We Made It! NC, VA and MD

North Carolina 

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We had a great time Patrick's brother Drew's house with his wife Megan and brother David too. One evening we went out with the rest of the Wildermann gang in the area for dinner and storytelling.  

We stopped at the Duke botanical gardens, the highlight was the NATIVE carnivorous plants. Yep, venus flytraps, pitcher plants and more come from here. Cool.

After an awesome local farm to table dinner we hit up The Moth! After hearing great storytelling on the radio over the years, it was a real pleasure seeing it in person.

We said goodbye, then drove north to VA. Sadly, we didn't get a picture of the sign, ah well. After a great night visiting with cousins Tim and Amy in Richmond, we drove into MD, the last state on our trip.

Here we landed at Patrick's dads house and UNHITCHED! We made it. With all our stuff. Unscathed. Phew.

We will call this home base for the rest of our nomadic time so our trailer will rest here until we move it into our home...somewhere....someday.

But, then we had to celebrate, so we went up to see good friends Jeff and Geeta near DC and partied it up.

Umm....Amy really just has to brag 'cuz this was her best bowling score ever. 152! Patrick can't believe his eyes.

And then we went to the coolest Halloween thing. A seriously done up outdoor event with a crazy haunted forest walk with elaborate scene settings, and more. It even included 'live' zombie shooting with paintball guns on a double decker trailer pulled by big trucks in a cornfield.  Now we can add 'shot zombies with paintballs' to the list of things we've done.

Then we headed back to Patrick's dad's house in La Plata, where we have been settling in, resting, and enjoying unpacking a little bit.

Enjoying the backyard. Below, a water snake welcomed Patrick back home in his favorite local park.

And look who made it! Well, most of Amy's plants did. The air plants got eaten by something at a campground in California, but the beloved succulents made it. Many of these were planted from Amy's bouquet and Patrick's boutonniere from our wedding.

The route through VA and MD

And an overview of the whole journey.  6500 miles. Or so.

We'd like to thank all of you who housed us and let us savor your beds and showers: Elizabeth and Jeremiah, Ingrid and Andrew, Peggy, Nanci, Shawn and Anna, Jaime and Raul, Fawn and Stephen, Drew and Megan, Amy and Tim, Jeff and Geeta, and Charles too. Love to you all and to the ones we left back in Wasington. We really miss you.

Oh, and 27 tanks of gas.

 Good thing we like to plant and grow things. That's a lot of carbon to offset.

From here we are planning our next adventures, looking for farms to stay on until we make a trip to MN at the end of the year. Then ....Asia? We'll see what conspires. Thanks for making the journey with us. This concludes our blog. But, stay in touch, y'all!