Weekend Away. Disconnected.

I'm on my way home from a beautiful weekend in the mountains.

The porch

Cute lil babbling brook in front.

Linsey and I spent a few days at Watoga State Park in West Virginia with NO SERVICE. It didn't even occur to me that in 2025 there are places that don't have service or Wi-Fi so I was not prepared; even though it definitely was right on time. With my low information experiment and social media fast it was nice to not even have the option. I couldn't connect if I wanted to!

We read, journaled, explored, star watched, and WENT SNOW TUBING!

Top of the snow tubing hill

Much of the weekend was outside of my comfort zone - I left my house and there was no David! I couldn't Google things! - but it felt so good to expand. Boredom breeds creativity and while I was never bored I def had some great ideas.

Linsey has been doing watercolor and painted this. She almost looks like my Ruthie!

In addition to just being a gorgeous park in the mountains, Watoga is a dark sky park. I have never seen so many stars. I didn't know there were so many stars! It's no wonder there are so many myths and stories around them and their place in our lives. I used an app and found Gemini (and the twins, Castor and Pollock) and Mars was in Gemini.

Sunset at the mountain.

Next I found Taurus. It clicked with me that this is what it means when the planets move through constellations. It was so cool to actually see it in front of me. We were in the mountains and in the woods so we didn't have a clear view of the sky but that is absolutely on my list - dark sky park with a full view. I was completely overwhelmed by how amazing the sky looked. It's depressing to think that human advancement took this from us. It's still there of course, but we can't see it due to light pollution. Kinda like the Earth when we've destroyed it. Still there, we just can't see it. I want to spend more time with the stars and in places with less people and less light pollution.