Summer of Love

We were camping for a few nights so I wasn’t able to make my last road posts. The end of our trip was perfect and as much as I like road food and suspicious motels, I was happy to let Halfway be our last.

From there: Shenandoah National Park! Even in the rain and heavy, heavy fog it was beautiful. The steep road through, Skyline Drive, was 105 miles of climbing and falling with many stops for scenic overlooks. We spent the night at Big Meadows in a honeymoon-suite cabin minus the suite, which I opted for as a cozier alternative. We ate dinner in the main lodge, the very best part of which was my “moonshine” cocktail! That and the friendliness of the people who are plainly happy to be in the mountains. Later that night we popped some champagne (gift from R & L!), and labored to start a fire in our tiny cabin’s huge fireplace because of damp wood. Very romantic until our fire alarm was set off for the eighth time. Jolene, happy to have hiked along the Appalachian Trail, happy to dream of deer (she encountered her first and went bananas) was very unhappy and gave me a beseeching look that seemed to ask and accuse at once: Cozy?

We continued driving through Shenandoah then picked up the Blue Ridge Parkway until Peaks of Otter where we opted for a larger road to get us to Claytor Lake State Park with enough sunlight to pitch the tent. Beautiful campground (though when did camping get so pricey?) in a sweet little town. It was officially Jolene’s first night in a tent and she seemed quite comfortable sleeping on my feet, dreaming of more deer.

Yesterday we hauled for a long day and after dinner at Taco Bell (yes), we decided to push all the way home where Josh carried me over the threshold.

Maybe there will be a blog after the blog, but for now a few final sounds and sights before I tuck in and sign off: Bacon Hollow, Elk Wallow, Hawksbill (the name of my breakfast), Hungry Mother, Rocky Top and Dickey Ridge.

“…for the world, which seems / to lie before us like a land of dreams, / so various, so beautiful, so new”

Adieu!

We might actually be in Williamsport but both this area and Halfway are small outposts of Hagerstown and Halfway is just too great! Red Roof Inn! Nice’ish motel+ big yard=a really happy dog. We moved slowly this morning and since the rain hasn’t let up, we decided to cozy up under one more nylon bedspread.  As long as the weather clears, we’ll be pitching a tent in some gorgeous part of Virginny tomorrow.

A few notes: listening to The Big Rock Candy Mountain, signs for Pine Grove Furnace State Park in Pennsylvania, crossing the Delaware and yesterday I think I forgot to write about our lunch with my uncle Eddie He had a lot of great stories about being on assignment for the New York Times Magazine, one of which was  about traveling to Vietnam with Tim O’Brien. I don’t think the photos are online but you can read the essay.

This will be one of the last posts of the Summer of Love blog! Thanks for tuning in. If there’s silence tomorrow, it means we made it to the woods.

New York is a great place to spend a honeymoon! The only complaint I have for the big apple leg of the tour is last night’s takeout, and as long as Josh doesn’t insist on having it for breakfast, I’ll let it be forgotten.

We had a big family gathering at the Beekman Tower Hotel and then walked to a terrific restaurant called Ze Cafe. They made us a personalized menu and a sweet little (actually not so little) strawberry wedding cake, which may have caused Josh a bit of a fat lip when I tried too exuberantly to feed it to him!

This weekend in general has been all about food. Everything from Magnolia Bakery cupcakes to beef carpaccio to a drink called the “Black Wing” at The Richardson, which, if you find yourself in Brooklyn, you have to visit.

I will miss all this good eating and my family and our friends from Philly. I wish we could stay longer to do some more visiting and an afternoon at the Met, but the woods are calling. Hopefully (if we drive out of this rain), there’s some camping in our future.

We are officially on our way home.

It seems as though I’m a day behind but nonetheless, we’ve been on the road two weeks! I’m not tired of driving or traveling or living out of a suitcase and, in fact, I’m looking forward more to camping and moving away from cities than I am to returning home (though I miss Inky and my friends and the Americana project). I do love being in the city, especially because we’ve got such a beautiful apartment to ourselves (thanks Robin and Lisa!) and a big bottle of champagne in the fridge and Central Park just a block away. It’s Jolene’s first time in New York and she’s doing better than I thought. We ran out of dog food last night and a nearby store delivered it for free within an hour. And that sort of thing is one reason why I miss living here. Delivery! I also miss the crazy outfits and hairdos. What I hadn’t remembered: all the dogs and strollers.

Last night I had the best mac and cheese ever at the Soho Grand. Next time you’re in the city, have a margarita in the lounge and an order of m&c. Tonight, Josh meets my mom and her side of the family. And, yes, we did get married before they met, which reminds me, yesterday we visited my dad at the Veterans’ Memorial Cemetery in Exeter, Rhode Island. Huge comfort in remembering just how pretty it is.

Josh and I had a big family welcome yesterday. It was great to see everyone thanks to Aunt Janice and Kristen! As a kid I came here every summer and spent almost every day at the Bonnet Shores beach, so of course we got ourselves down there for half the day (finally, after six years on the Gulf I was able to swim in the ocean!). After the beach we went to Newport and sat on a pier eating good clam chowder. At some point on this trip I decided that a houseboat might be the best idea in the world. Before heading home we visited my grandparents old house at 16 Betty Drive, which was exactly the same though someone sold the lower half of the property (lawn really) and a huge three-story house sits there too. All those beautiful pine trees my grandpa planted are gone.

Thanks so much to my family and to Kristen and Chris and the kids for letting us sleep in the best converted basement I’ve ever seen. Some last thoughts: Goat Island, lobster for $5.99/lb, Bonnet Shores, all the hundreds of boats glittering in the sun in Narragansett Bay. And houseboats, again:

Bothered about beauty you have to
Come out into the open, into a clearing,
And rest.

As newlyweds of course we were obligated to go to Niagara Falls. The Maid of the Midst boat tour was wet and pretty and just the right length of time. We wanted to visit the Kazoo Factory in Eden but it ended up being a little far so we decided on the Carousel Museum instead. Josh and I were the only two to take a carousel ride at the end of the tour, and we weren’t the least embarrassed that we didn’t have any kids in tow, though maybe we should have been. After: lunch on the Erie Canal (the eighth wonder of the world?) and a barbecue and hula hooping with Raina, Lily, Debbie and Chad (plus three dogs).

From here: Rhode Island and a big, sweet part of my dad’s family in Narragansett.

Motel in Ohio. My feet somewhere in Pennsylvania. We finally arrive in Buffalo where Ken has run over Barbie (you can see her blond hair under the wheels).

“Everywhere the eye concedes to / Encroaching horizon”

A quick recap of the road so far: Louisiana, New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. We hit a huge storm late tonight and so much traffic all day that we’re tying up at another Motel 6 (Rm #214). I must admit that Josh drove all day and night while I read my book to the end. It’s a guilty pleasure to read all day long while someone else moves me along the highway. I married a good man, though I also think he might not like my driving. That said, I paid little attention to the Midwest, but since I went to Antioch College in Yellow Springs, OH, I feel like I’ve put in my time already.

Lots of dogs traveling on the road and great rest stops. Hundreds of families and couples humping their way east just like us. It’s always comforting and a reminder of all that’s happening outside our private little hurtling universe.

Tomorrow, we’ll finally reach New York.

Corn. And more. And if you’re from New England, it never stops looking pretty.

Another long day on the road and though we were chopping away at the miles and hours, we did enter some suspended state of being and time (maybe it was just Nebraska) in the late afternoon when we seemed to have as many miles ahead of us no matter what. Tonight it’s room 225 at the Motel 6. Jolene has the bed by the air conditioner and her snout is right alongside its face.

A few dispatches from Route 76: Ovid, Colorado (we’d just set out and couldn’t stop though I imagine it as a city of love), a news piece on the radio about a new erotica writer and his latest story, “The Sheriff and the Widow,” which has nothing to do with travel except it has everything to do with good names and signs and the promise of small-town tales. We passed a Pony Express Trail Station, The Great Platte River Road Archway, a pioneer village, silos and smokestacks. I read all afternoon: “all windows down, all cushions hot, all sense of being in a hurry gone.”

Tomorrow we’ll be in a barrel heading over the falls. Anchors away!

Tonight we’re at a Super 8 in Sterling. It’s late and I had a long salt bath after the hike and the daily (long) dog walks in the national forest that borders Bob and Catfish’s property. I’ll miss New Mexico and the Red Dog Ranch! Jolene is exhausted but the ennui and the longing for all her four-legged friends will soon set in.

Yesterday we napped through a huge afternoon storm then went to the Sax Stonecarving Workshop at Rift Gallery in Rinconada to see the new work. After that we drove along the Rio Grande on the low road to Taos for dinner at The Stakeout, which sits high in the hills. We watched another storm rolling toward us, which came with enough wild hair to send all diners off the porch and inside. Dramatic and very beautiful as the sun came through the distant clouds where the storm had already passed. They don’t call New Mexico the Land of Enchantment for nothing.

We were headed for Cheyenne but cut east at Denver to save ourselves a few hours. We’ve got about 1400 miles ahead of us! My eyes are heavy with sleep. See you up ahead on the trail.