It’s already starting to feel like fall. The first hints of gold are showing in the trees, and when there’s a gust of wind, leaves fall. It’s been pretty chilly overnight, so it’s still cold in the mornings, gets warm in the afternoon, then it’s cool again as soon as the sun sets. I started regularly wearing my lightweight hoodie in August. This was one of the main reasons I moved away from Texas. I wanted more fall. In Texas, it’s warm through October, then sort of starts looking and feeling like fall around Thanksgiving, aside from spurts of cool weather that last a day or two. Here, we had “Texas October” in August, and fall-like weather will last through Thanksgiving.

But we’re about to get another warmish spell, close to Texas October, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s hitting the weekend we’re having a church and choir retreat up in the mountains. There’s an Episcopalian retreat center that apparently started as a camp-type place, but then it ended up incorporating what was once a Victorian spa resort, the place people went from Washington, D.C., to “take the waters” and get away from the heat and humidity on the coast during the summer. Now the old Victorian hotels are part of this retreat center. It may be a bit warm for hiking, but it’ll be nice for sitting around a bonfire at night.

Since I finished this round of revisions on Rydding Village book 4, I’m making a day of the trip up there. Along the way I’m planning to visit the New Market battlefield and the Civil War museum there. I just watched the Ken Burns Civil War series from PBS, so now I’m trying to get around to some of the related sites in this area. The house three doors down was used as a military hospital during the war (the person who lives there now says there are blood stains still in the wood floors), and I can see a cemetery with a war section from my front windows, so since I’m surrounded by this history I figure I need to learn more. That was never an era in history I was that interested in.

There’s also a regionally famous potato chip factory near the museum, where you can watch them making the chips, get samples, and buy some, so I may do that while I’m nearby.

Then we’ll see if my voice has recovered enough to do three days of choir rehearsals. We won’t be rehearsing the whole time. There will be other activities and a lot of free time. I’m bringing books to read and some notebooks to write in, since there’s no Internet. It’ll be a good time for an online detox. Then I’ll be ready for a round of edits.