Vivaldi's Four Seasons
On Thursday I flew to Maryland with my friend Katherine. Last semester she served as my intern, and during that time we got "booked" to do a women's retreat in Pennsylvania. We went a day early so we could spend time with my dear friend Erin and her family before major reconstructive surgery following breast cancer. (Excuse the cell-phone quality on the photos.)
Erin pulled out all the stops for us. Hot apple cider, homemade applesauce, a drive through fall colors in the Maryland countryside, steaming Maryland crab soup in bread bowls. You get the picture. During our drive we listened to Vivaldi's Fall Suite as we oohed and ahhed over the majesty of it all.
Three women from the church in Pennsylvania came down to pick us up from Erin's and whisked us north. On the way they drove us through Gettysburg. Picture green fields surrounded by trees dressed orange, yellow, and red. Here's a shot of one of the hundreds of monuments.
While in Pennsylvania, we had a great time speaking and talking and eating with a great group of women. And then the snow started. Big, fluffy flakes fell and fell and fell. The place looked like a snow globe. On Saturday night we finished early so everyone could scurry home, but three women took Katherine and me for coffee at Panera till they closed early, and then over to Olive Garden for dinner. Everyone kept pushing free food at us! Southern hospitality has some serious competition up north. (It took the sting out of the Texas Rangers snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.)
Fortunately, Katherine had seen a weather report, so we came fully prepared and embraced the world of white. It's a strange sight seeing colorful trees with snow at their bases. Pumpkins wore ermine hats. And people even dressed one snow man as a Halloween witch, complete with broom and black cape. The ride back to the airport gave us a beautiful day with melting snow on rolling hills dotted with farm houses.
Back in Maryland, Erin and her girls played in snow. She wrote that it seemed strange to do Vivaldi's Fall one day and Vivaldi's Winter the next.
When we stepped off the plane in Dallas, we walked into 70-degree temps. We got fall, winter, and summer in the span of four days. That's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it, uh-huh, uh-huh!