Cityretreat

Driving home from Jackfest with 426 miles left to travel before hitting Chicago...so a few updates from the trip. It is completely remote up there, lost cell service about an hour from Jackfest so unfortunately no live blogging. I'll start backwards with the rundown in a few posts.

Jackfest is the annual celebration in the mountains of VA that we've been lucky enough to be invited to for the last three years. Connection to N&P is just two degrees of separation - great friends of Carrie's PIL. It is a big camping weekend filled with gourmet food, hiking, backyard games and campfires -- with HQs being N&Ps property (see picture of day).

Thursday - picked Carrie up in Cinci so we could make majority of the trek together. Long drive down, pulled up to the house about 11ET (12-hour drive) but they were ready for us. We poured out of the car and headed straight for the cooler and campfire. It took Stella about 10 minutes to realize she was leashless on 10 acres of land. As soon as she did, the wild loops around the house and pond started. She'd return every 10 minutes covered in dew and panting like crazy.

Tent managed to be put up with no input or labor from me, probably as wonderful to me as C. The guys did a great job getting her up and the upgrade from a two-man to an eight-man tent can't really be appreciated fully unless you're sleeping inside yourself but it was basically like moving from a studio apartment to SFH. Spacious!

We fell asleep with frogs croaking outside our tent and woke to the same Friday morning...