PEACH STATE

Philip and I headed up to Georgia this weekend with two objectives in mind: 1. Spend time with Joe Ware and family, and 2. Enjoy the live music of Sufjan Stevens.

Every time I travel, I remember what a restless spirit I have. Leaving Florida behind felt like shedding a swimsuit coverup, leaving it in a crumpled ring on the floor, in order to dive into the pool. Once in Georgia, I drank in the palm-tree-less landscape and eagerly followed the curves of the hillsides with my eyes. I thought of the mountains that lay just north of where we drove and imagined living there, with acres of land sprawling around a home made of wood - no concrete block or stucco - where we could hike and wade in a creek and sit on a deck wrapped in a blanket sipping on hot cocoa and look out over an autumn-ravaged forest.

I thought of the different beauties of each part of the U.S. - the endless green plane of Illinois cornfields stark against the blue horizon; the dry yellowed hills of Northern California set off by the vibrant trees; the reds and oranges and browns and stately cacti of Arizona. And of course, Florida is beautiful in its own way, too, with its tropical brush and lakes and kudzu draping over trees and power lines, looking like ancient leafy dinosaurs. I just get so restless to see other landscapes, other seasons.

In Georgia this time of year, you can feel the imminence of autumn, although it's still warm. A few yellow leaves blow across the roads, and you know the drop of temperature is just around the bend. The residents are ready; Joe's dad Lynn suggested half-jokingly that we start a fire in the fireplace as we watched Hurricane Rita coverage from the comfort of their brown sectional couch.

The Wares' house is built for fall and winter, with its red brick exterior and warm interior colors. When we arrived on Friday night, Rosemary had made us a home-cooked meal of spaghetti casserole and California veggies and salad with poppyseed dressing; Joe had made us peanutbutter pie.

The Wares are football nuts... at least the men anyway. We all went to a Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the Ohio St. game on Saturday and sampled sauces. Then Rosemary and I shopped while the guys finished cheering on the Buckeyes. Back at their home, we sat around the mission-style dining room table like a family and looked at wedding pictures.

Philip and I were with them almost 24 hours when it was time to head up to Athens for the Sufjan show. Sufjan is a musician and a scholar and a goofball, which is a great combination of qualities. With his band dressed like a Fightin' Illini cheerleading squad, he delivered his songs about my home state, which somehow manage to be sad and whimsical and celebratory and haunting and beautiful all at once. Between songs, the band did cheers and shook pom-poms and wiggled spirit-fingers. I smiled a lot, but a couple of the songs left me forgetting to breathe at the end. Half-Handed Cloud, a.k.a. John Ringhofer (friend of David Achata and acquaintance of Philip from his Berkeley trip), opened for him, with his own fair share of quirkiness; Sufjan even came out to play drums for a couple of his Old-Testament-themed tunes. The crowd was comprised, of course, of ridiculous bearded and Mary-Janed hipsters, but at least some of them weren't afraid to dance.

In the morning, we set off to return home. And after being in the car for more than five hours, I felt comforted when I saw a sign for Highway 50.


The squad.


Sujan with the Man of Steel (that's John playing the trumpet).


I-L-L-I-N-O-I-S!


A sleepy Philip after the show.

FOILED

Susan, this is for you *imagine me standing on a stage, spotlight shining down, microphone in hand, feedback from the guitars humming in the amps, and my finger, pointing at you*.

So when we got back from our honeymoon, this is what we discovered: our kitchen, looking like 50 rolls of aluminum foil had puked all over our kitchen.



Our looks of surprise and wonder when we first encountered the prank weren't captured on film, so here's me trying to recreate that look. Not too believable, I know, but we really were shocked to see our kitchen in such a state. Notice how even the phone cord is wrapped.



Our fridge, which could still effectively be opened. Beside it, the microwave.



In this image, you can see how our knife set is neatly wrapped, along with our utensil canister to the left of the knives. Also wrapped is our dish drainer and (broken) rice cooker. Also take note of the cupboards, which could still functionally open.



Our junk mail.



Another view of our space-age kitchen.



Our oven mitt and toaster oven, still usable.



*No caption necessary.*



FAQ:

Q: Who did this to you guys?

A: We had strong suspicions that a certain pair of sisters from our church group played a significant role in the ordeal, and we suspected several others as well, including The Sister, Lydia, who had a key so she could pick up some stuff we were giving her (these objects were still sitting in our apartment when we got back, by the way). Lydia broke down when we called her, not entirely, but giggles and strange, exaggerated "who me?" behavior gave her away. Two other suspects who I talked with, however, effectively played dumb and fooled me into believing they were not involved.

The truth came out the following Saturday at church. Shae was giving announcements in our class, and she shared that she had painted her nails a nice color of silver in honor of our marriage. "When I looked at the bottom of the bottle of nail polish," she said innocently, "I saw that the color is actually foil." Her face turned mischievous as she held up her painted nails, and other hands began to pop up around the room - the suspected sisters, Karen and Susan, Priscilla, and then up came the pinky nails of Mark Murphy. *cue "Newman" voice - Murphy.* Six perpetrators in all.

Q: How did you guys feel about it?

A: When we've told this story to certain people, there's been some concern that Philip and I might have been upset or angry to come home to such a spectacle, but in reality, we were tickled. We thought it was so funny, and it was nice to know that people were thinking about us while we were away. Plus, harmless pranks are a sign of intimacy (right, Dianna?).

Our friends also left us one sweet little foil touch, which softened the incident even further. How could we be mad after seeing this?

THE JEWEL OF THE CARIBBEAN

I'm realizing I should have written about our honeymoon right after we got back, when the excitement was fresh and the memories were consuming my mind for a good week after we had returned to Orlando. We've been back in the "daily grind" for a month now, and sometimes it's even hard to believe that we spent a week on that island at all. I can't seem to put myself back in that beautiful green place, when I'm sitting here at my computer by myself writing emails and doing interviews. Even the pictures sometimes don't seem real.

We spent our honeymoon on the island of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. A little more info about the island from Wikipedia: "St. John is the smallest of the three main United States Virgin Islands (USVI), a United States territory. St. John is located in the Caribbean Sea about 4 miles east of Saint Thomas and 4 miles south and west of Tortola, part of the British Virgin Islands. It is roughly 20 square miles in area and has a population of 4,157. There is no airport on St. John, so access to St. John is by boat."

Philip and I had agreed that we wanted a destination that offered both beaches and mountains/hiking trails. St. John was really ideal for us. Two-thirds of the island is national parkland, so it's really unspoiled and natural. I can't even tell you how quaint, tropical, and beautiful the island is. There are no stoplights, no chain stores, no Friday's or Chili's. There's just narrow, winding, steep, two-lane roads and pure local goodness when it comes to stores and restaurants. Everyone knows everyone, and the mood is incredibly laid-back.

After a really long day of travel and waiting in the San Juan airport, we finally found ourselves on the ferry over to St. John. When we arrived at the dock, our hostess was waiting for us. Sandy West, along with her man Bear, are the owners of the T'ree Palms guest house, and they are the sweetest, toughest people we've ever met. Cropped gray hair, a tanned, muscular body, tattoos, and the warmest smile and hug greeted us in the St. John darkness. Sandy had picked up our rental Jeep, and we followed her up the crazy roads to our home for the week. The higher we climbed into the hills on the dirt roads, the more intimidated I became. It was beginning to look like this honeymoon was going to be a lot more hardcore than I had anticipated.

But when we arrived at our villa, it was clear that we were going to stay in pure paradise. We had our own pool and hottub, a deck overlooking Fish Bay, a hammock, and a cozy two-bedroom apartment all to ourselves. Standing on the deck looking out over a billion stars, I was speechless. Philip and I were beat, but Sandy had bought us some sandwich fixings and encouraged us to eat and take a dip in the hottub. "You don't have to get up early tomorrow," she reminded us. So we took her advice.

The rest of the week was truly and adventure. We tooled around the island in our rugged Jeep Wrangler (Philip always drove - four-wheel drive was frequently in use) and explored the beaches and trails and local nightlife. Sandy owns a snorkel boat called the Sadie Sea, and part of our rental deal included a day-trip. Her son Ben was our captain, and we spent five hours with him and only three other people touring the north side of the island and snorkeling in three different spots. Ben was full of tall tales of pirates and rich celebrities. We also snuck onto the Reef Bay hike - a three-mile trail that begins in the center of the island and ends at the beach. The national park guided hike was full, but Sandy encouraged us to show up anyway, and sure enough, we were able to sneak on the taxi. We learned about plant and animal life on the island and the history of its inhabitants. We even saw ruins of a sugar mill plantation and the sugar mill itself.

We spent time on three different beaches and did some more snorkeling closer to the shore. We staked out a private spot on the beach at Cinnamon Bay and later learned the rocks that shielded us from the rest of the beach-goers are called "Lovers' Leap." We hiked a hidden trail down to the beach at Reef Bay and saw only three other people on the beach. There, we hiked around a bed of rocks to discover what beach lay around the curve. It was a little spooky, since we didn't know what we would find and we were so secluded from any other human life. When we got to the bay on the other side, I insisted that we snorkel. After a few minutes in the shallow water, I spotted a rather long, narrow fish. I was excited to see such a big one, and I began to follow it. Before I knew what was happening, Philip was grabbing me and dragging me into the shore. I popped my head up out of the water - "What?! What is it?" He then informed me that it was a baracuda, and an even bigger one was following right behind the one I saw. He didn't want us taking our chances of getting hurt when we were so far from help. So thus ended our Reef Bay snorkel outing.

Checking out the local restaurants was a trip. On Bear's recommendation, we visited the Lime Inn on all-you-can-eat-shrimp night and Morgan's Mango on half-price margarita night. Our host at Lime Inn, whom we later learned was the owner, only had one arm, and the other was a hook. Seriously. I had ordered the snapper, and it came out as the whole fish - head, tail, and all. Our host saw that I was struggling to figure out how to get the meat off the bones, so he came over and with his one arm, cut my fish for me.

One night, we decided to go out dancing and brought only a credit card with for beverages. On our way to "downtown" Cruz Bay, we passed a dive bar that was featuring a live band. The Backyard, as it was called, had been dead every other night that we had passed it, but on this night, we decided to stop in, since it seemed to be where the party was. When we got up to the bar, we discovered that it was cash-only - bad news, since it was a good 20-minute drive back up to our villa to get our money. But then the bartender said, "But everything's free tonight. The owner just got married, and he's throwing a party. It's completely open-bar." I couldn't believe it. Everything in the bar was totally free. So Philip and I took advantage of the deal and danced to the band with the rest of the island. So much fun.

On our last day, we had a massage therapist come out to our villa. She set up her table on our deck, and there is nothing like getting a massage in the breeze to the sound of birds chirping! Then we took a driving tour of the east side of the island, where we got to see the Annaberg sugar mill ruins, Coral Bay, and the very secluded beach at Lameshur Bay, only accessible by Jeep trail. There we took a nap and spotted a deer. By the time we left, no one else was around, so we were able to change into our dinner clothes right there in the open. As our final horrah, we ate at Chateau Bordeaux, situated on the tallest point of the island. With a view overlooking Coral Bay and many of the British Virgin Islands, we enjoyed a delicious meal of baked ravioli and swordfish.

It was really hard to leave. We felt so at-home there, cooking meals in our little kitchen, sitting in the hottub every night under the stars, chit-chatting with Sandy and Bear, walking around the quaint roads of Cruz Bay, and boucning along in our Jeep. I was in tears as we drove away from the villa. God was just so good to us. We felt His blessing every day, as every experience was positive and exciting. And it was just such a welcome release of all the wedding stress and chaos. We left our computers behind and turned off our cell phones. There were no appointments or errands or craft projects. It was just me, my husband, and an amazing island to explore. What a gift.

*Sigh.* Okay. Time to do some editing. *Sigh again.*