In the Fine Tradition...

...of Miss Valerie, I am expanding a comment into a whole new blog post. Mrs. Badgermum asked how my trip was; I can tell you in one word...but I won't. It wouldn't make a very long post, would it?

The first portion of my trip was spent in Virginia, with R & C, and it was very enjoyable. While I was there, I met a young man who goes to NSA. He was visiting one of his friends for the summer. I was able to talk to him and ask him some questions about the school, and everything sounded peachy. I was there for two-ish weeks, at the end of which time I got on a bus and stayed there for four days. Cross-country bus trips are....eventful. I spent as much time sitting in the station(s) on layover(s) as I did on a moving bus. It was quite a relief to reach Denver, where I had some obscure relative named Vera, who picked me up from the station and took me away. She took me out to eat (twice) and to a bookstore and she let me take a shower and a nap and everything. I was exhausted.
When I left Denver, I only had a short trip up to Montana. I was very glad to leave the bus station for good. I met such interesting people, though. For instance: Marijuana Man Who Got Arrested at Two O'clock in the Morning Somewhere Between Knoxville and Nashville, Truck Driver Who Wants to Buy Me Food, Charismatic Christian Who Converses By Yelling from the Front of the Bus, Mr. Moocher (he has no money), Girl Who Can't Say Three Words Without Cursing, Nice Old Ladies, Miss Moocher (she has no money and hasn't eaten in three days), Hick Going to the City for a Job, and so many more. Quite an Adventure, you know.
I spent a week in Montana, cooking and cleaning and watching small children. They are very entertaining. I left Montana on the train, which is better than the bus. Don't worry, though! It has Interesting People, too. I met Lisping Hippie on the train. He was reading Love Comes Softly and he kept delicately brushing back his bangs from his forehead. He had some interesting social theories. He was...what's the word? Oh, yes. Creepy. And weird.

Anyway, I'm hungry, so I'll finish my Saga of Travellingness later. (oh, the suspense!)

“Let us blow trumpets”

Ritualism will always attract much of healthy humanity, merely because ritualism is emphatically wearing your heart upon your sleeve; that excellent practice. It says in essence, “Wear your heart upon your sleeve; wear it blazoned in crimson and embroidered in gold. Break out into songs and colours as lovers do. Let others pretend to an inhuman delicacy and a quite sophisticated silence. Let us cry out as children do when they have really found something. Let us blow trumpets and light candles before the thing that we have, to show at least that we have it. And let them keep a decorous silence and a moderate behaviour, let them raise a wall of stone and draw a veil of mystery across something that they have not got at all.”
- G. K. Chesterton, The Illustrated London News, 28 July 1906.

I'm back!

Howdy.