Blue-Green Day in the Mountains

Yesterday was a travel day, another carload of stuff driven back to the North Carolina house.  Today, at Wesley, people will go to the National Cathedral for graduation.  I have some friends who are graduating, but it is a ticketed event, so I shall cheer them on from a distance.

Yesterday was a lovely drive, a blue-green day in the mountains of Interstate 81:  blues and greens on the mountains in all directions, no bare patches, no browns.  I am happy to have seen these mountains change across seasons.  I am happy that my days of driving that particular stretch of mountains so regularly is coming to an end.  

Last week this time, I was about to set out from this house to my seminary apartment, about to wrap up the semester--but I still had a lot to do.  And now, here I am, having finished it:  my Luke paper on call stories and hospitality, my Church History final exam that had two parts, and so much grading for the online classes that I was teaching.

I drove the whole way yesterday wanting an orange scone from Panera's, and finally, there was a Panera at one of the exits.  I stopped, and it was such a disappointing scone.  The inside was fluffy, the outside soft.  I won't be doing that again.

I left early because the Lutheridge residential community group was meeting at a brewery nearby.  That hardly narrows it down; we live in a land of many breweries.  Last night was Blue Ghost Brewery, which was just a few miles away.  After some beer flights which let us sample all sorts of beers, I had a ginger beer, which helped settle my stomach which was achy from travel (or maybe from the horrible scone).  There was barbecue from a food truck.  

But best of all, there was getting to know our new neighbors.  I already knew some of them from Lutheridge retreats and other sorts of Lutheran connections.  They're a great group, and when we thought about moving here, a ready-made community was one of the benefits.

Now I have a week off, of sorts.  I have more online classes to teach this summer, but those don't start until next week.  I have the final move of stuff out of the seminary apartment and cleaning it, but that happens this coming week-end.  My spouse's youngest brother graduates from Southern Seminary in Columbia this Thursday, so we'll go to that.  Our last window gets installed today.

Still, it feels like a week off.  It's good not to have papers and projects hanging over my head, for one week at least.