Field Notes, Juy 2019

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Field Notes, on the road, July 2019
Edited on Wed, July 31: the picture caption is improved!  
Happy about getting an early start today.  We were eating a sandwich lunch in a parking lot (because the rest area was for “cars only”) when our son Jon called.  He and his significant other Samantha and her sisters and parents are getting ready for our visit.  Tomorrow the fourth leg of our trip (each leg is about 300 miles) will land us in State College, Pennsylvania, the former home of Jon’s partner/girlfriend and current home of her parents, Stan and Laura.  Our itinerary for the visit, Jon tells us,  will include swimming, tubing, grilling and FIREFLIES!

Amos Lee put out an interesting album in 2013, and it started playing for my dinner-prep music here in the Lodge (our pet name for our travel trailer) when I clicked on a playlist I apparently had made back then and had forgotten about.  I just listened to it while “cooking dinner” (browning some sliced chicken sausage to add to the jarred pasta sauce and our left-over previously cooked penne pasta from last night).  This was served along with a “bag salad” that we procured while shopping earlier today for provisions near Marion, Virginia.  Anyway, the music is great.  I just had to Google Amos Lee because I had forgotten everything, sieve brain that I am (but I love me!).  You could think you’re hearing Jerry Douglas on dobro and maybe Alison Krauss on backup vocals (and you would be correct on both accounts!).
Had a couple beers at the Great Valley Farm Brewery in Natural Bridge, Virginia.  The view from the place reveals the spine of the Blue Ridge Mountains off in the distance. Spencer, a Rockbridge county official that lives near the brewery who was in attendance pointed it out for us.  Our Natural Bridge/Lexington KOA campground neighbor is Donna, retired from psychiatric nursing 2 weeks ago and traveling with  her 13 yr. old grand-daughter Stacey.  Donna has a 2016 Airstream Bambi Silver Cloud, a close cousin to our Bambi Scout.  She and Carol made the short walk to the brewery from the campground, while I joined them after a  bike ride to the Natural Bridge attraction (a 10 mile ride: hills! sweat! what I need!).   
My bedtime reading is The Far Away Near-By by Rebecca Solnit, a book bought but not read.  I was inspired to begin reading it since I had included it in our “traveling library, and one of her other books ( A Paradise Built in Hell. )was recommended by today’s Ezra Klein Show podcast guest (Rutger Bregman).If you listen to this episode of the podcast, you will hear a discussion of Utopias.  I think Ezra Klein is helping us make sense of what the hell is going on.    
We made it!  Here are Samantha, Stan, Jon, Laura, Carol at the Voodoo Brewery near State College, July 30 2019
Also, a note about some craft breweries in PA: the one in the picture is "classified as a farmer's market " which meant that all sales were "to-go" and as such, the beers were served in plastic glasses with lids!!  Thankfully, you could  immediately un-lid them and drink on the premises; straws were eschewed. 


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