A Sisters' Afternoon

Melissa came wandering into my room yesterday with another crazy typical idea.

"I'm gonna go to Harper's Ferry to look at the location of the train tracks so I can more accurately write this scene in my book"

"Okay. That sounds like a smart idea"

silence

..."You want me to come along too, don't you?"

"Yeah, that'd be nice"

When you've lived with someone for 18+ years, it doesn't take much to read their mind... especially Melissa. She and I are opposites in most ways, but having been raised by the same parents in the same house and, for 15 years, the same bedroom -- we're about close to married as siblings can be -- I mean our fights, the way we tackle household responsibilities and our ability to live with or ignore the issues of the other resemble couples who've been married as long as we've been alive.

That said... I took 12 hours to think through my options

a. spend a hour convincing her that pictures on Google should suffice and the 90 minute round-trip drive was really unnecessary

b. pray that God would send the snow ~6 hours early so that she'd be forced to cancel her trip

c. just give up now and say "yes, dear"

-----------------

I chose option c. It's not my usual option, but I reasoned that next week she returns to school and I should take advantage of the sister-time. I am so glad I did...

...not only is sister-time virtually free therapy (after all, she does know me better than just about anyone else and it's rare impossible for me to keep a secret from her), it's a music sing-along, random Q&A session, movie quoting war, explain-every-detail-about-CollegePlus-for-the-one-millionth-time time session, and much more...

We captured some potential authoress individual shots...

But mostly we spent the time touring without being the stereotypical tourists, which according to Melissa involves...

::climbing walls (there weren't any signs telling us not to)

The afternoon was filled with "Well. I need to try this <insert impossible/crazy/dangerous activity> because the kids in my story will want to try this and I need to know if it's possible"

::studying small spaces

::wandering around condemned houses

It was staring at this from the path that had me telling Melissa, "We shouldn't go up there. That's the kind of houses that mothers tell their daughters to stay away from"

...and yet, here we are anyways. >.<

::hiking muddy paths

We were a good mile into the completely vertical hike by the time we saw this sign

::stepping out on walls that were a little too far away from the ground for my liking

The ledge that Melissa is standing on was a drop off of 15+ feet on either side -- too much for me to stomach!

It was a lovely -- albeit cold -- afternoon! I'm grateful that I took the time away from seemingly urgent to-do list and spent it with Melissa exploring the history around us =) We definitely had a blast and the afternoon was filled with memories that will hopefully tide me over till she re-emerges from her textbooks in May!