den sjätte och slutliga posten av min semester

I do not like saying the phrase "good bye." I either skate out without a word or say "see ya soon". There are other deviations, but "good bye" is so permanent sounding to me. Unfortunately all good things come to an end and Thunder and Anna were forced to part ways.

We took the bridge over the Tappahannock and headed North West. Thunder headed due North over the Bridge-tunnel we had crossed seven days previously. It was a gloomy day and our spirits were in the same state. There was no turning these lemons into margaritas, we were homeward bound. We needed a side trip to break up the funk of saying "see ya".

Most would pass this house and think how fortunate it was not theirs. This country is covered with houses just like this. Once someone sat on the porch proudly. Today it is left to slowly rot into the ground. By todays American standards this is a shack. Once it was someone's home. I cannot help but look at these houses and think of all the good times that must have been shared there. The births, deaths, birthdays, anniversaries.

The memories in this house also make me wonder. It was here that our first President was raised. George was actually the forth generation on this plantation. He went on to have his own plantation further up the Potomac. Having visited both, the view here is much better.

I wonder how many times he must have run through the door looking out on Pope Creek. He couldn't have run through that door. The real house burnt down. This one is close to what historians think it looked like. You understand my thoughts though.

To walk the same paths and be on the same property.

This was a very prosperous plantation in the day. It never reached the status of Mount Vernon, but it still did well. Maybe if Augustus Washington has opened a distillery he might had made it bigger. He just stuck to tobacco.

We had not planned on coming here. Honestly, we had no idea it was here. We saw a brown National Park sign and turned right. Very glad we did, the kids got another stamp in their National Parks Passport and the parents got to experience something they never knew existed. There is something to be said for making an unexpected right turn and seeing what is over the next hill. Thank you Wally Byam for teaching me the value of this. I will never look at a wrong turn as anything but an opportunity to see the unexpected.

We glided over the Potomac into Maryland. As we did the whole trip seemed to come to an end. Within minutes we were in thick traffic on 301. The worries about work flow and cash flow and everything else I had left home eight days previously came back like the rising tide. I wanted so badly to just take the next right turn and the one after that....