Dear Family, Friends, and Diary,
Our family visiting done, we headed south to see friends from my old working days. Our first stop was breakfast. Priorities, you know. We chose a little roadside cafe in Harper's Ferry that looked like it had been there since the days of the Civil War. Food was fine and this was a good start.
From this West Virginia stop, we still had three or four hours of driving and seven or eight hours to make it. We needed a tourist stop or two. Checking the maps, we decided on Shenandoah Caverns for time-killer #1. The northern Virginia area we were driving through had several cavern attractions, but Shenandoah seemed easiest to reach off Interstate 81.
Shenandoah Caverns was as tourist-kitschy as I had hoped. Above ground, there are large display of old department store window decorations from the early- to mid-20th Century, originally produced by Earl Hargrove and his company that specialized in such pre-Amazon shopping attractions. He apparently was quite successful at installing decorations for stores and for building floats for major parades, so successful that he bought the Shenandoah Caverns, in part to have display space for his work. Interesting, enough.
But the big attraction was below us. We descended a long flight of stairs, where our guide led us on an hour-long walk through really quite spectacular rock formations. I think Marianne and I took over 200 pictures, but, upon review, it was hard to differentiate one from another. Here are the keepers:
This stop had proven more interesting than we had thought it would be, but we still had some time to go. On our drive through the Virginia countryside, Marianne started to notice that flags were flying everywhere, mostly regular American stars and stripes, but occasionally others. We could not help but feel that, in our divided country, one side has almost successfully usurped the patriotic symbol. Of course, this is an area where country divisions are nothing new. I hope the current divide ends better.
We still had a bit of extra time to kill, so, for no good reason, I decided we should check out the Virginia Military Institute Museum. We have no particular connection to VMI, but learning something new is always a good part of travel.
The Institute was founded in 1839 and currently has over 1,500 cadets, 13% of whom are women. It is a place steeped in tradition and about half the graduating class goes on to military service. The most famous VMI graduates may have been the generations of George S. Pattons, from the 1880s up through "IV" in World War II. The museum proudly tells the story of this history. A good stop.
From VMI, we drove east out of the Blue Ridge Mountains, down to Lynchburg and our hosts for the stay, Bob and Sandra. They warmly welcomed us, starting with appetizers and then dinner out on the screened porch, overlooking their park-like back yard. We worked to catch up on 10 or 15 years of our recent lives. The food was good, but the catch-up was even better.
We chatted well past everyone's bedtime, discussing families, (their) work, nuclear power, politics, and fireflies. Great fun.
On Thursday morning, Sandra had to run off to work, while Bob could stay home with us to talk about various and sundry things. His work is mostly remote and allowed him more time with us to try to resolve world problems. I'm not sure we resolved everything, but we tried.
Our excursion into Lynchburg was art-focussed. Surprise. Surprise. We drove downtown to the Riverview Artspace to see what was showing and were impressed with what we saw.
There were aerial photos of cloud patterns that looked like abstract paintings and an oil painting that looked like an aerial photo over a city at night. Both excellent.
Marianne also chatted with an artist working on a large canvas, getting tips, as she often does.
With Marianne's art fix done, we headed out to visit friends Roger and Jo Ann. He and I had worked on projects while I was in Germany and we have stayed in touch, a bit, via email since then. They showed us their new retirement community, from their very pleasant cottage, to the communal dining room. They seem happy there and it all gave Marianne and me food for thought. As a bonus, we saw a display of residents' art, including Roger's pastel portraits of his kids from decades ago.
And that wraps up our Lynchburg visit. A little art. Lots of talking with friends.
On Friday, we head up to Washington DC and our ten-day stint at being real tourists.
Stay tuned.
John and Marianne