Last Night On The Road (for now!)

Sept 29

For almost every evening of this past month, I’ve sat inside Mo after dinner and typed up a review of the day, transferred photos from my camera to the computer, and uploaded the results to my blog. I can’t believe this is my last evening “ontheroad”. On one hand, it seems unbelievable that exactly one week ago, Joe and I were camped near Albuquerque, New Mexico. That was over 2,000 miles ago, and it seems like such a long time in the past! But on the other hand, I also can’t believe that the month is over—it seems to have gone so fast!

We have spent the past two nights at Miracle Farm in Floyd, VA, with Joe’s brother Ed and his wife Karen. As always, we had a lovely time. The farm is gorgeous and we are so proud of how much they have accomplished there in only about 20 months. Everyone should go to visit them—the Bed & Breakfast accommodations (individual cabins) are absolutely lovely and the vegetarian, mostly organic breakfasts they make are sensational (the dinners were awesome too—the veggies from Ed’s extensive garden are so delicious that I am always happy to be a vegetarian when we are there!)


A river runs through Miracle Farm

Turtle with a slug in its mouth

But we finally had to leave this morning, on the last leg of our trip—up Interstate 81 through Virginia, quick hops through West Virginia and Maryland, and on into Pennsylvania. Yesterday, at the farm, we also had a visit with Jan, a friend of Joe’s. Jan used to be a patient of his until she moved down to Roanoke, only about 45 minutes away from Miracle Farm. While she was there yesterday, she said that we should really stop to see Foamhenge, a replica of Stonehenge made of foam, near Natural Bridge, VA.

At the time I told her that we probably wouldn’t have time, but as we passed the signs for Natural Bridge, we decided to take in one more “scenic wonder”. Having just come from the far west, perhaps we are spoiled. But when we discovered that it cost $12 per person to see the Natural Bridge, we could not help deciding that it simply cost way too much. Considering that for $10 per car, we could visit Arches National Park for a week and see 100 natural stone arches, it just seemed that the state of Virginia was simply being excessively greedy—especially when the ticket booth was located inside a gift shop which rivaled Walmart in size! We left the site, a bit disgusted, and went back to Mo.

We were heading toward the Interstate when lo and behold, we suddenly passed the sign for Foamhenge! We quickly turned around, and drove Mo through metal gates which reminded us both of Cadillac Ranch, and also of the Legend Rock we saw in Wyoming. A short climb up a hill brought us to Foamhenge. Quite obviously, the artist, Mark Cline, has a great sense of humor. He posted a sign at the gate describing the installation, and another at the top warning against vandalism. He also added to the landscape a statue of Merlin, who is reputed to have built the original Stonehenge. As Joe said, the site was refreshingly silly, and a great antidote to the greed and commercialism of the Natural Bridge. Thanks for telling us about it, Jan!

That was our last tourist destination, but we simply are not quite ready to be home yet! So we are now camped for the night in Jonestown, PA, at a KOA, a mere two hours from home. This is a remarkably nice KOA, as it happens—in a grove of trees, several miles away from the Interstate, and it gave us one last chance for Joe to cook me a dinner, and for us to relax, and for me to write one more blog. The wifi is unfortunately inadequate—it is supposedly more reliable closer to the office, but I will wait for the morning to upload this, I think, rather than carry the laptop over in the dark.

And so….. that is that. Our plans for tomorrow: wake up early, and drive home to see Beth, our new front porch, and attempt to shift our brains back to Real Life. I’m thinking how it will probably take me several days to totally unload Mo. And I am already having trouble remembering how it was to be “on the road.” It was such a wonderful adventure. I can’t wait to do it again.