Atlanta

Resting in Atlanta for the holidays before we leave for Costa Rica in a couple of weeks. It's very nice to see friends and family while living in a somewhat stable place for a two weeks. I've been thinking about the "key ideas" from the first part of the trip (like those bold words you were supposed to find in your language arts assignment in elementary school) and will write a few "what's it all about posts" in the next few days. Onward.

Albany to Vermont

Yeah, Albany. Or maybe not, the town didn't seem all that pleasant, but there was an excellent co-op. So at least people can eat well there. We drove back to the farm in VT after the show to stay the weekend and get in one more wwoof day before vermont turns into a statewide ice-skating rink of cold and triple-layered flannel.

Oh and to my sister in law. I'm looking at you catherine. yes you there in the back acting like you aren't paying attention while listening to metalcore on your hot pink and black ipod. Here's a website of all the other nerdy people who keep track of everything the band does. Yeah I see you rolling your eyes. Be careful or they'll come eat all of the snacks in your house and use words like "solid," "groove," and "chill." And then give you dreadlocks while you sleep. And they won't be hot pink.


Friday, 11/27/2009 Times Union Center, Albany, NY

Set 1: AC/DC Bag, Maze, Driver, My Mind's Got a Mind of its Own, Gumbo, Bouncing Around the Room > It's Ice, Two Versions of Me, Timber (Jerry) > Limb By Limb, Cavern > Light

Set 2: My Friend, My Friend > Golden Age^[1], On Your Way Down, Fluffhead > Piper -> Tomorrow's Song^[2], Prince Caspian, Harry Hood, Suzy Greenberg, The Squirming Coil, I Been Around

Encore: Fire

[1] Phish debut.
[2] Debut.

Pretty pretty pretty good. Without a doubt my favorite of the tour as an overall show.

set I: ac/dc, maze, driver, my mind and gumbo all kept up high energy. If they are going to play a slower song, I dig bouncin. It's Ice also one of my favorite shorter ones. Rest of the set pretty solid, groove, chill time. And timber came out of nowhere.

set II: and speaking of that how about the tv on the radio cover. awesome! Very solid, chill, grove second set. With freaking Piper- I've wanted to hear that song live for about as long as I've wanted to hear songs live.

Fire will never be a bad encore choice.

Great show. Really the first of the tour when I felt the band was being spontaneous, fun, and relaxed a la back in the 1.0 day. If they keep this up Maggie and I might be doing additional tours in the future.

Pittsburgh and Philadelphia

We drove from Ohio to Pittsburgh and stayed with Rives (we met her in VT, her daughter wwoofed with us). After staying in a number of less than ideal spots- her clean and well organized house was awesome- this is coming from the part of me that orders albums by genre, artist, and year. Wonderful place to stay- many thanks to her.

We drove to Philadelphia the next day and caught two shows- the following day was a classy motel 6 thanksgiving extravaganza of apples and macaroni and cheese (not together- though I would think that delicious. A party not to be named refused this delicacy).

Philadelphia = excellent town from our limited time wandering around for 5 hours. And a more extensive chinatown than DC.

Shows!


Tuesday, 11/24/2009 Wachovia Center, Philadelphia, PA

Set 1: Chalk Dust Torture, Bathtub Gin, Cities > Camel Walk, The Curtain With, The Wedge, The Moma Dance, Reba, Golgi Apparatus, Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan

Set 2: Possum > Down with Disease > Twenty Years Later > Harry Hood, The Mango Song > Mike's Song > Simple > Slave to the Traffic Light > Weekapaug Groove

Encore: A Day in the Life

Right. First set was great. I can't really say much more than that. Certainly my favorite of the tour so far. CDT, gin, curtin with, the wedge, moma dance, reba, golgi- all standards that I like to hear. Solid jams throughout. I didn't think I would hear cities this tour (no covers up to this point) and it didn't make me frown. I'm mixed about the Joy material, but stealing time is one I like a bit more than the others.

Second set also quite good. Some of the setlist felt a litle recycled, but I won't really ever complain about mike's groove (with simple and slave in the middle at that). A day in the life is one of my favorite encores.

Wednesday, 11/25/2009 Wachovia Center, Philadelphia, PA

Set 1: Kill Devil Falls, 46 Days, Sugar Shack, Halley's Comet > The Divided Sky, Sleep Again, Ocelot, Train Song, Wilson > Run Like an Antelope

Set 2: Birds of a Feather, Farmhouse, Tweezer, You Enjoy Myself, Esther, Time Turns Elastic > Tweezer Reprise

Encore: Oh! Sweet Nuthin'

Set I: And here's a love/hate example of my phish relationship. I thought this show was a bit on the boring side for most of the first set (though it did pick up at end). I mean, really? KDF -> 46 days -> sugar shack? Meh. Halley's and Divided were nice (the best dived so far) but then Ocelot-> train song -> wilson. I've said it once... but I'm getting tired of wilson. Hard to criticize antelope though, it's always a personal live favorite.

Set II: Yeah birds of a feather! metal. farmhouse = smash my face with a porcupine. then tweezer-> yem -> esther. soild, good funky yem. then it happened. sometimes it takes time to get over a tragic and painful event- the years will yeild more comfort in retrospect... least to say we got tte'd again. does the band not notice the entire venue sit down when they play this.. for 15 very drawn out minutes. Tweezer reprise was standard. Good velvet underground cover to close the night.

Great seats for night 1, ok seats for night 2. Still fun, I've enjoyed watching Maggie start to "get" what being a phish fan is about. It's different than most other bands and very hard to explain to folks who've never been to a show.

Cincinnati Shows

Two shows in Cincinnati this weekend. Many thanks to Sparky for being a fantastic host.

Friday, 11/20/2009 U.S. Bank Arena, Cincinnati, OH
Set 1: Chalk Dust Torture, The Moma Dance, The Divided Sky, Alaska, Water in the Sky, Fast Enough for You, Time Turns Elastic, Gotta Jibboo > Fluffhead
Set 2: Punch You In the Eye, Tweezer -> Light -> Back on the Train -> Possum, Slave to the Traffic Light, You Enjoy Myself
Encore: Joy, Golgi Apparatus, Tweezer Reprise

Saturday, 11/21/2009 U.S. Bank Arena, Cincinnati, OH
Set 1: Wilson, NICU, Wolfman's Brother, Ocelot, Torn and Frayed, Strange Design, Ginseng Sullivan, Albuquerque, Split Open and Melt, Dirt, Limb By Limb, Run Like an Antelope
Set 2: Rock and Roll, Ghost, If I Could, Backwards Down the Number Line, Prince Caspian, Suzy Greenberg, Also Sprach Zarathustra, The Squirming Coil
Encore: Sleeping Monkey, Axilla
Notes: Albuquerque was played for the first time since 9/14/00 (115 shows).

Nice to be back at US bank for a phish show- it's a well thought out venue. Good lots both nights on the top level of a parking deck.

Friday
Set 1 - opened strong with chalk dust, divided sky was on point. then it kind of went suck. really alaska, fast enough, and tte right next to each other? boring. i don't think i'll ever find tte interesting. picked back up at the end. Fluff sounded much better than it has lately.

Set 2- redemption. Great throughout- maggie was excited to try out aud particiation chants for the first time with pyite. high energy jams for all of the seques. solid encore.

Saturday
Set 1- This is the second time I've seen them open with Wilson at US bank. Is it bad to say I'm kind of tired of it? Nice bust out with Albuquerque. Solid Wolfman's, SOAM jam was a little more laid back than some of the jams as of late. The lights during Antelope were Chirs K's best showing of the weekend.

Set 2- Fantastic Rock and Roll -> Ghost, went dark and angsty at one point. Favorite jam of the tour so far. Great Coil solo from Page as usual. Why oh why must we continue to play f-er pants? Keep Caspain in Narnia, not at the Phish show (thinking of making lot shirts that say this). But in sum, best show of the tour so far.

In all it was a fun weekend. Phish is really returning to form, but I hope they can shake off the setlist formula they're currently using. Working from the more controlled jam structure (a la early 90s) is suiting them well to get comfortable again.

We're spending today in Cincinnati, then driving to Philadelphia by way of Pittsburgh for two more shows on tuesday and wednesday.

The next two weeks

So. We've come to this point. Really. Ok.

For the next two-ish weeks maggie and i are following phish around the east coast and midwest. seven shows in all. For anyone into the band I'm going to make brief comments about each show, but I don't think most people reading this like phish or actually dislike them fiercely (aaron).

setlist:

Wednesday, 11/18/2009 Cobo Arena, Detroit, MI

Set 1: AC/DC Bag, Foam, Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan, Bouncing Around the Room, Sample in a Jar, Kill Devil Falls, It's Ice, Horn,Mountains in the Mist, Poor Heart, 46 Days, David Bowie

Set 2: Runaway Jim, Down with Disease > Free > Waste, Taste, Bug, Wading in the Velvet Sea, Mike's Song > I Am Hydrogen >Weekapaug Groove, Cavern

Encore: Character Zero

Detroit isn't the nicest city I've visited. The venue seemed like a relic compared to other live venues to which I'm more accustomed (in fact, it's being torn down, phish was the last show there). Lots of concrete, only one bathroom per floor, awkward tier separation that required walking up long confusing halls separated by fences etc. Still, an enjoyable place to see a show.

The lot was in the first floor of a parking deck right outside the venue. First time I've seen an indoor lot, pretty funny. People parked on higher levels leaving work had to drive right through the middle of it all- they looked very confused.

Our tickets. Stage right on the last nosebleed row. Really, row o is the last row. We eventually moved for the second set, but it gave a good view of the crowd. The venue was very undersold. Our section was nearly empty.

The show. AC/DC was a fun opener with a nice foam. Next portion was relatively uninteresting. 46 days had best jam of first set, bowie was a good closer. The second set was much more high energy. Jim -> dwd -> free -> waste was excellent. Like at Bonnaroo dwd was a great jam. Next was (vomit) wading, which I'm come to really never want to hear. Mike's groove -> cavern was a blast. Closed with character 0, which was character 0.

Thought Kuroda did a particularly good job at the show. At some point he figured out the lights could be projected on the wall behind the stage and he started manipulating light shapes to match the intensity of the music. Excellent.

The next day we went back to Cleveland and didn't do too much. Off to Cinci today for two shows.

Kadampa Meditation Center New York

A few pictures of Kadampa New York. The center is in the foothills of the catskills on around 40 acres.

Main building- office, dorms, and small kitchen.

Two of the five buildings. The first is a dorm for non-monastic residents. The building farther back and to the right is the kitchen, dining area, and rooms for the monks and nuns.

The temple sits on a hill overlooking the rest of the buildings.

View from the temple entrance looking down at the other buildings. The only other building (housing for monastic residents) is on a hill behind the temple. Low key and peaceful.

Bread and Puppet

On the way to Maine we stopped by the home base of Bread and Puppet. Bread and Puppet is an artist collective that performs politically radical plays with large paper mache puppets. We weren't able to see a show, but we went to the museum where a lot of the old puppets reside. Absolutely amazing stuff. Thanks to everyone at the farm that suggested we go.

fotos - traveling in vt, maine, and mass

One of three posts of pictures. Who know monasteries had wireless?

At a beach in Massachusetts mentioned in the previous post by maggie. I couldn't figure out how crabs work.

Before leaving Vermont we cleaned out the shed that we slept in the first night. Most of the insulation had fallen on the floor and we were assigned the fun fun fun task of cleaning it up. Imagine a mix of dust, dirt, mice waste, and mice graveyard. As it turns out all mice in Vermont come to that insulation to die. Maggie started collecting the skeletons. This is a small sample- there were probably more than 30 that she found. There were way more. Like the elephant graveyard in the lion king. Only with mice and no characters ripped off from hamlet.

This is a community art project in Brattleboro, VT. An artist, can't remember his name, traveled to several towns and took pictures of folks who live in the town. He then made a large mural of the finished pictures.

Mowgli and Nisi. Nisi lives on the farm in Vermont, Mowgli lives in an apartment behind the farm. The following things are true about Mowgli.

1. He has an awesome name.

2. He's huge. Nisi weighs about 50 pounds, Mowgli probably weights around 150.

3. His owner claims to be a porn star, but no one seems to believe her.

4. Remember the ducks from the previous post? One of them disappeared not long into our stay. We had no idea what happened and many theories where put forth. While working outside one day I noticed Mowgli running away from the farm with one of the three remaining ducks in his mouth. We got it back. We think we know what happened to the fourth duck.

trying hard to post more!

Wow, two posts in one week, I am on a roll! We are at the Kadampa Meditation Center in Glen Spey, NY, which, in case you were wondering, is in the middle of no where and very beautiful.

The last few days have been cloudy but warm and we have been doing outside work. There are several trails around the property and we have been working with another working visitor with landscaping experience, Chad, to clear all of the trails. Some of them are a bit hard to follow so David and I are thinking about blazing them as well. We were in the woods for pretty much all of the daylight yesterday and today and I have really been enjoying it. Every winter I decide that I like winter woods the best, I love being able to see the trees for so far and to see all of their branches.

We have dorm-style accommodations in what was a barn but has been redone. It is very clean and organized, which we like. We generally (as general as two days can be) get up at about 8, have breakfast in the barn, and start working at 9. Lunch is served at 1, we work for a couple more hours and then rest/shower/read etc until dinner at 6. The monks and nuns take turn cooking great vegetarian food. The first day we helped put away their monthly grocery delivery and it was exciting to see what they got - tempeh, lentils, tofu, oats, soymilk, all in bulk. At 7:30 each evening they have a prayer service or lesson in the temple that we are invited to. Last night was a special service they do twice a month, with tea and food offerings. Tonight is more of a lesson, something about non existence and all of that...

Everyone here is kind, gracious, and welcoming. We are both enjoying being in an environment that is focused on loving kindness and compassion towards fellow humans. It will serve as an interesting contrast to our life on the road following phish, I am sure (the serenity, not the kindness - I think phish phans are very kind).

a pretty day for a drive

We are packing our things up and driving to Kadampa today. We have spent a long weekend in Massachusetts with my aunt and uncle, Brad and Carolyn, and my cousins Calyn, George, Reid, and Sophie. It has been very relaxing. On Saturday we took a walk on the water and went to the grocery store and that is about all we've done. I think it is the most relaxed we have been since we left Atlanta. Hopefully our week at Kadampa will also be restful, in a more concentrated way.

And We're Off...Again!

Our time at Teleion Holon is over. I know we didn't do many updates while were there. The honest answer is that we were completely busy all the time! There is a lot going on there. Once we moved in to our nicer digs (as you can see from pictures in previous posts) it was easier to settle in. There were 5 other wwoofers there during our time: lottie, inbal, alison, paul, and c.j. We really enjoyed interacting with other wwoofers who are doing things similar to adventurequest. When we were planning our trip in Atlanta we would tell people what we were doing and many people thought we were strange, crazy, or kidding. The people around Teleion didn't bat an eye when we explained we were wandering for an extended period of time.

David briefly described what our time was like - we did all kinds of tasks. Bonnie and Oliver, and their kids Guv, Talulah, and Eden, and the entire wwoofing operation have been in the process of moving over the summer, from the Teleion Holon farm to the house Oliver grew up in, called Earth, Sky, Time. So, a lot of our projects were related to getting stuff fully moved. They had just finished a full kitchen renovation before we got there. Again, like at Twin Oaks, I really enjoyed having access to a fully stocked kitchen! There were two weeks of the summer CSA left when we got there and I helped out with that a few times. I also got to help Lottie at the Sunday market. Those were the things I enjoyed the most, I think because it was an opportunity to interact with the people consuming what Teleion produces. It was a lot of fun to help set things up so they looked nice and then to be able to answer people's questions about what a vegetable was or how they should prepare it once they got it home.

We also helped with some plantings in the greenhouse, lots of cold hardy greens for the winter. There are two greenhouses at Earth Sky Time that had tomatoes during the summer and now have the greens, inside the greenhouses and with two layers of row covers, they should do pretty well, even in the Vermont cold.

There was lots of cooking, which always makes me happy. Partly, this was necessitated by the fact that there were usually around ten people for dinner every night. All of the wwoofers, Bonnie and Oliver, sometimes Oliver's parents, and then lots of other family, friends, and former wwoofers who would stop by throughout the week. We also spent a lot of time preserving vegetables from the fall harvest - i blanched a froze a ton of brussels sprouts and made a few huge batches of stock. Our last full week there we cooked for ten people staying at Teleion for a yoga retreat, meaning we were cooking lunch and dinner for twenty people for a full week.

In addition to enjoying the company of like-minded wwoofers, we really enjoyed the spirit of community at Bonnie and Oliver's. Eden (their 8 month old son) was passed to me within hours of their arrival and a day or so later I found myself with the farm jeep and Oliver's credit card. We had all of our meals communally and pretty much everything else had an easy family feel to it, something that I think can come about more easily because of the smaller number of people at a place like Teleion. This is something that we found lacking in our experience of Twin Oaks - there are so many different people doing different things that a lot of divisions seem to arise.

So, we left on Monday. We drove up to Burlington and wandered around and stayed with a friends of CJ and Alison - which was great, especially on short notice. Yesterday we drove over to Portland, Maine, with stops in Waterbury, Montpelier, and Glover. Today we wandered around Portland, took a Ferry to Peaks Island, and are now relaxing in our hotel room. Tomorrow we are going to tour the Allagash Brewery, which I'm sure David can talk about in more detail. Then, we are driving down to Massachusetts to stay with my aunt and uncle. Then we'll do our week long working visit at the Kadampa World Peace Temple in Glen Spey, NY.

The new development is that after Kadampa we are going to follow Phish for seven shows on their fall tour. Between Nov 18 and Dec 3 we will see them in Detroit, Cincinnati (2 shows), Philadelphia (2 shows), Albany, and NYC. This is very exciting, for David because he has been into them since high school and they have gotten back together and he has been trying to get me into them for a while, and for me because I enjoyed seeing them at Bonnaroo this summer and their light shows are awesome and I think it will be fun to see them a bunch and appreciate them more.

After that the next big plan is our departure for Costa Rica, we don't really have December figured out yet. We have some pictures to put up but I don't know where the camera is, I'll try to do that while we're in Massachusetts.

more vermont

Still farming in southern Vermont.

Most of our days start with breakfast around 8:30 leading to a morning meeting at 9ish. At the meeting we figure out what everyone is doing for the day and discuss upcoming projects. Maggie usually ends up working in the kitchen (cooking for the winter market or a retreat) and I do something outside (harvesting, working in the greenhouses, fix-up projects). This usually goes until around 1 when we have lunch for an hour and then have a meeting about afternoon work. That work goes until 5 or 6 and then goes into dinner prep. We have dinner and then clean up the dishes.

And that's what our days here look like. We'll be here for about 2 more weeks before we head to upstate new york to work-exchange at the buddhist meditation community.

Then the schedule changes a little bit because some local band from Vermont announced a fall tour and we're going to try to go to as many shows as possible. We're still working on tickets for that extravaganza of the rock and roll.

Vermont is unlike any other state I've ever visited. It's purposely rural, but doesn't have many of the negative aspects of rural life that I've come to recognize from growing up in the south. We'd kind of like to move here... but negative 20.

flannel and cheese: or how we are doing in Vermont

We are here

or more accurately, a little up the street from there because the farm has shifted to a second house, but we split operations between both places. we're working on a family farm that has a booth at a local farmers market and a weekly csa pickup (definition). most days we do some combination of planting or harvesting, taking care of animals (chickens, ducks, and dogs), and helping to run the income sources (csa and farmers market booth).

vermont is as beautiful during the fall as a thomas kinkade painting about fall would have you believe. (if thomas kinkade didn't live in a parallel dimension where all seasons happen at once and "artists" don't actually have to make art to be called artists and make a lot of money off of pictures better suited to bad greeting cards than canvases). Guess we'll just have a deal with beautiful rolling hills with a dozen shades of orange and red trees in a southern vermont valley. Sigh.)

our woofer hosts have three kids ranging in age from 7 months to four years. there are four other woofers other than maggie and me that represent a wide range of interests, ages, and backgrounds.

plus we bought 15 boxes of ice cream at the annual ice cream sale at the local gas station (it's actually good ice cream- not the usual questionable stop and gulp fare).

views from the front porch of the farmhouse:

we moved into the old green house at first. but it wasn't very ideal. (not kidding).

we tried to clean it up, but it was kind of a lost cause (bandanas to avoid mouse "dust") and moved in with another woofer into the old apple barn that had had a lot of work done on it.

much nicer...

Two (of the three) greenhouses

and the farm ducks (that were once pets of one of the kids, but he lost interest. now they just kind of hang out and swim in a puddle in the driveway.)

ok troops! carry on!

It was a Sunny Day in DC

Back from North Carolina and then to DC.

Maggie and I stayed with Emily O and the mighty Finn. Emily still works for NPR and has moved up the morning edition ranks. We've decided that NPR's ratings would triple if they gave Emily 10 minutes a day to talk about whatever she wanted to discuss. Because she's hilarious and her show would be hilarious.

We spent two days wandering around the museums up and down the mall and eating delicious food in China Town.

Oh, and we saw Sunny Day Real Estate at the 9:30 club. Which was kind of something I'd been looking forward to for my entire life. They played most of Diary and LP2, Guitars and Video Games (great song from HIFTBSO), and Spade and Parade. I was impressed by how much the band was in sync- and I think that Jeremy Enigk has a better command of his voice compared to when I saw the band in high school.


what do these characters say? i hope it's a really literal description of hooters. something like really mediocre food served by girls in tight clothes, but if anyone asks you think the wings are delicious. or as emily said: "it's probably not about the wings. because saying you go to hooters to eat the wings is like saying you read playboy for the articles."






awesome light installation.







Tomorrow we leave for our first WWOOF farm in Vermont. Alright.

Blue Ridge Ride and North Carolina

Blue Ridge Ride

I'd planned on doing an average of 60 miles a day for eight days with an average elevation gain of 6500 feet each day. I used a BOB trailer to haul gear behind my cyclocross bike. Long story short, I ended up doing roughly half of the parkway before I decided to call maggie to come rescue me. I enjoyed touring, but learned several lessons that make a successful tour tricky: no matter how strong of a cyclist one is- a fully loaded trailer should be matched with a triple- i rode a compact double with a mtn cassette- but started having really bad knee problems within one day of the tour, not riding for a month and being sick for two weeks before starting and expecting to still have a strong ride is rather silly and i should have known better, and carrying all of the tour's food from the start is also reasonably goofy.

So, all in all, I had a great experience. The parkway is beautiful and i encourage anyone who has an oppourtunity to enjoy some (or all) of the 470 miles. I like touring and will plan another trip (with proper gearing this time!). Pictures below.










Boone and Asheville

After the tour Maggie and I went to Boone for the afternoon, had food at the Black Cat, and walked around. Boone's a nice place, but the traffic (of all the things we didn't expect) drove us crazy. And yeah that was intended. Read the sentence again.

We spent the next day in Asheville- which was fantastic. We randomly ran into Ben Acree... still that's not all that surprising somehow. Ben may or may not be in Denmark right now. We went to the Highland Brewery, lucked into a Magic Hat tasting at a beer store, and had food and beverage at barley's. It was a nice place to be.







And this sign was great (though I didn't understand it)

also

I tried to edit the post David put up from Twin Oaks. For some reason the formatting got funny and a lot was cut out. Now the formatting is still funny but at least all of the words are there!

And He's Off!

David finally began feeling better at the end of last week. He ended up having to get the doctor to give him a second type of antibiotics. The first was amoxicillin based and not strong enough at all. Fortunately, the doctor he went to was mine in high school and i babysat for him, so he responded promptly to David's phone call and sent a new prescription to the pharmacy without David having to go in for a second appointment, this saved us about $70, although by the time we got the second prescription, we have spent almost $300 on David's sinus infection.

It is frustrating to have to spend so much money on something that is not an exciting part of AQ but at the same time, that is why we worked hard to save money, so we would be able to handle whatever situation comes our way. I also think it is important to remember that the money we have saved is to fund AQ and we need to remember not to get wrapped up in worrying how much money we spend. Of course we aren't going to be needlessly extravagant, but we need to adjust to the feeling of seeing money constantly leaving our bank account and never going in.

Anyway, back to more exciting and important things. On Saturday morning I drove David, his bike (a LeMond cyclocross bike he calls the Lemon), and the Danger Cart (his name for the B.O.B. tralier) up to the north entrance of the Blue Ridge Parkway near Waynesboro, VA. It is about 40 minutes away from Harrisonburg. David had an absolutely gorgeous day for the first leg of his trip. We got to the mountain at about nine in the morning. We parked the car at the first overlook, which gave us a view off to the east, towards Waynesboro and Charlottesville. There was still mist down in the foothills but on Afton we had a cerulean blue sky with puffy cumulus clouds and it was in the high 60's or low 70's, I'm guessing.

David attached the Danger Cart, loaded his bag and took a practice loop around the parking area. He has his work cut out for him, for sure. He obviously isn't in the ideal physical condition for this trip. He had planned to have about a week after Twin Oaks to ride every day and take the trailer up Reddish Knob (a very steep ride along the VA/WV border) to get a good idea of the handling and difficulty of pulling the cart. The trailer weighs about fifty pounds so it is adding considerably to his challenge.

I got to talk to David last night for the first report. He has taken our phone with him for safety. I told him I would like to hear from him everyday but I know that might not be possible. Otherwise, every other day would be nice and under no circumstances is he to go three days without calling and checking in with me. I told him if he has to, he can stop a picnicker and explain that he has a crazy wife and if she does hear from him she will call the Park Service and initiate a search. Hopefully he won't have to resort to this but I thought it was useful to illustrate my seriousness. I have a schedule of his ride so I know what section he is riding everyday and what campground he should be in every night, in case anyone is concerned about safety.

Oh, and David said everything was going well. He is worn out at the end of each day of course but thinks he will be able to finish. He was already making friends, a couple of guys who are riding with a third friend following with a camper invited him to have dinner with them in the campground last night.

After I saw David off, I drove up to Leesburg to visit my friend Diane, whom many of you know. We have been friends for just about our entire lives. She and her husband, Kevin, are special education teachers in Loudon County. We had a great time doing nothing in particular and catching up with each other. I brought her knitting needles and a ball of pretty purple yarn to encourage her in learning to knit. She and Kevin are about six months in to looking for a house in the area; it's amusing how different our lives are at the moment.

Now I have a whole week to myself. My plan is to work on several sewing projects I have and to keep visiting with my family. This is the first time since I graduated from Sewanee that I have been in Harrrisonburg for an extended period of time and all of my parents are around as well. It is really nice to be in town for longer and not feel rushed in my visiting.

leaving the farm, time in harrisonburg

We have now been away from Twin Oaks for almost a week. We didn't use the computers much so the blog was somewhat neglected and I know everyone is dying to hear all about it, so I think we will both reflect on it this month. I am still not sure I have had enough time to decide how I really feel about Twin Oaks as a possibility for our future. I am very glad that we went. We saw and learned lots of interesting things and met some great people. We really enjoyed everyone who was in our visitor group - Zitian, Momoko, Diana, Liv, Bailee, Jordan, and Rick.

We left last Friday and drove Liv to Richmond and had lunch with my brother Matthew, who has just started his freshman year at VCU. It was awesome to see him, I'm still having trouble comprehending that he is 18 and in college. We saw his dorm and took him to lunch at a neat little place called Ipanema cafe, which a resident of Twin Oaks told us about (he went to VCU and now sells Twin Oaks tofu and tempeh to them). It was delicious. On our way out of Richmond we got stuck in gridlock for a while. It was a bit of a rude awakening to come into that after three weeks on a farm. It made us yell "Run Away, Run Awaaaaaaay," and I have to admit some of our dislikes of Twin Oaks seemed a lot less important at that moment. Fortunately we made it to Charlottesville and had a great evening with Jason and Ellen (see previous post on their wedding in Cleveland) and David Lowe and his girlfriend Meg. We stayed up really late with Jason and Ellen and I started to feel tired and lame but they said they never stay up that late either, so I felt less lame.

Now we are in Harrisonburg, staying with my family. David is attempting to get ready for his bike ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway but has a nasty sinus infection at the moment. We hope he will be ready to go on Sunday or Monday. It is nice to be in Harrisonburg for a while, we are rarely here for this much time so it feels more relaxed seeing family. It is also really fortunate that we are here right now to help my mom. My uncle Joe died while we were at Twin Oaks and I am very grateful that it is easy for me to be here now to help her start going through the house and to be around when family comes. If we were still in our same set up in Atlanta there is no way I would be able to do this.

From the Farm

Groundskeeper Willie: Alright, what's so fine and great about your fancy pants leader?

Homer: The Leader knows all and sees all!

Groundskeeper Willie: Ooh...well, that's impressive!

Homer: And he's going to take us to a wonderful new planet!

Groundskeeper Willie: Oh! This Leader, he sounds like a grand fella!

Marge: Willie, I'm not sure we're making any headway here.

Groundskeeper Willie: Would you shut up, woman! He's talking about my leader!

-"The Joy of Sect"

Hey, we have limited computer access at twin oaks, but i thought i'd share a bit from the 

simpsons episode that best describes our lives here for the last week. but there really aren't 

any simpsons episodes that deal with egalitarian, income-sharing communities. so i 

figured a cult is the next closest thing.

it's gone well here. basically everyone in the community works 6 hours a day to support one of

the businesses (hammocks, seeds, tofu) or each other/the land (gardening, building, cooking,

cleaning). There are all types of folks here, but all share a sense that this lifestyle is better

than the "mainstream." The area is a large farm with gardens, cows, chickens, a dining and

meeting building, different living quarters (closest to dorms, really), and buildings involved with

business and upkeep. It's low-key and members really respect each other's individual quarks 

and passions. What's really struck me here is how far removed i've been from a strong

community...i believe Maggie feels the same way. It's tricky to describe, but essentially it's (the

community movement) a very reasonable answer to many of the questions Maggie and I

asked ourselves when we were planning the trip. It's people coming together with less to seek

more simplicity and unity with each other.

Not such a bad thing.

And yes, there is lots of tie-dye and sandals.

AdventureQuest begins (for Maggie) and testing picture uploads

Maggie finished her job at the restaurant last week. I don't think she is allowed to work for a corporate entity again since she tattooed some gibberish about not working for the "man" on her foot. Something about right livelihood from some 8 fold path. It doesn't sound like something sarah palin would support so I'm not really interested.

I still have a week at summer camp while she lives it up.

Our first AdventureQuest trip was this weekend. We went to Cleveland for

the Jonesss' wedding and got to see good friends from our Cleveland and Sewanee

days we haven't seen in years. We stayed with Sparky in Cincinnati. He showed us the crazy medical school where he is a student. It's based on "conquering your fears." There are lots of angles, glass, heights, and walls that come out at you. He made us awesome pizza.

We stayed with Hillary and Andy in Cleveland and got to hang out with Annika- who is amazing... really cute and a good dancer... plus she's going to know about 30 languages by the time she is 4. We had lunch at the Case farm with them and the Casucci crew. Pretty amazing how big Frankie is now and meeting his sister was excellent. It was a nice reminder that though our time living in Cleveland was very frustrating in some ways we were really fortunate to have such wonderful people around us (this includes you folks in Chicago, California, Africa, and Egypt).

Oh yeah, and Ellen and Jason got married. It was a great wedding, to absolutely no one's surprise. Especially neat for us to see because way back in the day when ellen/jason and david/maggie weren't coupletastic we all started dating within the same week of each other. All four of us pretty much lived in the same suite senior year at Sewanee- so I feel like we were all very present in the early developmental stages of the respective relationships.

And Ellen had the band learn the twin peaks theme as a surprise to jason. How neat is that?