UNpacked!

We are home and UNpacked from our two week trip to Williamsburg, Virginia and a side trip to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and a day at Mt. Vernon.   Our purpose for the trip was to take Elizabeth to the archaeology dig she had signed up for.  We waited and did our sightseeing. 

   I knew going in that Virginia in July would be hot but I wasn't expecting the kind of hot we had. Jungle heat and humidity.  My God, that humidity.  We have humid weather in Michigan but it isn't like that!  It was brutal but when you're there you just have to power through and so we tried our best.  One redeeming thing, we agreed that we were two old people who were not lugging kids around trying to keep them happy.  We could do what we wanted, as much as we wanted and for how long we wanted.  And we had a great time.

    We arrived on Saturday, late, and after taking Elizabeth to her host home late Sunday night we stayed in the area on Monday to make sure she was ok then Tuesday we headed back north 4 hours to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the site of one of the worst and most decisive battles of the Civil War.  We stayed there for three days, we conquered Gettysburg.

One of the smart things we did was take a tour bus around the battlefields, it gave us a good perspective  and we had an excellent guide.
 

So much destruction, so much at stake in so small a place.  Wars are not fought hill by hill anymore

It's a sobering place when you actually stand in the spot where the generals stood directing.  Gettysburg was PH's part of the trip, the part he wanted to really absorb.  That's why we gave it three days.  One for the tour bus and then we went back on our own. 

On a lighter note, while PH and Elizabeth did all of the driving - it was 13 hours down and we did it in one day, but we took a different route to avoid Washington D.C. area at ALL costs so it was 14 hours in one day home - I stitched.  This is my car project and it's growing.  I don't know yet what I'm going to do with it.  Not sure if I should make it longer than wide or square it off or if it will ever be finished.  It's completely random, the only thing I'm trying to notice is not putting two reds or two navy blues together.  We have another long car trip coming up so there is more to do.  

Finished two of the books I took with me and am halfway through one I bought.  That's pretty good but it was also because we never once turned on the television and the internet wouldn't play well with my iPad so I didn't even get to read blogs or waste time scrolling.  When day was done we read.

As I said, I didn't do any blog reading so I'm really behind on yours, as I get going back to normal here I'll show a few more pics of the trip.  

Packing - Ugh

 I hate packing.  I am a "just in case" packer because I've been kicked by the Unprepared Mule a few times.  Not packing for cold or hot or wet and being sorry.  And I seem to have to think of it all:

my clothes, books, shoes-which ones?, phone and iPad chargers, dop kit, snacks in a kit for the car that includes paper towels, cups, knife, zip storage bags, pills, hand wipes and sanitizer, water - lots of water, etc., etc., etc.  Believe me, I've learned over time what we need.  This time we will have Elizabeth with us so must make room for her and her bag(s) and snack preferences, Gatorade, etc. 

 PH?  About an hour before we leave he will take his suitcase out, toss in a few pairs of undies, a couple of shirts and his bathing suit.  Done.  I will swear to the truth that one day 30 minutes before leaving for the airport he got his suitcase out of the closet.  

Now, to give him due credit, because we are going to be gone for berrying he has been walking the shoulders of the roads with a container picking what ripe black raspberries there are now for freezing because we love a black raspberry pie in January and he remembered pea season, got the tires rotated.  He is ever ready to run to the store for whatever I forgot.  So he does do what I don't.

My preferred mode of travel is by car.  You can jam a lot of stuff in a car that you can't in a carry-on if flying.  For a 'just in case' packer cars are the way to go. I don't have to decide on one pair of shoes, I can take 3.

The bag gets put on the rocking chair in the bedroom a couple of weeks before departure and as I think of something it gets tossed in before I forget. Believe me, it's under there somewhere.   At some point I start folding and counting days vs. shirts.

Usually I think "no one here is ever going to see me again so won't know if I wore this shirt 2-3 days in a row."  But we are going to go hot and steamy and the last time we made this trip the kids changed their clothes three times a day because they were soaked through.  We are 'enjoying' that kind of weather here at home now so can't even fathom what we are driving toward. 

Unpacking is so much easier. It's all dirty, just dump it in the laundry room.

Books I'm taking?  They are all very different from each other:  To Kill a Mockingbird - I read it every year in summer.  Absolution by Alice McDermott,  Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh.  Three books for two weeks?  Well, you know...just in case.

Peas

 It's pea season.  When we arrived at 10 a.m. this morning the grower was already on his second 200 gallon trough.  He said when he opened the farm this morning there were 14 cars lined up on the road.  The peas go fast. Sometimes his FB site announces at 9 a.m. they are out for the day but usually it's a little after noon that he runs out.  The farthest in Michigan that someone comes is five hours away.  There is a woman who comes from Missouri.   Apparently, there are just two pea growers in Michigan but like he said he didn't like them cooked but will eat them raw and " I wouldn't drive five hours for peas! "  I said it's too bad I don't like peas.  Fresh, though, they are quite good, so people tell me.  He said people eat them raw with peanuts. "I'd rather have a handful of M & M's," he said. I come from the era where peas came in a can and when forced to eat them, well, it wasn't pretty. But that also meant I didn't have to have them force fed to me after that.  Probably it's a mental thing. 

200 gallons in here! Second one of the day by 10 a.m.

Bagged and ready to sell, the line of cars is constant. We bought three bags weighing 3.15 pounds each. One for son-in-law ( he's the only one in their house who eats them, and he eats them fresh like popcorn) and two for PH.  Washed and bagged in individual scant one cup bags for immediate and winter eating.  

 No quilting being done. None.  Lost my mojo.  Haven't been feeling up to par lately so even the Thinking Bed has been cleaned off.  Maybe later.