mini golf and water towers

We left Boston around 8 on Friday night, the culmination of a day filled with route planning, meeting his sister, coffee with neasa, moving boxes, packing the car, a tour of Boston with MIT electrical engineers. Driving out of the city with my feet on the dash board and a 480 mile blast to Salisbury Maryland ahead, I could not have been more excited.

I think it is the movement between fixed points that does it for me. So exhilarating to start in one city and end up in another one... the time between punctuated by music, rambling conversation, consumption of gummy bears and animal crackers. Or just quiet, the contented silence between two people who have reached the point where not everything needs to be said. Restful.

The coast of North Carolina and the sand dunes...houses on stilts for no particular purpose. Finally, standing by the Atlantic for the first time in 4 years. We took out the motorcycle and sped around Nag's Head, ending up at a lighthouse in the middle of a marsh. The light was spectacular. Riding back, the setting sun filtered through the trees and into my helmet and it was as though I was in the middle of Vivaldi's mind when he was writing the autumn movement of the 4 seasons.

Charleston, SC: a sudden departure from America. We couldn't figure out where it felt like we were, but certainly NOT the States. The coffee house put our coffee into plain white paper cups... art galleries with quite blues playing... public gardens...cobbled streets. Shutters and little ally ways. Plans to go back.

In retrospect, the 4 days are a series of snapshots in my mind. click: carrying boxes in the elevator of his building in Boston. click: stopping on the bridge over the Delaware Bay at 3 am to look at the stars. click: running down dunes to escape being told off by the park ranger for the second time. click: sitting in the car watching the rain come down in the middle of nowhere, Georgia. click: smoking cigars and singing to nirvana on the radio.

perspective, which I have been sorely lacking, was restored this past weekend. And laughter... so much laughter.