Antietam National Battlefield

Last Saturday, R and I drove up to Antietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg, Maryland, a little over an hour away. While Gettysburg is probably much better known, Antietam was the bloodiest one-day battle of the American Civil War. On September 17, 1862, nearly 100,000 soldiers waged a 12-hour battle near that small town. Nearly a quarter, 23,000 men, became casualties, meaning that they either died, were wounded, or were captured or missing.

Near the Union advance, Bloody Trail Lane.

The memorial to Maryland soldiers. (Dunker Church in the background.)

The memorial to New York soldiers.

Cannons.

Near the North Woods.

Burnside Bridge.

Monument to William McKinley (later to become the 25th U.S. President), who served as a Commissary Officer during the battle, handing out warm food and coffee to the soldiers.

There weren't very many visitors on the day that we were there, which is somewhat surprising, given the summer tourist season. It was a fascinating tour, but sobering in that I kept thinking of what a waste it all was. Not that the Union was preserved or that slavery was abolished, of course, but that the loss of life was horrendous. And that wars are still prevalent today - different causes, different justifications, but war and heartache all the same. Can't we get beyond all that already?

Fourth of July

For many years, we spent Independence Day in the best town in the world. On the 4th in Lander, two major considerations really make the town stand out. First, the city council waives the open container law for the day, which means that you can buy a bloody Mary from the Lander Bar and drink it while watching the parade at 10 o'clock in the morning, or you can leisurely sip a beer that was handed to you by the rowdy crowd celebrating their 10-year high school reunion on the back of a flatbed semi-trailer at that same parade.

But really, the most amazing thing on the 4th of July is that fireworks are legal in town, all day long. This is a picture of this year's celebration, but it's indicative of every other Independence Day celebration I've attended:

There are sporadic fireworks all day, but the big ones really start in earnest when the sun goes down and continue for two hours or more. (Photo credit: some random person on the Interwebs.)

That beautiful, crazy town.

This year for the holiday, R and I headed to New Jersey where his family has a little house on a lake. It's a pretty humble house, but the lake itself and the surrounding woodland are an amazing oasis in an otherwise hectic world - so peaceful and serene:

The view from the deck of the house.

R's family were all at the lake, including lots of cousins, so he was able to see quite a few people that he hadn't seen in decades. We heard shouts from children at neighboring docks, and the harmonized chorus of the cousins singing from the screened-in porch of the house next door. We sipped wine on the deck and breathed in the scent of the water and the trees. R and I went out in the canoe for a leisurely look at the surrounding forest, a peek at the dam at the far end of the lake, and a glimpse of the fish in the shadowy shallows. At dusk we saw flashes of fireflies in the dark places under the trees, and steady starlight in the dark places over our heads. The weather was cool and perfect.

The entire experience was absolutely nothing like the holiday in Lander.

But, you know, both equally express the sentiment of the day. Americans can be loud and boisterous in celebrating freedom. We can be quietly contemplative and grateful, too. Occasionally, we have moments of both in the space of minutes.

*******

It's a five hour drive to the lake, so we headed back to DC fairly early on Sunday. We checked Yelp for things to do along the way and decided to make a stop at Hershey Chocolate World. Decadent, I know. Mr. Hershey was a pretty impressive guy (endowing a school for orphans to the tune of 30% of Hershey's profits in perpetuity - the school now has billions in the endowment).

R, in line for the production tour. (Here's a topic for you: We don't know the other people in this photo. Ever wonder how many other people's photos you're in? Discuss.)

Only four more weeks in the U.S. before we head out on our first adventure with the Foreign Service! It's really getting real, yo.

A long walk

Our house in Lander sold, R took a last long drive out to Portland, OR and then Bozeman, MT to deliver some things to L and H, and then flew to DC. After two+ months, we're in the same zip code once again. Hurray! Being alone, every weekend I tended to tuck in and watch Netflix, drinking tea and eating shameful quantities of cookies. Not really healthy - for my waistline or my psyche - so it's doubly wonderful to have R back.

Yesterday we decided to go for a long walk to "earn" our lunch. We ended up doing just over 11 miles.

The Mount Vernon trail is very near our apartment building, so we followed it for two miles. We probably won't do that again anytime soon. The trail itself is very nice and the views of the Potomac are great, but the sheer volume of aggressive bicyclists on the path makes you feel that you're risking your life by walking there.

We meandered over the George Mason Memorial Bridge and skirted the Jefferson Memorial:

Stopping a moment to marvel at the architecture, I remembered Jefferson's words inscribed inside:

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him as a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

In light of the recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, I felt very proud to be able to incline my head in silent acknowledgement to Jefferson and his words. I feel privileged to be in Washington at this time in history. Times change. Society must adapt.

R and I walked on, past the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, to the Mall. On a whim we decided to keep walking to the Capital so that we could have lunch at Tortilla Coast. A word to describe this restaurant: Yum.

After an incongruous combination of salad and beer, we were on our way to the Metro to head to the zoo. But first, we passed the Library of Congress and the Supreme Court.

Library of Congress.

Supreme Court

Supreme Court

Supreme Court

And then the zoo!

Panda, snacking on bamboo. Pandas are adorable no matter what they're doing.

Parrot giving me the stink eye.

Peacock pretending to ignore me, but actually thinking, "That's right. I'm gorgeous."

We did our version of "speed zoo" (after all, it was nearly 5:00 in the afternoon and the zoo closes at 6:00) and then wandered back to the Metro for the trip home. Did we "earn" our lunch? I do believe we did.

48 hours later

And now it's 48 hours after my second final exam in Spanish, in which I finally achieved the elusive benchmark of 3/3. A bit of an understatement to say that I'm relieved.

It's been a very challenging eight months. You know that Greek myth about Sisyphus perpetually rolling that damned rock uphill? That's what it felt like. Same thing, over and over, with no end in sight, and no way of telling if I was improving. An aggravating and humbling experience.

The upside? I can speak and read Spanish! (At least a little bit, any way!) Which makes all the effort worthwhile, of course.

A throwback photo from my trip to Ireland in 2012 with R, but the sentiment is certainly appropriate:

Belleza natural

A few weeks ago a friend and I hiked a short way through Great Falls Park:

Taking the advice of the park's website, we got to there around 9:00 a.m. - ahead of the crowds. In all, we hiked about five miles in the fresh air just 20 minutes from the city. It's so easy to isolate yourself in your day-to-day activities (read: Spanish studies), that you forget there's a whole other world out there. This little expedition allowed me to remind myself that the world includes much more than verb conjugations.

Home

And home sings me of sweet things ~ Karla Bonoff

It's said that the place is not important, that what really defines home is your family around you. Of course it's true. I especially like the idea that throughout our lives we are all relying on each other - we're all walking each other home, as Ram Dass says. But sometimes places can set a soul to vibrating, too. There are places in this world that I have felt that I belong, that I have felt at peace, that I have felt at home - a handful of places, to be sure, but the place is important, all the same. They include:

Libby, Montana. My parents, brother, sister and I lived in Libby twice during my childhood around the time I was eight and nine. I have memories of my mom going over homework with my foster-brother at the kitchen table, of hiding in the stairwell to watch The Wizard of Oz on television when I was supposed to be in bed, of Easter baskets hidden in the oven, of the Dairy Queen, Asa Wood Elementary School, and Libby Logger Days. My dad worked on a dam there, and my mom probably worked in a supermarket, but I'm a little fuzzy on the details. I was a kid and carefree.

Monterey, California. R and I met and married and started our lives together in Monterey and lived there twice. H attended kindergarten through second grade, L attended preschool. We explored the aquarium and the beach. I remember lying on the lawn and looking at the stars as a family. We visited the Carmel Mission and San Juan Bautista. The nucleus of of We4 really came to be during our time in Monterey.

Vancouver, Washington. After we came back from Bulgaria, I don't think we ever planned to leave Washington. We'd bought a house and the girls were happy in school. We planted lilacs in the yard and I went back to college. We made our own scouting troop with just H and L and me. We visited museums. My brother joined us for Christmas. H and L and R went skiing on Mt. Hood. Really, those were halcyon days.

There were lots of other places in between, both during my youth and during my married years - Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Missouri, Colorado, Texas, Germany, Maryland, Bulgaria. All of them had happy times and sad times. Times when we were disappointed or proud, sad or euphoric. Times that represented "home."

Because I grew up mostly in Wyoming, and because H and L spent a lot of their childhoods there, more than any other place Wyoming will always be home to me. The smell of the sage, the beauty of the mountains, the simplicity of the antelope on the plains. For the last 13 years we've spent all holidays there - the quiet moments of Christmas and the Thanksgivings with family and the Independence Days with parades and fireworks. We've been camping in the summer and braved South Pass in the winter. We've spent summer days under the gazebo on the back deck. We've marveled at our good fortune to have such a life - one that allows us to have our health, our jobs, each other, our happiness.

R is in Wyoming now, packing it all up, deciding what to sell, what to store, what to bring with us on our travels. There's a lot of nostalgia and not a little bit of second-guessing. We're selling the house, and that makes it so definite, so irretrievable, so bittersweet. Will we find another place in the world where we feel this sense of belonging, this sense of home? If we're lucky, we will.

One last memory of our house in Lander, though - our backyard in the summer:

Listen to Bonnie Raitt's song, Home.

And home sings me of sweet things

My life there has its own wings

Fly over the mountains

Though I'm standing still

A trip home

I traveled back to Wyoming and Utah in early May to attend H's graduation from the University of Utah. 

I left DC very early on a Saturday morning and, by a whisker, made my connection to Denver in Charlotte (by a stroke of extreme fortune the arrival gate of my flight from National and the departure gate for my flight to Denver were literally right next to each other - and good thing, too, as all other passengers for Denver had already boarded by the time I got off the DC plane). I spent a leisurely hour in Denver and then boarded the puddle-jumper to Riverton, where R met me at the airport. We met my Dad for lunch and then headed to Lander.

I love Lander. It's the perfect home town: quiet, laid-back, beautiful, with friendly people. Each morning during my visit R and I got up and walked four or five miles so that I could breathe in that Brigadoon-like place. I don't know when I'll get back there again, and it was great to wander around all of my favorite places one more time. On one of the walks we met a woman with a camera, just leaning against the side of her truck waiting for the blue herons who had nested in nearby trees to take flight. R and I stood for a moment watching the birds from afar before continuing our walk. I tucked that little memory away, though, and bring it out from time to time to remember what a special place Lander is.

At different times over the next five days I met friends for brunch, lunch, dinner, and drinks. I started to refer to the visit as my Great Lander Eating Tour. It was so great to be home, even for a little while.

On Wednesday, R and I signed the paperwork to sell our house - a bittersweet moment. I love the house, the street it's on, the backyard, and the memories we made there. But of course we can't keep it. And the sale of the house, probably more than anything, marks the end of an era for me.

We traveled through snow over South Pass to get to Salt Lake on Thursday. H arrived around the same time, her boyfriend flew in a little later, and we picked up L at the airport later still. My sister and H's boyfriend's parents joined us for the graduation ceremony the next day.

The family after the graduation ceremony.

H and her boyfriend.

Cliched, yes, but I can't believe that H is old enough to have a doctorate and be out there living her own life. She and L have accomplished so much already - and R and I are proud of them. But beyond academic success, they're just really nice people. I like to talk to them and hear their opinions and thoughts. I like being around them and feel privileged to be able to be part of their lives.

I took the red-eye back to DC on Saturday night and returned to Spanish studies. The respite was wonderful while it lasted.