July 21st - Homeward bound, from Michigan to Virginia

We wrapped up our trip by a long drive from Toledo to Virginia. We left by 8 o’clock and figured on about an 8-hour drive, so we expected to arrive home by late afternoon and that is how it turned out. Truth be told, we were both ready to get home after 9 weeks on the road. I was worried about the house and whether the lawn had been mowed, things like that. And we both seemed to be perennially short of sleep on the trip for one reason or another, so we were looking forward to having some restful nights in our own beds. Besides, Wendy and Joe had said they might visit us after driving over to see Niagara Falls, so we also had to clean up the house for their visit. All in all, we were just ready to go home.

As we drove the final lap into Maryland we saw yet another religious billboard. This one declared something to the effect of “Saturday is the True Day of the Lord. Sunday Laws are the Mark of the Beast!” Somehow this seems a pretty good argument for the rigid separation of Church and State—if we continue to drift into divinely-inspired government, somebody will start arguing and fighting about where the holy days should go. Since Moslems favor Friday, Jews favor Saturday, and most Christians favor Sunday, establishing the state-supported Holy Day could be quite a chore. Of course, one solution could be for a 3-day weekend including Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, but I think that’s too much to hope for, and God only knows what other religions have for their favorite holy day, so where do we draw the line?

When we finally turned the corner onto our street, we were quite happy to see the house still standing, the yard neatly mowed, and everything green and growing. Actually, it was growing so much that it looked like a jungle—it had apparently rained bodacious amounts while we were gone. The one flowerpot we had out front that didn’t have drain holes was completely filled with over 6 inches of standing water above the dirt. That’s a mosquito heaven, so we immediately emptied it, but then a day later we had another 3 inches of rain! The contrast of this wet, humid, hazy weather with the dry as a bone cloudless desert we had traveled in for weeks was like night and day.

The apple trees had so much fruit on them this year that the branches were bending over the sidewalk. I kind of hated to trim them back and lose all those apples. These are Winesaps and make a great, firm applesauce. I cook it with lots of brown sugar and cinnamon for a taste that you just can’t buy in a store, so you can see why I’m reluctant to lose those apples. But especially after walking in cities without sidewalks, I am convinced that sidewalks are a basic sign of civilization. Reluctantly I trimmed back the tree to do my part for the advance of humankind, or at least to allow folks to walk by our place without being lashed by branches.

While I was pruning, Dee came over with her dog Mollie and we had an impromptu sidewalk meeting with the couple down the street who have a Dalmatian and young woman with a large brown dog with a ridge of hair on his back. She said the breed was used to hunt lions or tigers or some other large game in Africa, but this dog was very friendly and well behaved. The dogs sniffed and played while we talked, and a good time was had by both species, I think.

The blackberry bushes were out of control and definitely contributed to our jungle. They had grown well over 4 feet while we were away and I spent some time tying them up along the trellis. The good side of all the rain was that we had sufficient blackberries to make a batch or two of tart, seedless blackberry jam. That’s something my son likes and is my specialty. The secret is to use “no sugar needed” pectin but then add a cup or two of sugar to take the edge off the bitterness and give the jam good color, consistency, and transparency. So our trip ended with many fond memories of the past weeks, a bit of work around the house, and a good harvest of apples and blackberries.