A Tale of Two Travelers

Once upon a time, Chesapeake Bay Woman and Daughter left Mathews County at 7:30 one Thursday morning and arrived at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg exactly six hours after they departed--even though the trip should only take five hours at most and should never have included a trip to another state called West Virginia.

But Chesapeake Bay Woman,  who is getting old who hasn't been to Tech since the 1980s, was stressed about lots of things up to and including the fact that her tire pressure light had been on since the 1980s last week.  So instead of focusing on the super simple directions that she'd studied the night before, she put herself on autopilot, left the directions in her pocketbook, decided against GPS since it was so super-easy, and drove towards Clifton Forge, which she visited often in her college days.

The only problem is, Clifton Forge is nowhere near Virginia Tech.

So, when CBW, intently studying the tire pressure light that seemed to be getting brighter and brighter, eventually looked up and saw the Welcome to West Virginia! sign, which was nowhere on the handwritten directions inside her pocketbook that she still hadn't pulled out, she started to sweat bullets and began a full-on panic attack, to which Daughter merely replied, "I have the iPhone.  Turn here, take this road, yes, we're two hours away, but this will be an adventure."

Serenity now.

After many different iterations of self-beratement (IDIOT!  You're  an idiot, CBW!  You have an uncommonly good sense of direction ordinarily, you have a GPS and an iPhone and you looked at the map last night.  How in the world did this happen? A blindfolded toddler could get from Mathews to Blacksburg!  You know how to get to Tech.  This trip was not supposed to include a visit to West Virginia, idiot!) and many, many stressful miles through one cow pasture after another, they finally re-entered the proper state--Virginia--and arrived at the proper destination--Blacksburg.  They sprinted towards the visitor center just as the doors were closing on their meeting.

After the meeting, which provided an overview of the school and their admissions process, they took a tour led by Meaghan.

Meaghan in front of Burrus Hall

While Daughter clutches her Tech paraphernalia and listens to Meaghan, Chesapeake Bay Woman
identifies with the young lady on the right, who is wondering when anything will ever be easy in life and, more importantly, when's lunch, since we haven't eaten all day?  Also, I'm dying of thirst.
And I need a nap. Is any of this asking too much?

Meaghan is very enthusiastic about Tech.
She graduates this year and will be going to grad school in Florida.
She's sad to be leaving Blacksburg.

Daughter does not appear to be at all frazzled by her mother's detour to West Virginia even though she hasn't eaten a crumb of food all day, and it's well after 2:30  here in this picture. 

Here, towards the middle of the walking tour--on what was a particularly warm day--
Daughter starts to feel the effects of malnutrition and dehydration
the lack of food and water. And the unscheduled trip to West Virginia.

After the tour of Virginia Tech, the two piled back into the car and drove another thousand couple of hours to Charlottesville without an unnecessary detour through another state.

In Charlottesville, they met first-year-student Son for dinner Thursday night, met with admissions officers Friday morning, and then went with Son to the downtown mall for lunch.

These are the remnants of our appetizer of roasted shishite peppers.
I'd never heard of them before, but I will be having them again.  Delicious!

After lunch, Daughter and Chesapeake Bay Woman bid farewell to Son and plopped back into the car for the journey home that included snail-pace traffic and a torrential downpour outside of Richmond.  In spite of everything, including the tire pressure light that is still on, the party arrived home in Mathews safe and sound and without another word about the never-ending cow pastures of West Virginia that were never, ever supposed to be a part of the trip.

The End.

Road Trip

These were taken Saturday 

on my little excursion to Gwynn's Island.

It was a gorgeous day.

The weather hasn't been so gorgeous this week, thanks to some cloudy, overcast skies that spit out a little rain here and there. Daughter, who has been on Spring Break all week, and I are heading west to visit Virginia Tech and Charlottesville.  Although it will be a lot of driving, I'm looking forward to our little escape.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Weekend

Here are a few final shots of this week's snowfall taken from my back yard.  The temperatures remain frigid, so it's lingering longer than usual.


The weekend is finally here. Barring anything unforeseen, I hope to see my blog friend Meg and her family on Saturday when I make a quick trip north.


I hope your weekend is relaxing and warm.

Road Trip

These were taken on my way out of town Sunday.

It was a beautiful day for a drive up Route 17.

The trip is for work.

That means a free hotel stay and good eating for the next several days.

There are trade offs, however.

Traffic and road construction. 

As far as the eye can see.

Since I left my laptop's power cord behind, and the battery is just about dead, postings will be sporadic until I return home later in the week.

Hope your week is full of good things like Thai and Vietnamese food 

and devoid of traffic and other headaches.

Three Things

Welcome once again to the day known as Thursday and the post known as a three ring circus Three Thing Thursday, where I share three completely random things, and you do the same, hopefully.

Let's go.

1. The photo above is of the 1970s-era Mathews County Disney World known as the Islander motel, restaurant and marina on Gwynns Island. This magnificent patch of land holds so many memories for so many people. Surely there's a screenplay book just waiting to be written about it all. By the way, I'd like to volunteer to be the person who writes that book screenplay, the day after I successfully clone myself into three or twelve people who would take over my current obligations and responsibilities, which by the way are too many.

2. There's a photo in this week's Gazette Journal (I think it's page 3, upper right corner) of two participants in last weekend's Womanless Beauty Pageant to benefit Relay for Life. I don't care how many times I see those photos, I die laughing. Hysterically.

3. Today I'm driving up to Dewey Beach, Delaware, to meet up with former college roommates Iris and Lenja. Lenja (pronounced LEN-ya), originally from Finland, now lives in the U.K. She flew here just for this mini-reunion (of 3) at Iris's beach house. At a previous Northern Virginia reunion in the 1990s, Lenja backed her parents' station wagon down a hill over a concrete retaining wall such that her rear tire was spinning, suspended in midair, until the nice tow truck man made everything OK. Another time, she fell into the canal in Georgetown, and Iris had to pull her out.

Dear Dewey Beach,
I apologize in advance.
With love,
Lenja CBW

Now it's your turn to share three--or more--things, whatever you want. Anything at all.