The peeps Come Home

I think it was somewhere in Arizona that I realized I knew where the Peeps were manufactured. In the back of my mind I remembered watching a bit of a show on the Food Network that showed the Peeps factory in Bethlehem, PA. I also knew that the first leg of my trip would take me within 40 miles of the factory!

I found the Just Born (the Peeps Company name) website and searched for someone to email. Allyson is in the consumer affairs area and was the perfect choice. Off the email went – “ Would it be possible to visit the factory?”

I got my reply a few days later. Sadly, tours were not available but I could stop by the lobby and ask for Allyson when I arrived. I was so excited! The Peeps Pilgrimage would be complete!


Last week I went to the Just Born Facility! I brought hard copy pictures of all the Peeps adventures to show and asked for Allyson. To my surprise, I not only got to meet her, the great front desk receptionist as well as the Executive Assistant and the CEO and President!!!


The visit was so much fun! Everyone was so kind and happy to meet the Peeps and me. I had traveled so far to get them to see their home. I showed the pictures and we laughed as I shared their adventures and told them how everyone I met loved the Peeps. It was such a happy place to work!

We took lots of pictures (GO TO http://web.mac.com/estellas to see them) and I received wonderful gifts. I let everyone know I would continue to be a Peeps ambassador as I will be on more trips this year. I plan to keep them all posted on the Peeps Pilgrimage.


THANK YOU TO EVERONE I MET AT JUST BORN, INC. !!

Update: May 20, 2007

Too much time has gone by since my last update. Getting off the road and staying in one place is great but I notice I don’t have as much time to myself. The picture about is of my daughter, her firned and I at her college.

Since I wrote last I have attended my high school reunion. Eight fabulous women from the class of 72 joined other alums from our girls’ high school. We laughed and giggled and actually got in trouble for talking during speeches (some things never change). Leslie, one of my classmates has a daughter in 6th grade at the school and we enjoyed her tour of our school as well as seeing her star in the middle school musical. We told her stories and argued about when events happened. All of the women now have amazingly rich lives. I am so glad I got to see them.

I have made three trips to my daughter’s college to help her move stuff out for the summer. I so enjoy spending time with 20 something’s. They have such active minds and I learn new things every time I am with them. They are so much smarted than I was then or perhaps even now.

I got a chance to give an evening workshop on “Transitions” for a group of fourteen women. What a lively group. I will write more about that experience soon. I also had a good long visit with a friend from college. We had hours together in part due to huge thunderstorms, which passed through the area. I love east coast thunderstorms- we never have them like that in Seattle.

The biggest event of the past few days was going to the Peeps Headquarters in Bethlehem, PA! I will write a whole piece about that visit but though I couldn’t get into the factory I did meet lots of folks and got lots of pictures and gifts! My Peeps were so excited to see their home!

I promise to fill you all in more soon. I am finding a new pace for this part of the journey. I love every place I have been, everyone I have met, every idea of have for the future. I am holding all this at the same time and loving that as well!

Update: May 8, 2007

This is the first week I am not been on the road since the week I spent in Bisbee, AZ about a month ago. It has been wonderful to settle in, do laundry, and put clothing in drawers. At the same time I find myself itching to be on the road. I have found that the time I spend traveling is very creative and centering.

I am at my sister’s house in NJ. She and her husband have been wonderful in having me stay here. I have gotten to be part of a family again instead of a solo traveler. I have gone on long walks with their dogs through beautiful countryside, seen spring all over again (though my allergies weren’t happy) and had home cooking, which I missed.

I have started to connect with old friends and this weekend will attend a high school reunion – my 35th. I went to a small girls high school and so the group will be small but I hoe we will have time to really share about life since high school. Yesterday I got to visit the parents of my best friend from high school. Sarah died in her 30’s and I have tried to stay in touch with her parents – not as well as I would have wished but it was so good to see them and share a bit. I missed my friend.

I also have had the opportunity to help my sister with her retail store. She owns a great dog and cat boutique in Chester NJ. It is fun to meet new people, see how hard it is to run a store and be of help. The picture is of her, a friend and the Peeps at a fundraising run for the volunteer fire department in Chester. I am getting to experience small town living in NJ!

I will keep up the updates and stories as they come. I will be on the road again at the end of the month with a “Gilmore Girls’ trip with my daughter! Stay tuned!

Weekly update 5

The big news is that I have arrived in New Jersey ending the first leg of this adventure!! The trip has been great and I have enjoyed most every minute.

Since I wrote the last update I have spent time in North Carolina with a friend from graduate school. I watched three soccer games and one rugby game that her sons were in. I don’t know how I would have parented boys – they play hard and eat so much! It was great to see the Charlotte area.

From Charlotte I drove north through western Virginia, West Virginia, and a tiny bit of Maryland before spending my last night on the road in Chambersburg, PA. I enjoyed that last night and then headed to eastern PA. I had planned on seeing my daughter in a dance show at her college near Philadelphia on Saturday the 28th but surprised her on Friday with a stop and a hug (see pictures). It was great to see her, as I hadn’t been with her since Christmas.

I left the Philly area and drove on to western NJ to my sister’s. I felt so grateful for a safe trip and for all the love that had helped me on my way. Spring is late here so I was surprised and delighted to see daffodils blooming just as I got off the exit on Interstate 78 to go to my sisters.

It seems like the circle was completed. Those wonderful flowers had encouraged me my first day on the trip in Oregon and now they were welcoming me to New Jersey at this first ending.

What is to come now???? I think a road trip at the end of May with my daughter – west to Chicago and then through Kentucky (one of only two states I have never been in). Then sometime this summer another leg will be to travel to Key West, FL so I can say I got as far away from Seattle as possible in the USA.

Thank you all for your support and encouragement. I will continue to write and post pictures. I love hearing from you either by email or by posting a comment.

Resurrection

After reading the diaries from 6th, 7th, and 8th grade I was eager to see my old friend. Marie and I have known each other since we were eight years old. Our paths went separate ways when I went to a different high school and then on to college. Marie got married and had children right out of high school and soon moved to Louisiana. My visit with her would be only the second time we had seen each other since around her wedding – 35 years ago.

The first time I saw her after her wedding was 28 years ago, when we were 24 years old. I was in graduate school and had spent the summer in Alabama teaching African American children in summer school. Marie lived near New Orleans and had two small children, grew her own herbs and vegetables and was looking to have a plant nursery. I drove from Alabama to Louisiana along the gulf coast to get to her house. I loved the old hotels of Biloxi, MS, the beautiful white beaches, and the steamy weather.

We had a good visit. We shared our history and told each other some secrets from our childhood. I vividly remember going with Marie and her daughter to see The Muppet Movie. It was great, funny, and uplifting. Kermit sings in the last song of the movie:
” Life’s like a movie, write your own ending, keep believing, keep pretending. We’ve done just what we’ve set out to do, thanks to the lovers, the dreamers and you.”

The lyrics have stayed with me. They spoke to me of how my life felt then – full of possibilities and optimism. Marie and I were just getting our dream lives together then and we were ready to be all that we could be.

This trip I saw Marie again. Twenty-eight years later, life had added wrinkles and challenges to us both. We laughed about our childhood but also shared the pain of our families. We had lost parents, babies, and money. We both had had health challenges and parenting challenges, marriage challanges and generally been thrown around by life. Still we were happy to have our history and to know we had weathered it all and that life still held possibilities and hope.

After I left her house I again drove the gulf coast as I had done 28 years ago. I wanted especially to see Biloxi since Hurricane Katrina. As I turned onto Rt. 90 a piece of music came on a classical station I was listening to: Requiem for a Dead Princess by Ravel. It was so moving and so appropriate for all the destruction I saw. I cried as I listened, for the town of Biloxi and for Marie and I. We were no longer young princesses of our lives. We had lived through many life hurricanes and losses and yet…

I stopped in Biloxi and talked with a local man. I asked how they were doing and he was filled with hope: “ We will be better than we were, we are doing well, thanks” and then I remembered Kermit’s words: “Write your own ending, keep believing, keep pretending. We’ve done just what we’ve set out to do. Thanks to the lovers, the dreamers, and you.”

Marie and I would flourish and so would the gulf coast, thanks to all those who have and will support them and us.