Tag Archives: Edenton

Letter #9 of 52: Rainbows and Road Trips

rainbow and cow

Beauty seen is never lost, God’s colors all are fast. –John Greenleaf Whittier

Sparrows danced joyfully on the telephone wire. The blue, cloud-dipped sky sparkled with radiant light. The fragrant floral arrangements spilled abundantly over from their sturdy vases.

We who had come for her memorial service were seated in this light-filled atrium, embraced by the beauty of the world around us as we celebrated a life lost suddenly and unexpectedly. When her best friend spoke, she shared indelible memories that the two neighbors created together-family vacations and weekend outings, antique treasure hunts and entrepreneurial endeavors, Starbucks tete-a-tetes and conversations about life.

Just the week before this memorial service, Peggy and Renee had promised each other that they’d open a new chapter in their lives, a time for reconnecting with old friends, those who had shared volleyball bleachers and elementary-school hallways. The friends whose lives, like your own, become consumed by family commitments, returns to the workplace, and family schedules that erase the hours for spontaneous coffee breaks or hour-long phone calls. Renee told us how Peggy would want us to reach out to our friends and family, to rebuild and strengthen those bonds. And how we should all find time to explore the world outside of our front doors.

With that call to action playing in my always-cluttered head, I phoned my parents on Thursday night and asked if I and at least one of my kiddos could come visit–make the five-hour trip south to reconnect. The answer was: “Come on.” We hadn’t seen each other since our family Christmas celebration in mid December. While I cherish my gene pool’s annual gathering, we’re an expansive crew so one-on-one time with any family member is practically impossible. My parents (AKA the grandparents) are in especially high demand.

With a “yes” tucked in my back pocket, our spontaneous trip to Edenton, North Carolina was on. Twelve-year-old, Cady, decided to come along. Just the two of us. I picked her up early from school on Friday, directly from my own half-day at work, and off we went. She pulled out her book, and I cranked up Jaime Grace, Matthew West, and Royal Tailor, quickly cycling through the CDs and then happily stumbling on Christian radio stations, AirOne and K-Love.

I was in a driving groove; my mind quieted. With my tinted Oakleys shielding me from the waning sun’s intense glare, I began to see the colors.

The fire-engine red tin roof on the white clapboard farm-house, a photograph begging to be taken. A brown and white paint nibbling at new growth inside the split-rail fencing.

The rusty orange clay soil, bumpy from tilling earlier in the day, its powerful scent temporarily invading our four-wheeled sanctum.

Daffodils, dressed in rain-slicker yellow, prancing carelessly in perfectly aligned, VDOT-planted rows.

Alien green fields aglow with grassy spring abundance. Cady and I couldn’t get over the vibrant verdant color, deciding it was nature’s reply to Astroturf.

Pale blue skies, dotted with marshmallow clouds that hovered effortlessly over the landscape, showcasing the colors, both God-breathed and man-made, that rested in fields, along roadsides, and in front yards.

Gray and white and chocolate horses, in paddocks along the route. A trio of chestnut and white calves romping in a meadow. Black-speckled ponies conversing in the pasture.

Indigo, violet and orange, stacked one on the other, pressing against the salt marsh as the sun painted its finale across the fading skyline.

Traffic delays and Burger King stops notwithstanding, we pulled into Mom and Dad’s just after dark, honking loudly and repeatedly to announce our arrival. We had a marvelous weekend, beginning with a golden yellow macaroni and cheese dinner. A rambling Scrabble game, aided guiltlessly by an Ipad dictionary app. A father-daughter bike ride. A mother-daughter-granddaughter shopping trip into town. Two Saturday meals out–Nothin’ Fancy Cafe for lunch and Tommy’s Pizza parlor for dinner (both delicious). On Sunday morning, we drove the 20 minutes back into town for the early morning church service, made earlier by Day Light Savings Time’s arrival. Then back to the house for a quick breakfast of pancakes and bacon before getting back on the road heading home.

I’ve seen my fair share of rainbows–even a double and inverted–but this weekend, I was blessed to witness God’s promise one striking color at a time. Red cardinals, boxing with one another for space at the feeder. The first bluebird of spring, perched on the highwire, undoubtedly searching for a place to call home. A metallic blue cruiser, carrying my 77-year-old Dad and Senior Olympian, along his daily four-mile trek (his ever-so-slightly winded daughter puffing alongside). Seven tan Scrabble tiles, lined up to spell URINE, and the shared laughter of three generations as our word choices grew ever more challenging.

It was a weekend lavishly colored with love.

Letter #9 goes to my parents, who on less than 24-hours notice welcomed us with outstretched arms.

I think now is the time to embark on more spontaneous adventures. Put down the must-dos and pick up the want-to-dos. Let’s get going people. God created a colorful masterpiece for us–step outside of the lines of your life and experience a new kind of rainbow. One you build color by color, moment by moment.

Peggy, thank you for all the moments we shared. Even now, you inspire me. I will get out and experience the beauty of this wonderland we call home. You, my friend, are deeply missed.

What a privilege to be here on the planet to contribute your unique donation to humankind. Each face in the rainbow of colors that populate our world is precious and special.–Morris Dees

Be blessed–and be a blessing,

Martha, LoudounCrazyMom

P.S.–In honor of rainbows and road trips, check out this recipe: Colorful Vegetable Fajitas.

Click above for this week's inspirational tune: "You Lead" by Jaime Grace

Hello world!

Oh Geo! Or why muddy meandering makes me happy.

If you aren’t yet familiar with geocaching and you have kids under the age of 18, you’re missing out on making some mudlicious memories. Loudoun County, and Leesburg in particular, is rife with hidden treasures awaiting your discovery.

Our family stumbled on geocaching last spring, after one of my kindergarten kids brought in a geocoin for his show-and-tell. Boy could you tell from that little boy’s ear-to-ear grin that geocaching had given him a veritable king’s treasure. One simple coin and he was richer than rich. I came home that afternoon and immediately googled geocaching, finding geocaching.com.

At first, we just dabbled in this newfound GPS-guided treasure hunt. We’d go out hunting every now and then, our handy dandy Apple iPhone serving as our official GPS device. We always enjoyed the find, but it wasn’t until this month that we officially became bonafide geocaching addicts. Come to find out, there are a lot of similarly minded geocaching nuts out there, all traipsing through overgrown fields, cobbled downtown side streets, and steel and concrete jungles to unlock the mystery of the next geocache. Nothing quite beats the thrill of shouting “Found it” while my husband is 15 feet away digging through rotting leaves, hoping he finds the cache before me. Yesterday, I won 2-1. Yep, that’s right–we spent two hours on our own–after our Costco shopping trip–hiking the muddied, tree-laiden trails of Red Rocks Overlook. The storm took its toll on the pines and hardwoods that frame the trail, but we trudged on, alternating between watching our steps and our iPhones (we used both his and mine, as we were tracking two long-hidden caches). Of the trio we found yesterday–two of which were hidden in 2001–one hadn’t been uncovered for over a month. Talk about feeling special! And then there was the view we’d never seen–a glorious overlook high above the swollen Potomac River. And the up-close chance encounter with some less-timid deer, out for their late afternoon snack. And me in flip flops…toes dipped in deep chocolate mud.

There’s lot to love about geocaching, and it’s for anyone with a sense of adventure. There are easy-to-find caches, or hides, as you’ll hear them referred, and then there are those that would likely stump the best and brightest MIT grads. The variety and number of caches hidden worldwide is astounding–and the number grows daily. There are puzzlers, virtual caches, underwater caches, multi-level caches and the geocaching.com websites states that geocaches can even be hidden in outer space. Not sure when the last Shuttle is launching, but I kind of wonder if there’s a geocache on the moon.

Back to the addiction, it’s consuming. We’ve outfitted a gallon-sized Ziploc bag with all our geocaching necessities–a flashlight for when darkness arrives before the find does, plenty of trinkets and treasures to trade, a camera, and a few ballpoint pens. You never know when it’s BYOP! For the future geocachers, that means “bring your own pen” because the cache is so itty bitty (possibly smaller than the fingernail on your pinky finger) that it was impossible for the cache owner to add a writing utensil. We’ve found camouflaged caches on light posts (a seeming favorite), wedged in rotted out stumps, hanging by a strings in trees and fenceposts, and magnetically clinging to every size and shape of metal.

Last weekend, I enlisted my Mom and eldest daughter, Shelby, for our Edenton, NC geocaching expedition. We were visiting my parents, sharing a beautiful church service at St. Anne’s, dining at the Nothin’ Fancy restaurant (oh my gosh, were the crabcakes and cornbread Bon Appetit good!). But the geocaching bug overpowered me, and thank goodness my Mom was up for treasure hunting in her hometown. We found two of the three on our short list. I can tell, my Mom had fun…we all explored and giggled and amazed ourselves with our ingenuity. Heck, when we couldn’t pull the miniscule log roll from within the magnetic nano we found, Mom headed over to the local fishermen and, in her most gracious Southern accent, asked for assistance. The fisherman stopped fishing, pulled out his rather large knife, and expertly removed the scroll. We got our BYOP ballpoint out and scribbled our code name: 7up4fun. Turned out that the day before, the same fisherman had been sitting on the bench where said cache was located when another geocacher, laptop in hand, had stumbled by on the same search. I can only imagine what that local Edenton fisherman must think of we out-of-town treasure seekers. So my Mom knew best when I was a youngster, and she still knows best. Later that afternoon, for another find, Mom was using a long stick to pull a tiny black and highlight-yellow snake from within the hide location. Thanks, Mom.

We hid our first geocache last night, and it was published among the website listings at around 8:50pm. Twenty-seven minutes later, some other geocaching addict, on his way to a movie with his wife, forewent date night to instead be the FTF (first to find) “Jeepers Peepers”–our ode to the springtime amphibian troubadors. Now it’s your turn to find our cache fully loaded with kid-friendly treasures. In doing so, you’ll find that the greatest treasure you really find is yourself! :)

There’s plenty more I’d love to tell you about geocaching, but why read about someone else’s crazy good adventures when you can start having some of your own. Go to geocaching.com and sign up for a free membership–or go hog-wild with a premium membership (great for even more cheap thrills). Then, let me know what you think. Am I nuts? Or is this the best thing since Andy Gibb and Twinkies?

Go head, use your GPS today to navigate a blessed adventure with someone you love :)