Trail's End

   Oct. 9, 4:30 p.m. Dave clicked on Amana's right-turn blinker for the last time on our trek across the country and back, and drove up our driveway on Seaview Way. Home at last!

   We'd driven 7900 miles in twenty-seven days. Our big accomplishment, though, was our trip home. 3190 miles in four days.
   Working to our advantage were the facts that we gained an hour every day and that Colorado, Wyoming and Idaho have go-ahead-and-break-your-neck speed limits.
   Our big-number day had us driving 900 miles from St. Louis to Cheyenne. We saw a lot and missed a lot, all at the same time.

   David and I would like to salute several things which added to our trip.

   First, our twelve-year-old steadfast steed Amana, who made it all 7900 miles in great shape, though she did throw a shoe in the middle of an Iowan cornfield.
   We salute our decade-old US map book, which was relatively up-to-date. With a newer edition we'd have known the northeast section of Denver's turnpike had been completed.
   Fortune has it that our Blackberry GPSs were up to date, so we made it through Denver with aplomb, but got a bit lost in Ocean City, MD, where the satellites were taking the day off. 
   Lastly, we salute the highway patrolmen and state troopers of every state we drove through for ignoring our frequent uses of excess speed. Hospitality means a lot to us!
Two Days to Go
   The Wednesday before David's Towson High School Class of '60's fiftieth reunion had us spending a miserable time holed up in the Irvington house, for an Amazon-hot torrential storm drenched Virginia in four inches of rain. We couldn't drive anywhere because the Irvington property has a gravel, rather than paved, drive way. Remembering our last downpour in Irvington when Aunt Kathy suddenly needed medical care, and the ambulance got stuck in the grassy mud half-way between the house and the street, we parked Amana way away from the trees and securely on the gravel.
   We couldn't do our normal thing of enjoying the storm from the porch either, because the rain poured horizontally. Nor could we watch TV, because one didn't exist in the house. Nor did broadband. Or cable. Or even a slow-motion modem.
   You'd think we'd settle in and read, but the air was sticky hot. We just sat around and bitched and looked forward to Thursday's visit to Williamsburg and Friday's drive up to Ocean City, MD, for the reunion festivities.

   Our main reason for going to Williamsburg was because I decided I had nothing to wear and needed to visit the nearest Chico's. Which is also a great excuse to also visit one of our favorite little haunts, the Blue Talon Bistro! The bistro's right across the street from College of William and Mary, where David's daddy went (I kept imagining Ed Wilshin and John Stewart sitting in class together!), so it's filled with university profs and ladies who do lunch. Julie and Julia was on the big screen.
   David had the meatloaf sandwich, and I had a winter-crisp chopped salad.
Blast Off!
   From the get-go, David's reunion was a scream! Even the hotel staff was struck by the high energy level and pure glee the alumni expressed upon seeing each other.
   Happiness de-ages people, I think. After all, doesn't the idea of a fifty-year reunion conjure images of shaky old people propped up by canes? Not this crew. Plenty of them were still in their professions in one form or another. Or they were active doing something. I tell you, they were a contagious bunch. Kudos to the reunion committee: Helen Perkins Berry, Jane Dodson Brewer, Kathy Ensor, and John Carpenter.

   I do have to sneak in here the fact that David was class president, and so there classmates aplenty came up to him with fond memories of putting on all the class-cabinet activities. Other classmates, Kathy Ensor and John Lang (bottom left), reminded him they were in the same primary classes together. Still others had neighborhood memories. It was, for me, just lovely to behold.
   Note: Kathy Ensor remembered the elementary-school incident when their class, on a field trip to Washington, D.C., witnessed Puerto Rican nationals shooting up the House of Representatives. Here's the newsreel.
   We spent much of our time hanging out with professors/authors Linda Loeb Clark and Bill Weber (third down, left), two of the many people we miss terribly since moving to Washington. I hope Bill and Linda don't mind us saying this, but for a couple of overbrained eggheads, (Linda wrote Social Darwinism and French intellectuals, 1860-1915 and The Rise of Professional Women in France. Bill wrote The Great Transformation of Musical Taste: Concert Programming from Haydn to Brahms and Music and The Middle Class: The Social Structure of Concert Life in London, Paris and Vienna Between 1830 and 1848) the four of us have had some mighty raucous and inspirational dinners in our homes and aboard Always!
   We also spent warm, happy time and a great crab-cake lunch with David's good bud, fellow lawyer and lacrosse player Stewart Baird (top left), once of Marin County, and now of New Hampshire. 
   It was also great to spend time with Susan Linde, student-body prez Carvel Payne and his wife Anne Sartorius Payne, and June and Bruce Taylor (second down, left). Bruce was a USNA classmate of David's.
   As class president, David was called upon to give a talk, and he did just great! Not too long, not too short. Just right, interactively recalling the highlights of the seven decades he and his classmate have lived through.
   Wowzer!
   Sadly, we did not get to visit Frances Meginnis, David's English teacher. She was feeling like hell and didn't want to see anyone. Sometimes it's just not right to force someone to see you, though we were duly tempted.
   P.S. We did not get the prize for coming the farthest for the reunion. Someone else drove from Germany!
Bobby

   We stopped in Annapolis to see Robert Timberg and revere his entryway sentry on our way home from Ocean City. Bob was David's roommate at the Naval Academy, and they share a wonderful comaraderie. For me it was great to see David light up in Bob's presence for these guys go way back.  
   Bob talked about his current project, which is writing a book chronicling his time at USNA, to Vietnam where he was injured, to his days as Washington bureau chief for the Baltimore Sun, to publishing The Nightingale's Song and other books, and serving as editor for the Naval Institute's Proceedings.
A New Scape Finds Us

   I've been coming to Irvington since 1994, and David's been coming all his life to the home he and his dad built overlooking Carter Creek upon his return from Vietnam in 1968.

   During my sixteen years' worth of visits, I've come to expect the calming sameness of the creek view from the porch. My many photographs back this up. They all look alike, except maybe one year's leaves are a little greener or redder than another's. Always Widgeon is tied to its dock, seemingly unsailed; the riprap lining the corner home's shore retains its deep mahogany dark hue; and the roof lines remain evenly spaced against the sky's background. Every fall the Canada geese migrate through the cove, the squirrels fly from oak tree to oak tree collecting their winter cache, and nearby church bells ring out melodies at noon and four.

   But this year, some things were different.

   First, the house across the way had a new maroon (!!) roof and pillars.
   Then, when we got home from Annapolis, we looked across the creek and noticed that Widgeon (left) had sunk in her slip! Egad!
   And third, well, the third thing that was different has to do with geese, and David's writes about that.

A Gander at the Geese (by David)

   Sometimes the geese come quietly, flying aloft in their characteristic vee-formation, the kind that ostencibly wrecked havoc for Sully Sullenberger's Flight 1549. Sometimes the geese come hooting and honking in pairs, flying low over the tree tops. 
   But this day was different.

   We noticed them first on the water in our small cove off of Carters Creek, a tributary of the Rappahannock River about 10 miles from its mouth on the Chesapeake Bay.  A few geese at first, then more and more.  Quiet they were, except for an occasional one-note cluck.  They paddled slowly but intently, not a random movement did we see.  The vanguard crossed the cove and angled closer to us as we watched from our porch, about sixty-five feet up hill from the water’s edge.  The vanguard then wheeled together and veered right at our pier below us.  Eight geese in a perfect vee formation, with wakes fanning out astern like a squadron of destroyers.  An occasional low call from the goose on point, then soft calls from those on the wings of the vanguard. Then silence.  It was as if they were confirming their safety as they continued their patrol toward the headwaters of our cove.

   The main body of the flock was visible now, swimming just yards behind the vanguard.  Two groups of ten geese, each group separated from the van and from each other.  They were followed by the rear guard, a group of six more.

   The van stopped, appearing cautious.  The main body and rear guard stopped as well, all maintaining position.  Some soft clucking in the vanguard between the point and the wings.  Then they continued slowly, intently into the headwaters of the cove, all disappearing from our view except for the rear guard. 

   A dog barked somewhere deep ashore on the other side of the cove from us.  The closest goose spun and paddled out to deeper water.  Silence.

   Finally the rear guard relaxed.  Some started to preen and feed in the water.  Then a honk from the headwaters of the cove, as if a command, and the rear guard, too, moved slowly up stream out of our view.

   We were fascinated as we watched what had been without question a precise military operation.  Did they learn it from us?  Did we learn it from them?  Or are such military-like operations inherent animal behavior? 

   The waters of the cove were swollen and brown with runoff from the deluge that had pummeled the East Coast for days.  We speculated the geese were tired from battling winds and weather on their southerly September journey and were seeking refuge in our quiet cove.

   They remained in the cove for a time, quiet except for an infrequent low honk, as if resting or feeding or both.  We returned to our conversation on the porch.  But then, perhaps a half hour after they first arrived, we were stunned by a cacophony of honks and noise, as without warning half of the flock took off from the headwaters of our cove.  They flew low and loudly, south out of the cove and turned west over the water to join the wider part of Carters Creek near where it joins the three-mile wide Rappahannock.  We could hear them still after they rounded the turn heading west, and as they seemed to settle down in the wider part of the Creek, now with just an occasional honk.

   Our cove was quiet once again.  But soon we saw the leaders of the other half of the flock swim silently and with measured caution into view, followed by the rest.  We counted sixteen in all.  One raised up out of the water and flapped her wings before settling back in.  We knew that they, too, were getting ready to go.  Then without a warning or signal we were able to perceive, all sixteen were instantly in motion in a wild, blusterous take off.  Amazed, we watched them disappear from view, following the first fourteen south and west out of our cove, honking and flapping their way to join their companions in the wider waters of Carters Creek.

   The maneuvers we had witnessed were impressive, majestic, mysterious, and they were clearly military-like in their execution.  We have read that geese mate for life, and that when a hunter shoots one down his mate will search for him for days.  Perhaps that explains why each of their groups, van and rear guards, main body, and departing groups, consisted of an even number of birds.  And perhaps the wonder of our experience explains why bird-watchers do what they do.

Farewell to Irvington

   We had our farewell dinner at the Tides Inn, the resort hotel down the street from the Irvington house (and a short walk from the Hope and Glory Inn and the Trick Dog Cafe), for tomorrow afternoon, after a great visit with our sassy, lovable, independent Aunt Kathy Wilshin in Fredericksburg, our feet and fates would be pressed to the metal in our effort to hightail it home to Washington by Saturday the ninth.
Heading West
   Heading West was a bit of a blur, but not entirely. 
   - God bless our GPS, which brought us to the very steps of UVA's rotunda! Gorgeous!!!
   - We ascertained that Staunton, where David's naughty daddy spent some time in their military school for not taking off his hat (my guess is that he probably did about ninety other naughty things before the hat incident), is pronounced Stanton. 
   - West Virginia is damned beautiful if you take the 64 west, and its capital is a little nugget as you come around the bend and see the gilded dome. It was like driving through a Thanksgiving calendar page. 

   - Wait staff in every state we passed through expressed surprise that we didn't want flavors enhancing our lattes.
   - In Kentucky and Missouri, cows like to stand atop hay mounds and flat-tired trucks, and knee-deep in watering holes. We saw no oreo cows, which we have in Washington on Rte. 9.
   - Most road kill along the way consisted of raccoons, but the Virginias' had deer by the roadside. I don't know why seeing a deer that way is so darned sad to me; maybe it's how humiliating death can be.
   - Just outside Kansas City, the 70 is what I call a railroad highway because it makes your car's wheels sound like freighttrain. In some places the sound was so synchopated, Amana sounded like she was tap-dancing her way across Kansas.
   - West of Cheyenne is unbelievably dry. No creeks. No cattle. No birds. But if you venture nearer the Utah border and  find yourself in Green River, Wyoming, stop at Penny's Diner for a good meal in a clean establishment. 
  - Still, driving across the country on interstates is a catch-as-catch-can culinary adventure; the roads, generally speaking, go through B.F. America. 
   - People driving north from Ogden and Denver appear to be in an outrageous hurry. I admit I'm a hurry pot, but these folks are on whites! 
   - Ontario, Oregon, looks like a no-nothing town on the map, but it was a big, wonderful relief after we discovered there were few hospitable places to spend the night on the Boise, Idaho, side of the border. We had a great little steak feast at Brewsky's Broiler.
   - Gas is significantly cheaper east of the Rockies.
   - It's much harder playing state-license-plate bingo than it used to be.

   - Most of the country was hot the first part of October, except the snow that fell in Wyoming and Utah stuck to the mountain tops. Skier alert!

   - I consider our Vietnam Vet license plate a lucky piece of hardware, capable of innoculating us against tickets of all sorts we frankly deserved. I have no idea if this is really true. All I know is one day we did 900 miles between sun-up and sun-down. You do the math!
   - Crossing the country made me very nostalgic for good friends I've left in California, friends who've lived in Boise, St. Louis, Charlottesville (UVA), Denver, Kansas City, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Oregon, Kansas, Maryland, Indiana, and Iowa. I kept imagining you living your early years in the middle of our country and wondering what it must have been like for you. Very poignant for me.  
   - It was good to be home to Puget Sound's crisp, fall coolness. Honestly, home never looked and smelled so good!