Virginia, I love you. Passionately.
I’m reminded of that fact every time I visit Shenandoah, especially when it’s autumn and the bright leaves almost have me convinced there’s a forest fire spreading across the valley.
Somehow, enough time has crept up on me that I’ve been able to establish two fall traditions as a resident of Virginia. They include, for one, a pre-Halloween trip with Ted’s family to a haunted forest, one that’s about an hour outside of Richmond and squarely in the middle of nowhere. After sunset, we take back roads to a huge cornfield framed by dark forest and, probably, serial killers. We board a hayride bound for the middle of that cornfield, where we’re dropped off and left to fend for ourselves. Stumbling our way through a corn maze, we pass a roaring bonfire that marks the entrance to the haunted forest.
It’s a setup that poises you to react like a high-strung Thoroughbred before a big race, ready to shy away at the drop of a feather. So we trot and high-step our way through barely-lit abadoned houses, accompanied by soft but pulse-quickening horror-movie music, accosted and pursued by entirely too many deranged-looking men with chainsaws. Both years, Ted’s family has laughed at me for screaming so loudly. And that’s all I have to say about that.
No matter how many candles accumulate atop my birthday cake, I still find that nothing captures my imagination better than a really well-written, well-illustrated children’s book. A properly-told story captures the freedom and whimsy that came naturally to us as finger-painting, play-acting toddlers.
There were seasonal favorites in our little-one library; I still get the urge to read Happy Winter (as a 23-year-old!) every time Christmas rolls around. But for summer, there was Blueberries for Sal, in which a little girl spends most of her time among the berry bushes plunking fruit into her mouth, not her pail. Despite never having picked blueberries myself, I could almost feel the warm sun on my back whenever I opened that book.
Recently, I got to recreate Sal’s plotline when Ted and I headed to his hometown blueberry patch outside of Richmond. Now, overshooting on hand-picked berries seems like it’d be hard to do, right? It’s not like picking apples or peaches; bead-sized objects are slower to fill a bucket than fist-sized ones. The concentration it takes to find and reach the ripest fruit is intense, and by the time the early-morning clouds parted to reveal a hot midday sun, sweat was pouring down our faces.
Nowadays, home is a word with an increasingly flexible definition. It means Wilmette, whose geography is etched into my nervous system, and Chicago, where I’ve always loved getting lost. It means Los Angeles, where a gaggle of family (and might-as-well-be-family) members have settled. And home now means Virginia, whether we’re talking about my current town (Falls Church, where I’ve learned the best place to get pho), or Richmond, where Ted hails from. When he and his sisters are lucky enough to return, Richmond is where they all settle in comfortably for family dinners and board games. And when I’m lucky enough to visit, it’s lovely to settle into their routine for a few days too.
Last weekend found me in Richmond, breathing in some particularly humid summer air. To start our trip on the right foot, we visited a pick-your-own blueberry patch, spent an hour under the face-melting Southern sun plunking berries into our pails, and left with twelve pounds of them. Somewhere in process, another few pounds made their way into our bellies.
Ted and I have come to an arrangement: I’m the driver, he’s the navigator. Whereas Ted likes to pore over maps like he’s reading a novel, I look at them bemusedly as a sea of pretty dots and squiggles, pieces of art somehow but not really legible. And whereas Ted braces himself behind the wheel, confronting each turn as a stressful calculation, I ease into the driver’s seat and will happily cruise the highways until the gas tank nears empty. We each have our role, and really, it’s better that way.
Over the long weekend, we secured ourselves into the seatbelts of Bridget Honda, each in our rightful place, and headed toward West Virginia. I sighed with contentment as we crested each pretty rural hill, and Ted’s nose was buried in the road atlas as he studied the passing towns and landmarks.
After much careful thought, and a particularly relaxing Saturday, I’ve decided that the theme of my summer should be “picnics and ponies.” Both elements offer a welcome escape to my youth, back when I was an equestrian hooked on all things horsey (Exhibits A and B: visits to the local racetrack and the Kentucky Derby; primary reading material vacillating between The Saddle Club series and the latest Dover Saddlery catalog), and had a back patio that cried out for simple outdoor meals. Fortunately, Virginia provides excellent opportunities to get back to these basics, as long as you’re willing to take a leisurely hour-long drive. Then, you can stake out a place at the best venue in horse country for both picnics and ponies—by which I mean the twilight polo matches at Great Meadow, in Middleburg.
And I don’t know about you, but I’m certainly not deterred by a country drive on traffic-free, tree-shaded roads, especially when I’m listening to the Allman Brothers Band and feeling dappled sunlight warm my forearms as I mark the miles in picket fences and grazing cows.
Why would one escape Northern Virginia to head for the Charlottesville hills, you ask? Well, for one, you could’ve seen Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings play this past weekend. (They performed at the Jefferson Theater, a pretty and antiquey venue with the added plus of a slanted floor—so short people like me can see the stage even from the back of a crowd.) Secondly, to see the University of Virginia campus, which is scattered with white-columned buildings and little hideaway gardens. Thirdly, to summit Carter Mountain (by car) and visit the town’s resident orchard, procuring apple-cider doughnuts and apple butter in the process. And fourth: To enjoy glasses of wine on the patio of a little restaurant downtown, busying yourself with some serious people-watching between sips.
Check, check, check and check: we accomplished all this in a happy, quiet weekend away from home. But secretly, there was another mission involved in this Charlottesville getaway. We were scoping out a potential future home city, since we’re thinking about leaving D.C. behind sometime soon. After five years here, I’m feeling the itch to try something new.
I’m very picky about the temperature. I’m grumpy through the sizzling months of summer, require at least three layers before going sledding, and am a frequent complainer about overly air-conditioned offices no matter what the season. So it catches me entirely by surprise when the air outside is completely and utterly perfect, without any characteristic that could elicit a grumble from me. Today was one of those days where you’d be wonderfully comfortable if you wore shorts or jeans, if you were sitting on a park bench or jogging on the W&OD trail, parked at a red light with your windows down or happily speeding along with the breeze in your hair.
Thus, it was also one of those days where you can’t bear to be inside. I awoke with plans to make lemon-buttermilk cookies before picnicking, but standing by the oven today would’ve been a chore. So I ditched the kitchen for Great Falls National Park. Sixteen miles from home, this trip was a no-brainer: low-effort, low-cost, and high-reward.
Another weekend, another walk in the woods.
My recent outdoor adventures may suggest that I have a one-track mind, but it’s not completely my fault: this hiking thing is truly addictive. That’s something I never thought I’d say, given all the family vacations during which my little brother and I grumbled through our forced marches through the wilderness. But now that my rear end is firmly planted in a swivel chair for forty hours a week, I all but catapult myself out of the suburbs once Friday rolls around. And there’s no better way to sever yourself from the daily grind than to clamber up a mountain, frolic your way down, fill your lungs with crisp air and watch fog tumble into the Shenandoah Valley.
Hi! I’m Maddie, the eponymous 5'2" redhead here. I launched A Little Ginger in 2009 to document my post-grad attempts at making a home in the world, mostly by sharing my dabbles in cooking and travel. Since then, it's evolved into a forum for discussing the concept of “home,” and all the beauty, bounty, and business we're faced with when building a nest from scratch. Join the conversation, and throw in your two cents with abandon!
Find out more about me (and the blog!) here.
E-mail me at alittlegingerblog (at) gmail (dot) com.
