let's go to Virginia! (and North Carolina!)

Every time I think of the phrase "let's go to Virginia", my favorite movie comes to mind, and I hear the way Gabrielle Anwar says that very line in Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken. Yes, that's my favorite movie, as cheesy and Disney as it truly is.

But, really, I'm going to Virginia TODAY (hopefully I'll go to sleep first and then go, but we'll see). I'm still up packing and cleaning, something Paul warned me NOT to do when I got home from working tonight. Oh, yeah, and writing a blog. That wasn't really in my schedule, but I'm a million miles a minute right now.

I always feel like this when I am about to go on a trip. I have to make sure everything is in its place at home, pack everything to "jennie specifications" and check off my to do lists.

But, really, I'M SO EXCITED. It's my first vacation in over two years. I've had a very slow month of serving, but my writing progress has accelerated, no, SOARED, to a new, wonderful height! I can't help but anticipate clicking away on my laptop when I get up in those gorgeous mountains and hear the old bullfrog croak outside my window in my family's 120 year old log cabin.

Where, you may ask, is this place of rest and solitude? Well, it's right near the VA/NC border, north of where I spent my childhood in Tyro, North Carolina, in the sleepy country community of Galax, Virginia. I'm going there to spend time with my family and do a little "country bumpkin hanging out" on the side with my friends at the annual Old Time Fiddlers' Convention, held right up the road from our cabin.

But, really, it doesn't stop there.

After four days in the mountains, I'm headed to the old North state, for a weekend at Yaupon Beach in North Carolina. I get to go there and spend time with some dear old friends that I miss greatly. One of the worst things about living in Nashville is losing time from all of these people. I miss them. I wish I could really understand who they are now, because most of the time, I know we know less of each other now than we ever have before. But they will always be my besties in NC, and for that, and this time together, I am truly grateful.

So, let's go to Virginia! I am so ready. I'm off to write for the book, I'm off to make history... just please let my old Goldie (my 1991 Ford Thunderbird I'm driving) get me there in one piece!