Finally, got to visit the mythical place

Mitt was going to have the worst election day of its life. It might have sensed something was wrong when a team of porcine-rendition specialists arrived. This proved to be probably the most interesting fact I learned during my trip: If you stick a pig’s head in a bucket, it tries to back out. You can then steer the poor source of bacon to your chosen direction. Backwards.

It may be slightly difficult to utilise this newfound knowledge in my daily life, but it sure is a nice neurological hack, sure to impress certain kind of people – like my co-workers.

In preparation for this, my hosts went to borrow a trailer. I tagged along, and in order to not to raise suspicion, was given a temporary identity of Cletus the farmhand. Not that Cletus ever took the hands out of his pockets to do some actual work, though. The cover story addressed both my foreign accent (“Cletus don’t talk too much”) and my DSLR (“we gave him a camera but it ain’t got no film”). I don’t think the cover held, but the locals were friendly nonetheless.

The countryside and villages surrounding the place are cute. Each time I go to the US, I see a place which is completely different from every other place I’ve been to here previously. Here, you actually had houses (like my hosts’) that are actually older than the one where I live back home, green pastures, and peace and quiet that I haven’t seen elsewhere on my transatlantic trips. Coal Stove Sink itself looks ageless in its perfect weather-beaten greyness.

Only a warm summer day is missing.

The darkness and silence at night, and the smell of the pastures when walking around, brought me back in time to my grandparents’ place in the country. We  had a couple of walks, the retrievers leading the pack, and the basset usually caught up on us later. Probably all the smells needed checking out. You could see the highwater mark of the Shenandoah where leaves had clung to trees when Sandy had brought a lot of water. It had made landfall about 15 miles south from the point on New Jersey coast where we were heading later.

You need a Laboratory Retriever if you have an Apothecary Shed.

I got introduced to the bar that had been the subject of many discussions earlier, and got to taste a very interesting drink whose chief ingredient was a locally sourced beverage. Local production and organic (solvent), what else would an European environmentalist need after a day of puttering about? We also sampled The Wine Kitchen in Leesburg. Apparently they make a good use of bunnies, and they also know their Spätzle.

Unfortunately my schedule was a bit awkward as I had a gig in Estonia just a day before. I would have loved to see the band playing on Saturday night. Perhaps I will get another possibility of seeing them live.

Thanks again!

Cletus