There and back again..........

We had a wonderful trip across the EASTERN half of the U.S. this time bringing the Lovely Daughter to college in Virginia.

They don't look half bad for 7:30 in the morning after having traveled for two hours already.

These trees were everywhere in Indiana.

The color of the nuts was so beautiful.  Are these chestnuts?

I love their motto!

  I have to say that the rolling fences of Kentucky and the green, grand, misty mountains of West Virginia have wholly taken my Midwestern, green tree lovin' heart!  It was a trip with all kinds of weather........steady, driving rain with low hanging clouds........and then lovely sunshine when we hit Virginia.  We even had a tremendous lightning storm in Illinois that made our windshield wipers look like they were under strobe lights.  I just loved looking at and hearing nature for three days. I don't seem to get out in it as much during the school year.

One of the many red brick towns in West Virginia.

Zinneas at the rest stop in Virginia.  So happy and bright!

 The GREEN rolling everywhere was such a hopeful sign that Lovely Daughter was going to a wonderful school.  And right we were.  She just sent an email brimming with excitment.  Oh, to be in that place again when a person meets all the possibilities of life:  academic wonder, new and more mature friendships, deeper dreams, more responsible attentiveness to the Holy Spirit's promptings of vocation and choices.   St. John Paul II would so lovingly call them:  "My dear young people!"  Right he was in every way.  The Church has such hope in the faces I saw at Lovely Daughter's new college.  My heart cries Deo Gratias!  And the green hills of West Virginia cry out AMEN!

And the nest is emptier, and Tony and I feel a little blue after the marathon of send offs last week.  But with these three still at home, life will be crazy, fun, and veerrrrry interesting!