I went to Carlisle. Mr. Bit says hello!
The chunk of cartographic nonsense that I was in is farms. Well, mostly farms. The long rolling hills and stands of trees were occasionally riven by developments of large and lovely houses, each sitting prim and distant on large plots. But still: mostly farms. There are useful side effects to this.
Primarily, driving around was a treat. The windows can be down and the roof can be open, and the wind is sweet. Even when the wind is redolent of some of the less savory smells of cows, it's still sweet. For much of this noodling around, Allison Krauss provided the soundtrack (in absentia - it would have been difficult to fit Union Station all all of their paraphernalia into the back seat) which occasionally touched on the sublime.
- Have you people any coffee?
- Um. I think we have some Taster's Choice in a cupboard
someplace...
Well, this could not stand.
Out in the farms, there are no coffeeshops. This is somewhat to be expected; in the mornings, I went into Carlisle proper. They have coffee there. I found a very nice cup indeed at the Courthouse Commons, there in the heart of the historic district.
So fueled, I got to walk around a bit, on various days with my hosts and on others in my own company, and the place is worth a look. There is a lovely old feel to the buildings and the spaces, echoes of patterns of living long lost in many places. There is old stuff all over the place, maintained and used in the best of American ways.
Just around the corner from the coffee is a pretty good eatery that, in being true to its namesake, puts a gingerbread man in with every meal that shuttles out of the kitchen. I had before me a plate upon which sat a BLT with roughly half a pigs worth of bacon in it, a good helping of very nice fries, with a sweet and crisp gingerbread man tucked in between. Good stuff. We ate sitting in the shade on the sidewalk of a little street protected from the bustle of the main square, even though the bustle was just a toss of a hefty rock yonder. Good stuff.
As we walked around, we noticed that water was liberally dripping from the hanging planters swaying from the lamp posts. It was incredibly unclear how the water got into the planters, such that they would drip so much.
It's faking it.
What it doesn't want you to see, over there in that triangle of grass, is the little carpet of matted leaves, upon which sit four blue speckle grey eggs.
When we broke out the bocce set, we bowled with care.
Also of note is a little town of Boiling Springs, some ways off. They have a spring there, an artesian well, and it's tremendously impressive: an amazing amount of water flows from the ground there, trapped and fed from folds in the hills around. Another good place to take a stroll: the dogs are friendly, there are bits of history scattered about, and a lovely segment of the Appalachian Trail steps gently though the town, before falling away into a simple footpath, leading toward a distant hill to disappear into a grassy field. It must have been something, when that was all they had for getting around.
Being that it was all mostly farms, night gave over to two things: quiet and dark. The quiet pulled up like a blanket, letting in the sounds of the breeze in the leaves a quarter mile away make themselves known, punctuated by owls and the occasional distant train whistle. They may or may not have been wolves, out there in the far ink. When the cars came down the state road a little ways away, they presented themselves as a carnival of road noise and engine, fading away over the low hill none too soon.
The dark was an invitation to lie in the grass in the moon shadow of the house, to let my eyes grow wide with stars come out to play. I did not see the great fuzzy river, but I did not really expect to: there was mist up there, and the bleed of light from the towns over, too. I saw many points of light, and the distant blinking of planes, very high overhead. I watched travelers blink from horizon to horizon, to hear the whispers of the jets late, if at all, and I was glad to be grounded there.
One of the notable things about the developments with the lovely homes is that they often had decks elevated a full story above the long, sloping lawns that had once been pasture. It gave an odd feeling of siege to them, that to stand on them and look out upon that vast manicured emerald sea was to be apart from it, a little, looking out over domains that were there, while one was here. I suppose in part the effect of that architecture was meant to be a creation of a point of view that lent one to feel comfortable with the vista through a sense of control.
That's nature down there, though. That trick never works.
In a strategic spot under the deck, some robins made a nest for themselves. The eggs had hatched when I was there, and the fledglings were out and about, testing bits of themselves and trying to get it all to work together properly. Apparently, landing on things is tricky; we watched several attempts of a young robin to land on the side of the house, on perch unapparent. In almost slow motion, it would approach the sheer wall, invariably thump into it, and flutter into the grass below like a wounded helicopter. No harm done; a bit later it would get up and try it again.
There was nearly some carpentry.
On the last day, I went in to Carlisle a bit early for that cup of coffee, and I saw the solution to the riddle of the dripping plant pots. There was a guy on a golf cart that was tricked out with a massive plastic water tank and a hose and a pipe, and he slowly drove from basket to basket, reaching high with the pipe to water the plants.
A self-powered watering can. An aqueduct with turn signals. Awesome.
The lawn had a party while I was gone. It's good to be home.
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