souls of your travelin' shoes

this week's soundtrack....

I might have told our children that this song is about our family and they might have assumed I was telling the truth.

what does the manner family do on road trips? what a great question! here's a little sample.

we have indoor picnics for breakfast! this one was all the kids' own doing. I came out of the shower and they were eating apples and brussel sprouts on a towel on the floor.

(this was during our stay at epworth, a sister camp to the camp where we lived all summer. we are terrible about taking pictures on the important things, but staying here was such a great jump start to life  off the island. big open grassy fields, perfect for doing nothing in. so we did. we also went canoeing and then hiking along the creek. and we went caving! that was pretty exciting. kids were totally into it. jamin says it's the darkest dark he's ever seen. we saw a straw bale house and dreamed about running our own camp or school or something. so, that last part was mostly just me, but this lovely piece of property will be for sale very very soon. if you want to buy it for me, I promise to be a good steward of all its glorious worth.)

we wrestle in town squares!

this particular one was in middlebury, vermont, but matches like these have now occurred all over small new england towns. I am usually an observer. and by "usually" I mean "always."

we point at brewery signs!

best. beer. ever. this was right after we toured the brewery and had a flight and cora fell off of her bar stool. this sign is well-worth pointing at.

 we pick apples and eat donuts! and we had a great time doing both. made eric ready to rush home and plant more trees. I can be down with that. get ready, redbud!

we stop at adorable toy stores to spend our pocket money! 

standing next to this guy was a dream come true for jamin. our car (I should take a picture of iggy so you know what it is like for a family of four to live out of a honda fit for four months...) is a black hole for all the little pieces that come with "playmobil guys." this can be a problem when the firefighter drops his ax for the sixth time in four miles, but it is pretty great to eavesdrop on the pretend play in the backseat. 

we stop to pee on the side of the road and end up playing in a creek for half an hour!

new hampshire is my favorite so far. I was really prepared to love vermont, but new hampshire has just blown me away. 

today we are in maine, heading to Tir na nOg Farm where we'll be WWOOFing for a week or so. we left shelter island last saturday and headed to epworth for a few days. loved new paltz, loved epworth, loved being away from long island. after epworth we headed north through albany to have breakfast with a camp friend (hi, allison! why didn't we take a picture?), putzing our way towards burlington, vermont. we stayed in charlotte with eric's cousin cristin ond her sweetie way out in the middle of nowhere. it was lovely in every way. did a day in burlington, where we ate only at vegetarian restaurants (heavenly!), including supper with gedney (hooray!), then headed back east across vermont and new hampshire. this morning we are waking up in our lakeside hotel. kids have already had two baths (our favorite hotel luxury, since we only had a shower at camp) and are now playing "farm stand" on the floor, eating tomatoes and kale as part of the game. we're headed to a benefit breakfast for the local hospital a little later (recommended by our hotel manager), then on the road to pownal.

kids are doing very well. eric and I are, too. there is a good balance of enjoying our time and feeling the pull of going home. mostly we just take in all the cool stuff we're learning as things we'd like to try at mudflower. it is good to have such an inticing place to come home to. get ready, brevard. the manners are coming, ready to jump back in!