"Squirrels are nothing but second guesses." (Zac)

In C.S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew, Digory and Polly find themselves in a world between worlds, a wooded no-place. A few months ago, Zac and I found ourselves in just such a place. We found our way out again and when we set out to go on a high tea with Randy and Erica today we decided to find it again.


Being a non-location, it is difficult to say where it actually was. What I can say is that its on a kind of clearing that connects to the W&OD Trail and we got to it from the Tuscarora Creek Park in Leesburg, VA. It might be where the sewer line runs actually. Much like the puddles in The Magician's Nephew, this world has a series of manholes that rise out of the ground.


On the menu: English Breakfast Tea and homemade herb and cheddar biscuits and blackberry jam thumb print cookies.


Randy and Erica are pictured here. I think we might have tricked Randy into coming. But I'd say he had a good time.


A bad picture of me, but I have to prove I was there.


Zac was there too.


We had a lovely time chatting and enjoyed the nice weather. We even saw three deer out in the nowhere.

Of Note

I'm breaking form a bit today because I think this is a relevant announcement. For a while I've been keeping tabs on a new project, The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL), which is an online effort to catalog with scientific review every living thing. Quite an ambitious effort. I encourage everyone to check out the website, but keep in mind it is in the very early stages. Why I am writing about this today is they have just launched their Flickr site where anyone can post their own species pictures. This is the first step in opening the EOL up to public contributions.

On A Hilltop

This is a college edition High Tea Adventure starring my sister Kelli and her friends Jenna and Amanda. They departed The Masters College in Santa Clarita, CA on foot the last day of finals and hiked up a hill that has a cross at the top of it.

Such a struggle. (pictured: Kelli and the picnic basket I gave her)

Cheers! (From the left: Kelli, Jenna, Amanda)


On the menu was black tea, raspberry danish, and dark chocolates. Positively scrumptious!

The campus below. It looks like they had quite the view of the valley on this adventure. Good job girls! The High Tea Adventure Club is now officially a transcontinental club.

Spring Has Arrived In Wisconsin

And has brought with it new members (Zac's family, and mine too now). Their adventure took them near the Horicon Marsh. On the menu was tea, grapes, cookies, and the ever popular peanut butter and jelly tea sandwiches. Here are a few pictures from their outing:

Tracy and Forsell

Lydia, Calvin, and Abby

The lovely setting

Abby discovered that the lovely setting was also a bit muddy

Altogether a refined occasion.

Tea on the Potomac

Today's adventure in Red Rock Wilderness Park inducted two new members into the club. So let's welcome Lorraine and Linda (my mom), both from California. Yay! It looked as though it would rain on our party, but true to form, it stopped just long enough for us to have a lovely time. On the menu today was vanilla scones, tea sandwiches, and cookies. Each adventurer brought their tea of choice. We dressed more casually this time, it was really muddy. Things are starting to grow again in the woods, but for now it still looks rather more like a barren wasteland. Just the same, we had fun. Here are some pictures.


Linda setting up.

Zac pouring the tea.


Lorraine sipping away.


Pip Pip Cheerio!

Olde Izaak Walton Park

Today's adventure was by a creek in Olde Izaak Walton Park. The park is a fun discovery we made a few months ago. I wouldn't have expected to find a nice park with woods and a creek and a pond with ducks, geese, and all right between a grocery store and a highway on-ramp. But there it is. We ate vanilla scones I bought at work and little blueberry and vanilla pudding tarts I made in my scone pan. Zac decided to really go all out today and opted for a side part. Kirke seems to revert back to nature whenever we take her into nature. She really was a little pill today. That's about all to report. We still haven't been sighted by anyone while we were having tea.

Blazing the Trails

We went on our first High Tea outing today. As is always the case when we go out for a walk, rain was expected. It didn't rain on our tea party, but there certainly was mud on the ground. After getting a late start we walked briskly to a spot down by the Potomac River in Red Rock Wilderness Park. On the menu was PB&J sandwiches, box mix blueberry muffins, and Twining's Earl Grey Tea.

This is us drinking tea. As you can see, Zac is wearing a sports coat and tie. I'm wearing a green taffeta dress, but you can't see that here.

This is me in my green taffeta dress.

Kirke had fare of her own. She didn't end up eating it. I think she was a little distracted by all the new smells.

Looking at the pictures afterward, we realized that we appeared to have had visitors. We also saw a tree that looked like a person. The dryads must have approved of our activities.


It was a nice time and not too cold. We decided we liked it very much, having tea out in the woods dressed like we were somewhere quite distinguished. And we were.