Detour = Success... Cruising the Skyline Drive

Location: Washington, D.C., USA

I stayed up way too late working on the reports we are putting out for the Port of Long Beach and I’m quite exhausted, to say the least. Today was jam packed pull of fun and it all started at 6 AM. I practically crawled to the car after an hour of sleep and prayed Dan wouldn’t ask me to drive. After a quick drive by the UVA campus in daylight (to see the Lawn and the Rotunda at Ed’s recommendation – a great one by the way, we headed West towards the Blue Ridge Mountains.

We initially missed the turn onto Skyline Drive, but after stopping to chat with a chatty old Vietnam vet, we got on the right track and began the 105 miles along the ridge of the mountains. The skyline drive is basically a road that winds along the ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains from south western Virginia through north western Virginia. We got the recommendation from Hazel (the lady at the Virginia, NC border) yesterday and realized we HAD to take the detour. There were deer littering the sides of the road the entire drive, which I’m sure made Dan a little nervous, but other than that, it was a great drive. It was a beautiful day, with decent visibility and although we didn’t time it perfectly to see the fall colors, we still got quite a few great landscape panoramas.

About two thirds of the way through the drive we stopped to take a short 2 mile hike up to the top of the Little Stony Man Cliffs. The large boulders jutted out over the valley of trees below and we vegged out on the rocks for about 30 minutes just taking in the solitude and the early morning breeze. The weather was still on our side today, as it has been for the entire trip thus far. It was sunny and 65 the whole drive; perfect windows down sweatshirt weather. After doing our fair share of screaming random phrases out to the echoing cliffs in the distance and me scaring Dan by standing too close to the edge (I was going to test out the phrase “I lean against the wind, pretend that I am weightless”, but I decided against it as the odds of me falling over a 100 ft. cliff seemed too high).

From here we drove to West Virginia to stop at Charlestown and the Dairy Queen hosted there. After scarfing a dip cone, we turned back east and started the quick drive to Washington D.C. Once we arrived, we were greeted by a very enthusiastic cousin (Miss Jennifer) and her amazingly adorable colonial cottage in Fairfax. Her husband Tommy cooked us up an AMAZING meal complete with steaks on the grill, sweet potatoes and grilled mushrooms & onions. I ate for about an hour straight (I was not about to leave food on that plate) and we washed everything down with some brew before settling in front of the fire in the living room. I’ve got a decent amount of work to do tonight, but I have a killer headache, so I may have to just surrender to my sickness and go to bed. Work is giving me a stress cold right now, so hopefully, a little break this week will be just the medicine I need!

XOXO

----------------
Now playing: Incubus - I Wish You Were Here
via FoxyTunes

Everything I learned in HS US History is right in front of me...

Location: Charlottesville, Virginia, USA

Last night was a great fun. After a quick cat nap, some surprisingly tasty Papa John’s pizza and a little football, Chris, Dan, Cassie and I geared up for a great evening of fun. Chris and Cassie had a formal to go to so after dropping them off, Dan and I walked through the NC State campus to grab a drink and wait for them. The campus was beautiful, as most college campuses are, but there were a few very unique things about this campus. The most notable was the Free Expression Tunnel (read my Sosauce.com review here). This tunnel is a pedestrian tunnel where university students are encouraged to express themselves. It mostly looks like a wall of junk, but the fact that a university has embraced an idea like this is really quite remarkable. Apparently also during rivalry week when NC State plays UNC, Tar Heel fans often come and express themselves all over the walls of the tunnel.

After wandering around campus for a bit, we found ourselves at a small bar where we had a quick drink and waited for Chris and Cassie to arrive. They came and picked us up and we all headed to downtown Raleigh to check out a great little piano bar called Rum Runners (read my Sosauce.com review here). The place was relatively small, but had a great vibe. Honestly, I’m not sure you can screw up a piano bar, but needless to say, they did not screw anything up. We spent some time singing and swaying and headed home to catch some good Z’s before a long day’s drive to Washington, D.C.

Only we didn’t exactly make it to D.C.

But I’ll back up. So we began our drive a little later than we had wanted to. But we definitely needed the sleep. We headed out of Raleigh just before noon with a quick stop to grab some gas and grub. North Carolina is beautiful, but we didn’t really stop to look around. Once we hit the state line in Richmond, we naturally had to stop and take our picture at the sign which happened to be on the property of the Welcome center. We decided to go in and grab some free propaganda (something I am now a BIG fan of!) and started talking to Hazel, the nice woman working the info desk. Within minutes she had convinced us to reroute our journey completely, taking a westbound highway after Richmond and driving across the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains along a path called the Skyline Drive. We weren’t a hard sell, and after calling my cousin Jennifer (who we are staying with in D.C.) we picked up and headed in our new direction.

Richmond was beautiful. I don’t remember it being this gorgeous. Once we crossed the James River, we got out of the car and took a quick hike to the Boulevard Bridge to see the river and the changing leaves a little more up close. After this we headed North through some really great old colonial neighborhoods, an area called the Fan which, aside from the iPod toting joggers, could fit right inside a period piece. We also stopped at a little lake called Boat Lake which has the most perfect still water reflections of the trees on the horizon. From here we headed northwest towards Charlottesville.

We arrived in Charlottesville just after dark and made a quick stop at Barnes and Noble to pick up a little book called “The Game” (if you haven’t heard of it, look it up – it’s by a guy called Neil Strauss and it’s pretty genius – I’ll let you know how it goes as we read through it) and checked into the Super 8 motel. Tonight we are relaxing. We grabbed some Panera and are watching Monday Night Football. Hopefully I can get some work done tonight and get enough sleep so that we can be nice and fresh for our long drive across the ridge tomorrow!

XOXO

----------------
Now playing: U2 - With Or Without You
via FoxyTunes