We're Baaaaack

We returned Sunday night. We hit a horrendous storm as soon as we crossed the Ohio border: thunder, lightning, hail and torrential rain. We pulled off the road three times and eventually arrived home to a garden of windblown tulips and runaway hostas and ferns, all of which require—but will not get—immediate attention.

Our trip was anchored by two wonderful events. The first was Emmanuel’s First Communion. Four family members flew in from Italy to be with him: his grandmother, Patrizia, his aunt Laura, who was his godmother when he was baptized in Pisa, Laura’s son, Tommi, and Gody’s sister, Yvonne, whom we had never met before. The day was too short, even though we got to enjoy their company at a celebration lunch and when we returned to Al and Gody’s house. The second occasion was a joint 30th birthday party for Lucy and her fellow choir member, Franklin, given by another delightful member of the choir. It featured a whisky tasting—my first Laphfroaig. I’ll get some photos up soon.

We had a week between events, and we spent it exploring a bit of Virginia. We did our usual cemetery crawling. Who would have thought that F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda would be buried in a small graveyard down the street from Andrew’s house in Rockville, MD, within earshot of a busy road? Who knew that Patsy Cline was a product of Winchester, VA, a town where George Washington once had an office, and that her grave is just outside the town?

I was most impressed by the Shenandoah National Park. We arrived late in the day and started along the Skyline Drive in heavy fog and cloud. We spent the night in a lodge and by next morning the skies were clear and we could enjoy the fantastic views across the Shenandoah Valley. Today the trails are clearly marked and we could only imagine the logistical nightmare facing Stonewall Jackson as he moved 25,000 men from Antietam to Fredericksburg, crossing the Shenadoah and climbing up and over the Blue Ridge Mountains. The signage was good, even redundant, here, but the sign that seduced us into hiking down Dark Hollow to see the waterfall failed to add the sentence we later found in the National Park Service literature, “Some people find it difficult to climb back up to the parking lot.”

We spent a lot of time getting lost in Richmond, but did make it to the Museum of the Confederacy and the house in which Jefferson Davis lived as President of the Confederacy. Just as I was getting up to speed on the Civil War, we switched centuries and went to Williamsburg. The visit there culminated in an exploration of the nearby College of William and Mary, and then it was back to DC and eventually home.

Trivia question: who is the Senior Senator from Virginia? Who was his second wife?