Dick & Diana visit from Upstate Pennsylvania!
Our good friends and my old college fraternity bro drove down the weekend before Halloween which happened to be the weekend of the Penn State - Ohio State game, back when we PSU fans had high hopes for the Nittany Lions, back before we got crushed by Ohio State and gave up against Michigan State.
Anyway, we thought it would be a good idea to carve a Nittany Lion pumpkin, which we did. If you squint your eyes you can sort of see the Lion-head logo.
After the football game we headed out to the garage and were joined by my brother Bob. I think we may have played some darts and drowned our sorrows (about the football game) in a little bit of our other brother, Jack Daniels.
The next day we took the Colonial Parkway to Yorktown and visited the Victory Monument and walked around town for a bit.
It was great to see Dick & Di and as usual, we had a great time!
At our local bar in Encinitas we call the Bombay Blue Sapphire martinis "code blues". In a hospital, I think a code blue refers to an emergency life-threatening situation. Somehow, the name seems appropriate for a martini.
One day as we were walking across the William and Mary campus in noticed that the emergency call stations that they have scattered about have a button to push for help and a label that says code blue. I was wondering if that meant if I pressed the button when I really, really wanted a martini, if someone would bring me a code blue? I didn't try it.
One bright sunny breezy day we decided to go to Virginia Beach to check it out and have a picnic lunch. Virginia Beach is a little over 50 miles and a one hour drive from Williamsburg. Check out the new Poseidon statue!
Any trip to VA Beach must include the obligatory stop at the local landmark bar, the Raven.
We found a nice beach where there were a lot of surfers hanging out. Some of them could surf pretty well! It was a little breezy so we snuggled up to a dune and had a nice lunch before heading home.
James River Plantation - November 8
If you take Route 5 out of the Burg and head toward Richmond, the road parallels the James River and you pass several "Plantation Homes" (see James River Plantations) including the home of a couple dead US Presidents, John Tyler and William Henry Harrison.
There are also many Civil War sites and other historically significant structures. If you're looking for a place to have lunch though, go somewhere else. There are no places to have lunch except for one restaurant that was closed when we were there. We were hungry and Lorri spotted some Pecans lying around on the grounds of "Westover", so we cracked a few open and ate 'em. You can't go inside Westover but you can go inside the "necessary" building. Judging by that, (it's a brick five-holer with a fireplace!) the interior of Westover must be pretty high-end. I'm not kidding, it's a five-holer! Lorri and I were having a little trouble figuring out exactly how you take advantage of a five-holer with a fireplace. I mean, do you head out there five at a time and, you know, just sit around and shoot the....? Sorry.
Baltimore and Forest Hill - November 17, 18 & 19
We were lucky enough to nab the "Blacksmith's House" at Be-My-Guest B&B in the village of Forest Hill, MD. It's not really a house, it's part of a house with the living area down and the bedroom up. It's the only guest accommodation less than about 15 miles from my daughter Debbie's house, so that's where we stayed.
Deb, Mike, Lorri, Jake and I went to the ESPN Zone at the Inner Harbor on Sunday. Mal was on a road trip to Williamsburg, ironically, celebrating one of her friends' Sweet 16th birthday.
She made it home later and we all hung out and had a nice dinner and Mike and I worked on our Picky-Picks.
As it unexpectedly turned out, neither Mike nor Debbie had to work T-day weekend, so they all came down to Williamsburg to celebrate the holiday with us!
We played some darts.
We hung out in the carport - the weather Thursday was warm.
On Friday we went to Waller Mill Park and hiked around a bit.
That didn't last long so we went over to the "Corner Pocket" a restaurant/pool hall in New Town for some food, refreshments and little eight ball.
As concerned parents and grand-parents we feel it's important for the kids to get a well-rounded education: darts one day and pool the next.
Later on we came home and had a fire and roasted chestnuts and watched a Christmas movie.
