The Perambulator

It was pure chance that had brought me to DC. My intention had been to simply visit Monticello, the estate of my boyhood hero Thomas Jefferson, in Charlottesville, Virginia.

I arrived in the state on a back highway into the mountains above Staunton. In my few years of traveling, I had already tired of the freeways and typically took the least traveled route whenever possible. This particular route was lonely. The few cars that came by didn’t stop and I had plenty of time to appreciate the mountains, forests, and flocks of crows which my overactive imagination interpreted as the spirits of dead civil war soldiers. Maybe I read too much Poe…

Anyways, after most of a day and not many miles of ground covered I got a good ride. Skip wasn’t going far but when he heard I was going to Charlottesville he offered to put me up for the night and take me on the next day. He was going to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Tibetan Meditation Center. That was close enough to what I was seeking that I decided to hang with him and his family instead of facing the tourist trap of Monticello. I still have not been to Monticello.

Skip and Cindy were regulars at the meditation center and it was a good night to attend as after the meal the monks handed out invitations to a small reception with the Dalai Lama at the Tibetan Meditation Center in DC three days later.

Pre-meanwhile, back out on the road….