Gosport, Indiana
For five days this past May, I retreated to a small farm outside of Bloomington, Indiana with a cross-country road trip buddy, ready to offer our services for room and board. Tucked within rolling hills and sheltering woods, a small house and its surrounding land create a small ecosystem. The farmer lives almost entirely off his land, sourcing his morning eggs from his chickens and his salad greens from the greenhouse.
We chased chickens and hammered beehives. We planted strawberries and asparagus and grafted apple trees. We kicked a soccer ball around with the goats and ate chocolate fondue around the firepit. We bought two shopping carts worth of white sugar for the bees’ sugar water and cooked dinners with ingredients completely sourced from the farm. And in my off time, we ran the winding dirt roads of the Indiana land under bright blue skies, with Honeybear the farm dog keeping up at my side.
This place was special, a sort of secret, kept separate from the bustle and commotion of modern media and technology. It was raw and unfiltered; every sound, every touch, and every sight grounded me and brought me back to a nostalgia that comes from growing up in similar hills and woods of the Northeast. After our week was up, we said goodbye to this first stop of a month-long road trip to come, grateful to have created such peaceful memories within this small Indiana haven.