Busy Season: Spring Teaching

From mid-February through til June, I was gone quite a bit traveling every week for work. Most of my trips were four- or five-day trips to various places in Virginia, from the farthest corners of the southwest, to the suburbs of DC, and to everywhere in between, I was kept moving and pretty busy. Here are some photos from some of those trips

Rockingham County:
photos: A nice quilting rack at the Valley Brethren/Mennonite Heritage Center in Harrisonburg, VA; and the inside of a house at the Mennonite Center in quite lovely pastels.


Washington County:
photos: Neat architecture in Abingdon, VA; daffodils in Abingdon; Daniel Boone and company stayed in what became Abingdon on their way to the Cumberland Gap; the Tavern in Abingdon (one of the oldest buildings west of the Blue Ridge), dating back to 1779; and a mastadon skeleton at the Museum of Middle Appalachians in Saltville, VA.





photos: A skeleton of a creature I'd read about but never seen -- a giant beaver; Dirk and Sam checking out the tribes of Southwest Virginia, including one that should be more famous than "that Pocahontas person" (according to a docent) since the Spanish wrote about her before the English even founded Jamestown; Dirk trying to look completely innocent; me in front of one of the many lakes in southwest Virginia created by damming; the House of the Snake, where we discovered the wonder that is Dr. Enuf (described to us as an "old timey energy drink, but natural").





photos: Rebel Roy (my version of a kind of Flat Stanley, but cooler and communicated to friends through text messages, not in reports to elementary students) in front of the sign on State Street in Bristol, VA (literally one side of the street is Virginia and the other is Tennessee); downtown Bristol; the Legends of Country Music mural in downtown Bristol; and live old-timey and bluegrass music in Bristol.




Prince William County:
photos: The cherry blossoms in DC and the Jefferson Memorial, which was the first time I'd seen them; more cherry blossoms; sunset in DC with the blossoms and Washington Monument; my and Megan's artwork hung on the wall in a pub to join the rest of its art; and Sam and Jeff showing their buddy status and love for fishbowl margaritas.





Pulaski County:
photos: A fun country store in downtown Pulaski; that same store sold this awesome cane that was also a sword, complete with "ornamental" handle; Mark riding a dinosaur (there's obviously tons of stuff to do in Pulaski on a weeknight); and the view of a nearby vineyard in Wythe County.




Wise County:
photos: Something about the Army partnering with Earth Day seemed a bit odd to me; redbuds near one of the lakes we visited; the same lake that had Jeff and Dirk really excited to fish; an entire truck of one of my new favorites -- Dr. Enuf (apparently pronounced "EE - nuff"); and the view from Flag Rock over Norton.





photos: Donna and Jeff climbing rocks; their view from the top of the rocks; the view towards Kentucky from High Knob and the mountains around Norton; and bluegrass and square dancing in Lee County.




Manassas:
photos: I really freaked out my coworkers when we passed this street and I had them pull over to take the photo, just south of Manassas; Manassas National Battlefield (from the battle otherwise known to us yankees as "Bull Run"); blossoms off a tulip poplar, which helped me to finally understand its name; and Megan and Donna on a bridge in Prince William National Forest, which had recently been flooded with the debris behind on the bridge as a remnant of that.

Busy Season: When I'm Not Teaching!

**At long last, here are some updates... I'm adding the photos, since their uploading is the time-consuming part. I'll try to come back and add more text later. In the mean time, enjoy the photos and make up your own stories to go with them!**

So this spring was pretty busy, though very fun. Morgan came up to visit for a weekend, and we went with some of the crew down to Norfolk for the Greening of Ghent, an annual St. Patty's Day street party. While she was here, I also introduced her to the reenacting culture at the annual Military Through the Ages event at Jamestown Settlement. It was great to see her after so long! Since the Greening of Ghent was the weekend before St. Patty's, the actual holiday we spent at a local bar that actually did have an Irish band playing. Our local "Irish pub" had closed in January, so it was good to see the evening actually be quite fun. Also in that part of spring, Jeff had his birthday and we celebrated the following weekend by all going out to a local bar for karaoke night. With the closing of our pub in January, we were at a loss to find a new chill place to all hang out and have fun. This new bar was fun, but was swarmed with the greek crowd from William and Mary, making the chill and conversational aspects of hanging out more difficult. However, on Jeff's birthday, it worked well and was a blast.

photos: Katie and Morgan in Norfolk for the Greening of Ghent (St. Patty's Day street party) marvelling at a wind-up sushi toy; Megan and Mark Summers in Norfolk, Summers getting his inspiration from Ireland and not just the color green; Lindsay and David at out for Jeff's birthday; Callie making a face that's apparently the face to make on Jeff's bday; a replica of the Ark of the Covenant in Marion, VA; and fun tuliips.





At the end of March, Megan and I went to the Daffodil Festival across the York River in Gloucester. Yes, there were daffodils, though there was also a classic car parade, a clown with a sketchy name, funnel cake, lots of different live music, local booths of people talking about topics from water conservation to animal psychology, and (my favorite) an Elvis impersonator. We had tons of fun, until we almost fell asleep watching the orientation video in the local museum, which we felt guilted into watching by the lonely volunteers. I'm not sure what it was, but Megan and I were inspired to buy some legal moonshine (I know, it instantly makes it more lame), which we discovered wasn't as delicious as we'd hoped.

Later in April, Mark and I went camping in southwest Virginia after a week of teaching. We ended up in Marion, VA at Hungry Mother State Park, which was indeed as great as Jack always said it was. Friday after dinner and finally pitching our tent, we decided to go to the drive-in theatre down the road from the park. The only problem was that the movies being shown that early in the season were awful, but we tried anyway, only to both fall asleep during parts of the movie (that recent Jackie Chan movie about the time-travelling teenager -- awful!) On Saturday, I really enjoyed exploring the town, so much so that we got a late start on our hike up Mt. Rogers, the tallest mountain in Virginia. Although we had been hearing horror stories about impending rain, the day started out nice enough that we thought we could miss most of it. We made it up the mountain, had a great lunch with an awesome view of at least ten different ridges of mountains and hills into the distance, and made it to the summit in a decent time. On the way down, we saw the clouds begin to roll in, though we still had time to enjoy the wild ponies we saw. With about an hour left on the hike, the rain came at last and completely soaked us. There was even a crack of lightening, seemingly right over our heads, that really terrified me. We got down the mountain as quickly as possible, went to the nearest campground to change into something dry, and made our way back to Marion to find something warm to eat. There, we met a very strange but very nice man who told us outlandish stories about politics, religion, and even his own life. We took our time leaving on Sunday and I got back to Williamsburg late that night, only to have to turn around and leave for a week the next morning.
photos: An Elvis impersonator at the 2008 Gloucester Daffodil Festival; the Daffodil Festival; a poor photo of red trillium on Mt. Rogers, the highest mountain in Virginia; and the view from Mt. Rogers toward North Carolina (there were about ridges of hills and mountains visible into the distance).





photos: The top of Mt. Rogers -- a plaque on a boulder in a clearing of trees with no vista, a bit anticlimactic; wild ponies on Mt. Rogers; the Discovery in the James River from the Godspeed sailing for Landing Day 2008; Lindsay and Callie doing what you do when you find giant red boxing gloves; and Megan and Mark, outreach homies.





photos: Grace and Michael; delicious scotch eggs at the Virginia Renaissance Faire; Mark with his turkey leg at the Faire; the queen holding court; and alpacas with 'fros.





photos: Mark Summers tests out his new look as part of a gang of merry men; Virginia Beach on Memorial Day; flowering yucca at the Virginia Living Museum; Mark as a turtle; and me as a turtle, with a new friend testing my shell.





photos: A painted turtle at the Living Museum; Mark and I had gone to the museum to check out the giant dinosaurs, which we realized seemed a lot cooler when you're ten years old; Jeff and Mike at the gypsy wake (complete the request to dress like gypsies, of course); Jack with a gypsy turban; Mark as a skeezy gypsy; and Christine, Jack, and Mike.