Been a Long Time Coming

Yeah, yeah, yeah - I know. I've been slacking off. In my defense, since I got back from the Netherlands we've done nothing at all except sit around the house. Day in. Day out. Weekday. Weekend. I was just about to lose my mind. This past weekend came just in the nick of time.

I certainly hadn't planned on sitting around so long. In fact, I had plans to go to the Quilt Odyssey on July 29th. Instead, I sat in traffic for five straight hours - and never made it out of DC. To give this some perspective, both my Mom and I left our respective houses at 1:30 EST. She lives in Texas. I live in Northern Virginia. She drove all the way from her house to Katy, Tx, a total of 158 miles. I drove from mine to Washington D.C. in the same amount of time. A total of 30 miles. When it became apparent that there was no end in sight to this traffic, I turned around and went home. Welcome to N. VA. Expect Delays.

So, that's why no blogging lately. Nothing to inspire me. When I don't get out of my small little environment, I have no inspiration for philosophy, wickedness or thirst quenchers. I do get lots of knitting done and will post pics of all that as soon as I remember to take some.

But we did finally get out of our hole this weekend. We went to the Lancaster, PA area for a nice camp trip at Hibernia County park, and then a nice bike ride in Atglen, PA.

I had assumed there would be showers at the campground, but no joy. They did have a nice deep sink with a tall spigot, so we had ourselves a bit of a birdbath - in the middle of the night when we could strip down to our skivvies without too much fear of being caught.

The campground was gorgeous - tall, tall (over 150') tulip poplar trees. We left our rain cover off the tent to give us more breeze, and when we woke up in the morning, those incredible trees loomed over us. It wasn't too crowded at the campground either - which begs the question: When there are 20 campsites, and only five groups camping, why, oh why do people decide to pitch their tents right next to another tent? Why not spread out a bit? If any reader out there can explain this, I'd really like to know. I'd also like someone to explain to me how we managed to get sandwiched between a site with two young couples, who stayed up singing songs from Dirty Dancing (I can't make this kind of crap up) til 2AM, and a site with a young family, including twin 2-year old girls, who went to bed before 8PM, and were naturally back up by 7AM. In case you ever wonder what the appeal to back country camping is - this is it. Total peace and quiet.

But, of course, this helped get us up and out early, so we could go on our ride before it got too hot. It's really gorgeous country and I should have taken more pictures, but I was just enjoying being there. I did get a shot of this old mill, and this gorgeous house both seen on our bike ride.

Then on our way home, I got some pictures of the Amish, driving home from Sunday services, and a few pictures of the country side. They're blurry because I was trying to take them from a moving car.

So, that was the weekend. Sanity restored.