The Travel Begins!

Wednesday afternoon, June 28th, the Melas Blanton adventures officially began as we piled our backpacks, on loan from the Youngs, into the Wettig's van with Nichole at the wheel, making our very departure a community effort.  Goodbye Madison Street!

On the train between Staunton and Philadelphia

Our train was running late, which we were privy to via Julie, Amtrak's congenial automated telephone teller, but even Julie couldn't have predicted the true lateness of this train.  Halfway through our ride the train backed out of the Manassas train station and parked.  Interesting.  An attendant walked down the aisle announcing, "There has been a car strike ahead.  We have to wait until further notice to move forward."  Imagining picket lines I wondered what on earth that meant.  I giggled to myself and pondered, "Car strike?  Hmm, well I guess I'm into the general idea of that, but what's the logic of delaying a train?"  Then, slowly, over the next several hours of waiting, the magical internet waves floating around us brought news to our fellow passengers' various shining screens.

Vine and Fig Tree community house
in Philadelphia

Someone had died.  On the road at a train crossing?  On a train bridge?  A woman?  Two people had died.  Train conductors?  Teenagers?  In a train station?  Rumors were flying.  All we knew for sure was that we were parked as long as they needed to do an investigation on the tracks ahead of us.  Early on I had put the boys to sleep so I spent the quiet waiting time thinking about mortality and why some of us are so lucky to still be alive.  We're so vulnerable, how are any of us still here?  How many times has God spared me from death that I'm aware of and how many more that I don't know about?!

Finally the train began to move again and delivered us to Philadelphia around a bleary-eyed 2am: 6 hours later than our tickets claimed.  We walked up the stairs from the platform to find cheery Jenna Bryant offering to carry our bags!!!  How lovely it is at any hour to pile into her roomy car, hear her current news, and visit Vine and Fig Tree, the community house where she lives.

In the daylight we got a tour and heard a brief history of Vine and Fig Tree, a large house with families, singles, and couples "experiment[ing] in intentional Christian community, urban farming, and shared family living" (taken from their website).  Jenna had organized a brunch, complete with delicious quiche and homemade green smoothie, which we shared with Will O'Brien and Dee Dee Risher, the couple that had visioned the community house.

On the train between Philadelphia and Lancaster

All too soon our Philly layover was dwindling and we were headed back to the train station, bound for Lancaster.  Our train arrived in Lancaster 10 little minutes later than expected, a refreshing kind of late compared to the previous night.  This time we found another joyful face: Alice Wheeler, who enthusiastically (haha, Enneagram joke) took us to her favorite Aldi to stock up on no-cooking-necessary food for a weekend of camping at Horse Progress Days.

Alice in her Lancaster home

We visited with Alice in her cheerful town home while the boys napped, then she graciously drove us 8-or-so miles out of town to the big event.  We thought more folks would arrive Thursday afternoon to camp out for the Friday-Saturday event, but in place of other campers we were surrounded by vendors setting up their booths.  Eventually we were pointed to a camping field with only a handful of RVs and no other tents.  We set up camp, ate a simple meal, and fell asleep to the sound of buzzing and humming RV generators all around.