Like lemmings, we are drawn north each year into the family vortex. Bob rents a car, books rooms, and peppers the route with diversions – May 13 through 19, 2016
THE SCENIC ROUTE
We chose the back way to Pennsylvania this year, up through the Shenandoah Valley and past Mt. Jackson, Virginia with its apple-basket water tower. We also passed an oversize load that really was huge.
SHIPPENSBURG
Seven hours later Bob pulled into the parking lot behind Shippen Place in Shippensburg, PA where we settled into the top floor turret room.
FAMILY VISIT AND REUNION
The point of our trip is to spend some time with Camille’s parents and brothers and their families with a Family Visit and a Family Reunion.
FARMER MATT
Carlisle is a short drive from Shippensburg, so Bob paid a visit to Matt and Jenn at Dickinson College Farm. Their anaerobic digester gets bigger every year – what a gas!
ANOTHER FARM
So to speak. Brother Jim took these photos of the approach to Camille’s parents ‘farm’, a place that has gone to seed.
FULL OF MEMORIES
Joe, Mike, and Jim grew up on this acre snuggled between large tracks of Amish farmland. Inside the house are many memories, including this photo of twenty-one year old Janice a.k.a. Mom with her first baby, little Camille in a crocheted bonnet with a puff ball on top.
NED!
We drove through DC on the way home to spend a couple of days with our good friend Ned. It was cold and mostly wet which didn’t deter Camille and Ned from taking a long walk to the Great Falls of the Potomac.
CROAKER LANDING
After leaving Ned’s, we pushed south towards Williamsburg, stopping at Croaker Landing for old times sake. We came here often during the year we lived around the corner in Woodland Farms.
Funny old folks…
1997
Daughters Amy, Emily, and brother Jim on the very same dock twenty years ago.
TUNNEL
You get bored sitting in a car for hours, even a cute red rental car. So anything new catches our eye. Apparently, this tunnel qualified as a diversion. The funny thing about tunnels is that we have opposite reactions to them. Bob gets the heebie jeebies and Camille enjoys the reminder of all those times she passed through New York’s Holland Tunnel on the way from City Island to Nana’s house in Atlantic Highlands.
KILL DEVIL HILLS
Surely Bob would qualify as a world-class travel agent. He picks the best routes and places to stay. We enjoyed an overnighter at The Cypress House Inn at Kill Devil Hills and a long stroll down the beach. See what we saw at our Beach Stop
BIGFOOT
Columbia was our last stop before pressing inland. We stretched our legs with a good walk in the swamp. When we got home we looked at our photos and noticed Sasquatch in the background.
BELLS
Camille channeled her inner-Amy after these pretty bell-shaped flowers caught our eye.
SNAKES ALIVE!
The swamp was alive with snakes. Snakes were dropping out of trees into the water, snuggling in upturned root balls, and slithering all over the place! There were four in one place, but by the time Camille snapped the photo, one had made a hasty exit.
TURTLES, TOO
This cute fella seemed to be waving at us with its left hind leg.
CHRIS’S OLD STOMPING GROUNDS
We stopped at the visitor’s center and walked the porch outside the US Fish and Wildlife offices where Chris Lucash ran the red wolf restoration project. Bob thinks of himself as Lyle’s wing man and found a sign to prove his point.