In which Camille and Stephanie spend a week together doing some writing and playing with critters – April 24-30, 2014
OUR HOSTS
Camille was welcomed by Stephanie, Andrea and Ed and put up like royalty with beautiful views of George Washington National Forest. In addition to demonstrating outrageous hospitality, Andrea is the guiding hand behind our writing project, having written and published several books after a career in editing and publishing.
COMFORT ZONE
Camille settled into this lovely room, complete with writer’s desk.
SUNNY SALAMANDER DAY
With rain in the forecast, we took full advantage of this sunny day to stroll around town. We were headed to the lake to look for Salamanders but ran into a bucket full of them in town. These two enterprising youngsters were charging a quarter to hold the salamanders they had caught.
STEPHANIE LOVES SALAMANDERS
Something about their squishiness, their little eyes and speckles…
NATURAL HABITAT
Next stop, the lake where salamanders glide around freely in their element, unhampered by hands and buckets.
CHANCE ENCOUNTER
You gotta be careful what you wish for. Stephanie, ever on the lurk for snakies stopped short on the path in front of a garter snake. Evidently, the snake was hungry after a long winter because she latched onto Steph’s hand and began chomping down. Camille wondered why Stephanie referred to the enterprising reptile as a ‘she’ and learned it had something to do with the length of her tail. Apparently, female snakes have shorter tails then males do. Oh, what a fascinating world we live in!
TENACIOUS CRITTER
But back to the drama at hand. There wasn’t any letting go, no matter how hard Stephanie pulled or squeezed, the snake teeth remained firmly attached to her right hand. She was trapped in those ambitious jaws for about ten minutes.
WELL, SWELL
Finally, after several methods of coercsion the snake released its grip and Steph was left with a drool-covered line of teeth marks marching up her thumb. Within an hour her hand had swelled up and remained swollen through the next day.
COMPENSATION
Food always makes things better. Some of the pancake batter dripped down into the griddle gutters, forming tails. Steph’s love for the aquatic manifests itself even in her blueberry pancakes!
PIZZA, YOGA AND WINE
Hours of editing some 153,000 words require ample doses of home made food (Steph makes a mean pizza dough!), some stretching and of course, wine.
SUNSHINE ON A GREY DAY
The majority of our days were cold, drizzly and gray but we went walking outside anyway. Later, we perked up the day with gelato (Steph made this deliciously creamy chocolate gelato), raspberries and of course, wine.
WATER WORLD
Even the golf course was flooded in places. Fortunately, the flash floods that were predicted did not come to pass. And we were ultimately glad for weather that encouraged us to stay inside and work.
At the end of the week we were well on our way towards producing a memoir and “how to” guide for jumping off the corporate treadmill and transforming oneself from tourist to traveler. The content is based on a year and a half of email correspondence in which we shared our hopes, dreams, disappointments and triumphs during an exciting period of time in both of our lives. In 2012, Camille and Bob moved to West Africa, Stephanie traveled to Guyana and returned home to sell virtually everything she owned and follow her bliss to Costa Rica. Our working title is Two Broads Abroad. Please stay tuned!