eastward home

Our trip back east from Omaha was fantastic. We first stopped in KC, MO to see our friend Brandon from Peace Corps Bolivia. It's great to reminisce with buds who saw and tasted everything we did down there, and it's fun to see those friends in their homes, driving cars, bathed, in untattered clothing -it's a different lifestyle we have up in the USA, but we've all made that transition back and forth without too much pain.

Brandon made an amazing banner to welcome us, held a deafening band practice while we sat on the couch four feet away, showed us the beauty of KC, brought his friends over to play Apples to Apples, and, of course, fed us lots of Boulevard. All that in about twelve hours. It was awesome.

From KC we headed into Kansas proper, center of the USA to see Tom's folks Mary Claire and Kirby. They are fabulous, and I love relaxing at their place with them. Makes me think that one day maybe Tom and I will have a normal life with a house, a dog, jobs, kids, cars -the stuff of American dreams. But not just yet.

From Kansas we went to see our friends Matt and Maggie in Fayetteville, Arkansas. In Fayetteville most folks talk just like Bill Clinton, and I like that. Our friends Cat and Talley ventured out from VA to meet us there and harass Matt and Maggie for about a full week. It was absolutely great. The highlight, no doubt, was paddling down the Mulberry River on a cold and stormy day. Cat and Talley flipped their canoe in a gnarly set of waves, and the rest of us set about to rescuing them before hypothermia set in. It was hands down the most entertaining part of our trip.

Other highlights from Arkansas: attending a college course on medical anthropology taught by Dr. Justin Nolan, good friend of Matt and Maggie's, which made me want to go back to school (just might have to get that PhD one of these days); distracting Maggie while she was nobly trying to attend to her grad school homework; talking gear with Matt who works in an outdoor store and is wise in the way of the woods; hot tubbing and fish tacos at Justin's; doing anything within the presence of Spring; and being jumped on every morning by Ruby, and most evenings, too.

We left Arkansas and had a good long day of driving to get ourselves to Cincinnati, OH -home of most of my relatives and our good bud Ben Ranz, also from our Bolivian days. We only had a few waking hours there with Ben, but he took us to the places we'd fantacized about while sitting in the searing Bolivian sun: Skyline Chili (spaghetti with chili on top, and about three inches of grated cheese -so delicious), White Castle for breakfast (greasy, and the coffee was good too), and a drive through beer place that I can't remember the name of, but I do remember thinking that Virginia is a little behind the times for not having drive through beer places. It's was a short stint with Ben, but great to catch up and make plans for him to come join us on the trail in Maine.

From Cinci, we had a nice short trip to West Virginia, one of my favorite states, where we'd rented a cabin and met up with a great bunch of friends from c'ville. We've been to this place two times before, I think six and four years ago -lord how times flies- and both times before there had been ridiculous blizzards, and the mountains were white as far as we could see (which was not very far). This year though, it had been in the 70's the week before, there was not a flake on the ground, and our plans to cross country ski turned into plans to do a six mile run through the woods, followed by three days of pure inactivity submerged in a hottub that seated eight. Well, it seated four, but eight fit. I love those buds. We talked about land and farming and food and relationships and work and all those things we love and are grappling with at this funny stage in life. And we cooked delicious food and played games and drank a lot of boxed wine and wished we had more beer.

And finally, it was Monday, and at least half way into February, and time to get back to Virginia. And so Sven, our trusty Saab (who deserves his own blog), took us those last three hours home. Hmm, not home, someone else lives in our home -for longer than we've ever lived in it come to think- but to Charlottesville, where we have enough friends to make it work. We've been staying at the farm house on Millington, which is heaven, and has provided the perfect setting to see all our friends and gather up our gear in preparation for our next venture.