Show and Tell Sunday XIII — Virginia trip

So ... it's been awhile. Excuse me while I inch back into blogging. Garrett and I were across the country for much of the last 10 days (we got back very late Thursday), so that's where I've been.

So, today you just get the obligatory "here's what I did on my vacation" post. Feel free to skip. I admit to skipping many photo-heavy vacation posts of yours. Sorry. :) ... (There are only nine photos, if that helps you get through it all.)


Because we hadn't been to Virginia for over two years, this was our first time meeting Tegwyn, who is lovingly known as Wynne (yes, pronounce the "e"). My in-laws got her about a year ago, and we loved her. I'm NOT a small dog person, but this is one I could do. She's not quite a lap dog and doesn't love to be picked up, but how can you not pick up a 15-pound dog?

We spent a night in D.C. and went to the zoo the next day to see the seven baby lions. I've been watching them on the Smithsonian website since they were born last fall. (Three to one mom, four to another. Same dad.) It hit 100 degrees that day, and the humidity was crazy. So, we almost died. But it was still a good day. No good lion photos, but you do get one from Ray's Hell Burger. In Arlington, the restaurant most recently in the news when President Obama took the Russian president there last year. We met Garrett's parents there, who treated us to burgers and fries. And I made Garrett get a pin from the cashier so I could stick it in the map. No one from Smithfield had visited yet.

After dinner, we drove to FedEx Field on the east side of D.C., where Manchester United and Barcelona were playing a "friendly" match. It was insane. More than 81,000 people packed in (another 9,000 could have fit), and we watched Man U win 2-1. Really cool experience. Here's Garrett with his mom, who had a big birthday while we were in Virginia, and then a view of the game a little big later in the night.

 

For the last few days we went with Garrett's parents and met his brother at a "river house." It was tucked somewhere in Virginia's "Northern Neck," and near the Nomini River, which feeds into the Potomac*. The house was awesome. We had no Internet or cell phone reception most of the time**, so we really did get to relax. We saw fireflies — my first time! — and all of the frogs came out at night, so we hunted around with flashlights looking for them. I also liked looking at the gardens, since there's a ton of stuff that will grow there — in the humidity — that you're never going to see in Utah. The house owners allowed dogs, so Wynne came, and she loved it.

Here's the view looking the other direction. A walkway led to a dock on the wide and slow river, which we actually got in on Tuesday night. The water was shallow, dirty, just a bit salty and about 85 degrees. There were fish jumping all over the place, which makes me a bit squeamish, but I lived through it. It was only the next morning that we found out Atlantic stingray swim that far upstream and actually have a mating cove just a few hundred yards away from where we got in. Even though I'm told they wouldn't have hurt me, I'm really glad I didn't know they were there beforehand.

On our drive back from the river house, Garrett and I stopped at a few historic sites. George Washington's birthplace is nearby, so we gave ourselves a little tour of the grounds. We also stopped in Fredericksburg, which is home to many Colonial, Revolutionary War and Civil War sites. (There was also a Masonic cemetery and pretty solid overall Masonic presence in the city, which fascinated me.) Mary Washington (George's mom) was buried there, and her "country women" erected a miniature obelisk for her there near a place she supposedly went to pray for her son during the war. (The last photo, however, was the monument near Washington's birth place. Two obelisks in one day meant we were really in Washington country.)

So, that's it. (Not really, but you really don't want every little detail, right?)

We had a blast, and it was good to see people, but we were happy and ready to come home to our own bed and our incredibly bored kitties. Eight days is just about a perfect trip length for a homebody like me.

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* Everyone there called that place "the middle of nowhere," but the roads were paved and there were actual neighbors within a two-minute walk. So, no, it wasn't the middle of nowhere by Utah standards. But we still felt somewhat isolated.

** We did get reception when we drove into Montross to go to the grocery store. That's where the cashier gave me incredibly weird looks when I purchased FIVE newspapers. But, hey, I wanted to see what other papers are doing.