Day Five: Ohio to Base Camp

This day was just a day of counting miles.

Under a mostly cloudy sky, we traversed past Columbus, Ohio to Wheeling, West Virginia; after the tiny strip of the top of West Virginia, we were in Pennsylvania.

Heavy, looming forests encroach on every open field or edge of town; everything is green, and humid. The light looks different, all edges softened by the haze of water in the air. Ah, yes, I remember it well.

We didn't travel with a road map other than a basic overview of United States Interstate Highways, so when we were bounced off Interstate 70, halted in traffic due to yet more road work, we stopped for gas. We knew more or less where we were, and we knew where we were going, so we figured we could just abandon the interstate and find our way on regular roads. While Bernie sought a map at the gas station in vain, I took pictures of electrical things to pass the time.

I thought about Mel Trent, who has the knack of making prosaic things look intriguing. With that in mind, I snapped about ten shots of "stuff", including a picture of gravel. Thinking about Mel certainly did not make my pictures very interesting, but it was a good exercise.

Then it was back to the road, and we did find our way around the stopped traffic; by late afternoon we were off the highway and slowly making our way through the jungly land to Lewistown, Pennsylvania.

There my sister-in-law had waiting for me the biggest bag of Hartley's Potato Chips I've ever seen. "This is Sand's," she told everybody, warning them not to snitch my chips.

"Do you have the straps so Sand can just attach the bag to her head?" my husband asked genteelly.

We retired to the beautiful deck to relax and take stock of one another; the evening was simply beautiful. A birch tree tickles one side of the deck; arborvitae and euonymus screen the eastern view and make the area private and strangely life-giving. It's a place you can feel your heart recharging, worries slipping away.

We were absolutely honored to be invited to pitch our tent on the deck, and astounded it fit so easily. Even with a 7' x 10' tent on it, there is room for everyone to sit comfortably. I'll include a picture of the deck in a later post, when my camera battery is recharged.

RuthAnn and I sat out until late, catching up with each other. For me, it was a way of gradually changing my rhythms, from the aggravation of the road and the Press-driven computer work to the very powerful sense of peace and present.

Here it's amazingly easy to find that everything you need is at hand, and that what you "need" is not all that complicated.

Especially when you have a bag of Hartley's beside you.