Seven states, six days, and one interesting commune My little visit to Virginia's Twin Oaks On Thursday evening, with dark coming down hard and the rain coming down harder, I drove away from the Twin Oaks Community and found the CVS in the nearby town of Louisa. Inside, I purchased a 16-ounce Coca-Cola and a box of Pop Tarts. My first stop after leaving the commune in central Virginia, I think, says more about my weakness for sugar and caffeine than it does about any repressive dogma that Twin Oaks subscribes to. Indeed, soda and junk food are not prohibited, and neither is meat, smoking, alcohol, or watching videos (though broadcast television is not allowed). It seems to be one of the issues at TO that there is too wide a spectrum of people in the community. One member quoted someone on the membership team, saying that �unless someone is dangerous� they would be accepted as a member. The woman who told me this � her name is Thea � disagreed with such a policy, and it was not the only thing she disagreed with; nor was she the only person who had complaints about the community. The fact that most everyone I talked with freely discussed their beefs with TO was encouraging. This was no brainwashed cult of fealty to any one person or principle. Instead, I found a group of intelligent, friendly, open people who seemed to arrive at the commune via different paths, but who all reveled in their individuality. I left Boston at 4:30 a.m. on Monday, August 20. I had planned on leaving at five, but I had difficulty sleeping � I usually do when I am excited or nervous about something � and so I decided there was no reason to wait around. I wanted to arrive at TO by dinnertime, which is at six, and I wasn�t exactly sure how long it would take me. So I left the city in darkness, driving west on the Mass Pike. My route was not the most direct. I wanted to avoid the East Coast cities � New York, Philadelphia, Washington � partly because of the traffic I�d find there, but also because I had gone down I-95 before and wanted to travel a different way. From the Pike I took I-84 through New York State and all the way into Scranton, Pennsylvania. At the New York/Pennsylvania border the road rises into the Poconos and there was quite a bit of fog � nearly white out conditions. It was both eerie and beautiful. I passed through Scranton at 9:00 and felt I was making really good time. From there I picked up I-81, which would take me all the way into Virginia. What I hadn�t realized is that I would be in Pennsylvania for nearly three more hours. Interstate 81 zigzags and goes wide, rolling out in a southwest direction and it is more than 180 miles from Scranton to the state line. For some reason there are the remnants of blown out tires scattered all over that road � but only in Pennsylvania. At one point a truck that was right in front of me, but one lane to the right had a tire blow out. It sounded like a gunshot and I had to swerve to avoid pieces of rubber that flew back at me. One thing I saw little of in Pennsylvania, despite the time I spent in that state, was state troopers. I had seen several in New York, but none on the way down in the Keystone State, so as I rolled southward on the Road of Blown Out Tires I stayed at around 80 mph. Eight hours after I�d left I crossed into Maryland. A sign informed me that I was passing the Mason-Dixon Line. I wasn�t in Maryland very long, crossing into West Virginia, where I pulled into the tourist information rest area. I didn�t take long to realize that I was in the south. Two men were having a conversation about guns. One said, �When they take away our guns we�ll go from being citizens to being subjects.� I shook my head and laughed. And then I was in Virginia. I could see mountains off to my right and I noticed that it was noticeably warmer than when I�d left Boston. Not long into Virginia I switched briefly to I-66 and that took me to the town of Front Royal, where � after ten hours � I left highways behind me for smaller roads. Part of the reason for taking the route I did was that I wanted to see a little of Shenandoah National Park, and I did, taking the scenic Skyline Drive for 32 miles. The road winds along the Blue Ridge Mountains and provides areas to pull over for picturesque vistas of the mountains and valleys. I stopped a couple times and saw a deer by the side of the road once. When I exited Shenandoah, I took US 211 east and then Route 522 south. These are two lane blacktops that wind through small towns and countryside. I particularly enjoy driving them and seeing the places along the way. I stopped in one of those tiny villages, Sperryville, and bought a drink in the small store at the center of town. Then I took a photograph of the place. I moved on through central Virginia, moving on state roads that had numbers so alike I had to pay close attention -- 605, 646, 697 � and passing others that were similarly numbered. And finally I turned into the gravel driveway of the Twin Oaks Community, pulling to a stop behind the kitchen. |