesn’t teach anymore as the bar business takes up all of her time.

 It appears to me as if $5 of beer was sold today. While it is still early in the evening, I can’t imagine anyone coming in after dark as it would be just too, too dark to see this place. So I think she is finished selling beer for the day.  I wonder if weekends bring in more business and I wonder if the rainy season keeps customers away. But mostly I wonder how anyone can live on $35 a week.

Missouri

Missouri

1998 and 2001

1998- My mom died in the spring and in the summer, my dad asked me if I would take him to Branson, Missouri to hear Lawrence Welk.  I told him I would take him there in the fall.  He liked the idea but then he added that I was only taking him there now because I felt sorry for him because my mother had just died.  He thought we should go in five year for his 75th birthday.  I told him that I was taking him now when he was 70.  I told him that he may not have a 75th birthday but if he did, he was going to drive me crazier than he does now.  And do it was decided that we would go in the fall.

2001- I passed through St. Louis while I drove the entire route of Route 66.  I also stopped in Springfield and had a flight at the Springfield Brewery.