I'm currently at my Aunt Jo's house in Chesapeake, Virginia, enjoying the finest of Southern comfort. Yesterday when we rolled in she presented us with a mountainous quantity of chunk roast, peas, applesauce muffins, ice tea, baked potatoes, oatmeal raisin cookies, hot fudge, and ice cream. She has a truly delightful accent and the appropriate figures of speech to match--she's sweet as pie. On the way here we rolled past my great uncle D.D. Jones's trucking company (I think) and my great grandmother's house in colonial Williamsburg. Before that we'd been staying at Locust Grove in Walkerton, VA, where I used to go to family reunions (www.locustgrove1665.com). My Aunt Missy is wonderful; she's thinking of starting an organic herb farm there next year. Cecky is full of incredible stories from her theater tours and now I think spends most of her time making art related to Native American religions. Her mother, Harriet, was born to a deaf mother and father and thus learned sign language from birth--she didn't really learn how to speak until she went to school--and signed "Silent Night" for us before we went to bed.

To back track a little, I started the trip last Sunday when I biked from my house in Lutherville to Rebecca's in Takoma Park. I found my bike to be unbearably heavy on the hills and somehow got rid of about 20 pounds worth of stuff. The next day Kathrin, Rebecca, Hannah, and Whitney and I started out down the trails of DC, struggling with a lot of gear problems along the way and charming our way into finding people to fix them. We camped out in a bizarre swamp nature walk at Fort Belvoir and were woken up by army folk jogging by. Eventually the gals decided to call it a practice run, find new gear, and start over...but I continued on to meet up with Sam and Rachel at Locust Grove.

Someone has already created my dream!

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