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?

Oh, The Places You'll Go

Here are webpages for a few of the places we are going:

Costa Rica:

Barking Horse Farm - a family run farm about two hours north of the capital. we'll be taking care of animals, working on the farm, and gardening.

We're still figuring out one more place to go. The plan is to stay for most of the dry season- probably January to May 2010.

Virginia:

Twin Oaks - an intentional community based (less so now) on bf skinner's walden II. we're participating in the three week visitor program.

Vermont:

Teleion Holon Farm - family run farm outside of manchester vermont. WWOOFing for 5 weeks.

Virginia and North Carolina:

Bicycle Tour - I'm (David) riding from the start of Skyline Drive to the end of the Blueridge Parkway outside of Asheville in September.

We're staring Adventure Quest in about 3 weeks.

David doesn't care about typos and thinks part of the point of a blog is to not care about things like that. I disagree and I think my mother does too. So if you think something has changed in a previous post, it's probably because I have gone back and done some editing. I'll put up a real post from me sometime soon.

Maggie