2025 Summer Road Trip - Time Marches On......

We’ve hit the road on our first big adventure with Coddiwomple (our trusty pickup), Cat (our cozy RV), and Rita, our ever-faithful travel companion. We rolled out of Belton on May 15, and we’re excited to share the journey—one stop at a time.

This blog will mostly fall into the Mile Marks – Feeding Our Wanderlust category, as entries will be organized by the places we stay in our home on wheels. However, I’ll also be sharing stories about the amazing people we meet, the beautiful places we explore, and, of course, the delicious food we find, cook, and enjoy. I hope you come along for the ride.

Note: This post is more personal and falls into the Place Marks - Gathering Around the Table category as it focuses on the time we spent with Josh and Ariel at her family farm in Pennsylvania.

Some stops on our journey are about the moments that ground us in love, memory, and family. This one was different. We met up with our son Josh and his fiancee' Ariel at her grandmother’s farm in Rockton, Pennsylvania—a place rich with roots and stories, laughter and loss.

The past few months have brought Ariel’s family its share of heartache. She recently lost an uncle and an aunt—one from each side of her family—both of whom played significant roles in raising her alongside her beloved grandmother.

Not long after, her grandmother suffered a stroke, leaving the family shaken once again.

And yet, here in this quiet corner of Pennsylvania, healing is taking shape.

Ariel and Josh just returned from a trip to the Teton Mountains, the very place where they first met. And while there, they got engaged!

Now they’re in the joyful whirlwind of planning a wedding. The timing of our visit felt like a gentle joining of past, present, and future with grief and joy sitting side by side. And we are getting another daughter!

We visited Gram today, and to our delight, her resilient spirit had returned. She was up and about, chatting with us, drinking her coffee with the same right hand doctors once feared might never work again after the stroke.

She even played a round of bingo.

Later in the day, we walked up the hillside just above the family farm to visit the small cemetery where Ariel’s Aunt Cindy was recently laid to rest.

It’s a humble place with a peaceful view of the pond below. Though the cemetery is rarely used now, several of the aging headstones were marked with flags in honor of Memorial Day weekend. The gentle flutter of red, white, and blue waved in tribute.

We paused there for a long time, remembering Aunt Cindy.

She prepared incredible Sunday dinners, tended to Gram, kept the farmhouse and yard in beautiful shape, and spent many hours on the front porch, surrounded by blooms and looking out over her horses. She didn’t just fill Gram’s shoes; she carried on Gram’s heartwork, quietly and faithfully.

Wandering among the old markers, we traced fading names and dates with our eyes, imagining details about the lives remembered in stone.

Down at the pond, Ariel picked up her fishing pole and cast a line into the calm water. The ripples spread gently across the surface as she waited, and it seemed like a kind of prayer.

There was something sacred in the day's moments: sipping coffee with Gram, laughing over a spirited game of 42, lingering outside in the countryside, simply being together.

These were the rituals of family—the way we show up for one another, the way we hold each other up without needing grand gestures.

On Sunday, several members of Ariel’s family gathered at the farmhouse. We enjoyed meeting everyone, sharing stories, and sitting down together for a classic Memorial Day meal—grilled ribs, corn on the cob, potato salad, and beans.

Between bites and laughter, the conversation turned to wedding plans. We talked about setting a date for this new chapter—right here on the land that holds so much family history. There was talk of dresses, flowers, food, and of course, the perfect spot on the property for the ceremony.

It felt like a full-circle moment: honoring the past while making space for the future. Love, after all, is what roots us—and what keeps us growing.

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