(If the graphic is too small  to read, click here. Honey-  moon details below.)

Details ...           We spent a week total in the Blue Ridge Mountains, just this side (the Virginia Side) of North Carolina. And what an adventure! It truly was the best honeymoon we could have spent: no plumbing, no electrcity, no noise, no people.           And as for those books ... well, we won’t give away all our secrets, but some of them included field guides for edible plants (elaboration below). We sent the following open letter, with additional comments adapted from other letters, to friends who helped break down the reception site.           When my father said, “You may kiss the bride,” Dawn and David gave each other a smacker nigh too passionate for the average congregation — then David jumped up and clicked his heels.  It was typical of the delightful impromptu antics we danced through that day, including an almost-kiss early on, followed by “Woops, we can’t do that yet!”           David’s dad [the pastor] handed the liturgy over to his son — completely unexpected, he was choked up — during the part about “he will leave his father and his mother to cleave to his wife.” David ended up reading “what God has joined, let no man break asunder” and pointed to the crowd as if to say, “Darned right!”           After our vows we lit a unity candle while Henning played the violin ... his piece was supposed to last long enough to cover a surprise for our respective mothers:  handing each a rose.  They melted into heaps while the music ended, and David winked to Henning, saying, “How ’bout another round?” so we could repeat the treat to David’s grandmother and Dawn’s aunt.           There was laughter, and everyone felt at ease.  Several of our friends told us it was the neatest, least solemn ceremony they’d seen. Cool! Couple-Berry Honeymoon (What’s a Couple-Berry?)           David was the first to greet Phil, resident cabin mouse; incidentally, he was also the first to scream like a girl!  Later, while Dawn was unpacking and tidying the kitchen, David screamed again.  This time at a feather that drifted down off a bookshelf.  “Dawn, STOP laughing!  [sheepish face]  I thought it was a really long mouse.”  This from a guy who once had a pet rat?           Field guides in hand, we made the mistake of hiking through tall grass and thorny bushes, in shorts.  We made this mistake repeatedly, but it didn’t dampen our fun.  We felt safest picking raspberries, which we easily recognized.  I mean, they looked like raspberries!  We tentatively tried them in a batch of pancakes, progressed to berries in milk with sugar, and finally, tea.           On our next hike, Dawn was confident enough to say, “David try this!” at every amorphous leaf or mushroom.  David practiced his slight of hand — “Ummm, this one’s a little bitter, Dawn” — as countless wads of vegetation fell from his fingers.  He was daring enough to try clover, which both field guides said was edible.  David and Dawn studied the plant for a good long time.  David plucked a flower.  Dawn said the magic words ... “Eat it!”  David brushed off an inchworm, and gulped.           That night we ate teriyaki chicken and clover.  We were impressed enough to consider planting it in our garden at home.  Now we were Walden fools.  We picked more raspberries and also blackberries, subjecting them to the same culinary experiments.  Then sassafras.  Dawn loved this part.  The edible part of sassafras, at least for tea, is the root.  So it was quite amusing to watch David, who wanted to uproot these small trees, fight their natural tendency to stay rooted.  Beads of sweat leapt like minnows, and the grunts were like those that accompany hernias.  That evening saw us scraping sassafras roots and straining berries on the back porch.           We found a cherry tree ... and had to fight with it for the fifteen cherries that we actually got.  Picture Cleopatra ordering a slave “Higher, higher!  There are more at the top!”  “But your Majesty, this tree looks like it’s been struck by lightning.  There’s a gaping hole down the middle of it ...”  “Higher, higher!!”           A two-hour search for the swimming hole after miles of babbling brook brought us to exactly: four barbed-wire fences, one black snake, and a crabapple tree.  The tree was aptly named; we came upon it just after bickering about “the better way” to get back to the cabin.  This time it was Dawn ten feet off the ground, shaking branches, pummeling David with countless apples, and laughing hysterically.  Believe it or not, those tart rocks made a rootin’-tootin’-country-fair-Blue-Ribbon-winning apple pie, even in the cast iron wood stove, circa 1908.           These were our days, with short stories, ad-libbed ballroom dancing, nights spent star-gazing (with telescope!), and Dawn’s nightly ritual: beating the mattress thoroughly with a stick to ensure that neither Phil nor his relatives were visiting.           We won’t share with you any stories about the outhouse.           Serendipity ... ’til Friday when David said to Dawn suddenly but calmly, “Very quietly walk into the other room.”  She didn’t scream like a girl, but she sure did hightail it up the nearest (and tallest) chair.  Why? Two beady eyes, a forked tongue and a slithering body making its way through the kitchen door.  ... And David grabbed a stick, and he drove the serpent out, crying “Cursed art thou, Villain,” but it was to little avail.  Dawn had decided without hesitation to forgo the remaining night’s sleep and pack up early.           An hour later, all that remained was to board up the windows.  Dawn’s turn to scream like a girl. It came when she spotted the four foot long snake that had trapped itself between the glass of the window and the plastic sheeting stapled there to keep out rain.  This was going to make closing that window rather difficult.  More loud ruckus with a stick and David saying “Boo!  Boo!” while Dawn packed the car ... it all led to little success.  The key was Lysol Kitchen and Bath Spray.  Three or four squirts and that snake took off in the opposite direction.           In the final moments of locking up, there was a sound in the kitchen. The snake winding its way up the ladder to the attic made us glad of our decision to leave.  We wished Phil luck and wound our way down the mountain, recounting our adventures.           All told, it was a terrific trip, hazards and all.  The creatures won’t keep us away.  And in the meantime, we will be remembering our adventures through our tea. HOME