Wending our way west

We're in Columbia, MO, tonight, streaking back across the midlands. Well, not really streaking, but putting in more miles per day than I had originally planned. After our slow day winding through the West Virginia hills Sunday (averaging about 20 miles per hour and working hard to stay in the narrow lane, not run off the road, not overheat the transmission on the upgrades, not ruin the brakes on the serpentine downhill curves and not back up more than four or five angry drivers behind me), we regrouped and decided going slow to do photography on the back roads was incompatible with dragging the Casita. So, we're hitting the freeways again, just different ones.

Sunday was really good for me. We went to meeting for worship at Hopewell Friends Meeting, north of Winchester, VA. The meeting is 275 years old, the meeting house is 250 years old (bottom picture). I first went there a little over 30 years ago, joined in 1980 and hadn't been back in 25 years.

'Twas a joy to return and to share my love of the place and its people with Sandy. Though too many of my friends from that era have died (most recently Bob Sekinger, whose memorial was a week before we got there), it was great to see a few old friends. One was Bob Pidgeon, whose comments I often recall and who I had told Sandy about many times; we got to have our picture taken together.

Hopewell used to be a larger congregation than it is now, as evidenced by the galleries in the balcony. It also hosted quarterly meetings sometimes, which would require the extra space.

We were hosted by my best friend from those years, Jim Riley and his wife Mary, at their beautifully designed, constructed and furnished home in Winchester. We arrived on Saturday, which happened to be Jim's birthday, so we were graciously invited to share birthday dinner with them.

On the road again ... Sunday night was spent in a muddy fishing camp somewhere in West Virginia. There aren't a lot of choices for a camper trailer in that part of the country, unless you want to dry camp, and we didn't. The next night we were in a Good Sam park in Frankfort, KY, once again a midget among the behemoths.

Both Saturday night in Winchester and Sunday night in central WV the temperatures got down into the upper 30s! It was brrry upon rising, but we were snug in our bunk. Jim and Mary have a beautiful guest suite they welcomed us to use, but we figured things would work better with Scooby Doo if we stayed in the trailer. It's also true that our sleep in the Casita is next best to being at home in our own bed! Far better than any motel.

And Scooby Doo makes herself at home, too! tv