Up to NoVA

Last weekend found us heading north. Now, many of you readers may know, I typically don’t go too far north. Northern Virginia, as far as I’m concerned, is north of the Mason-Dixon. I think a lot of the folks that live up there would agree. So, I typically don’t go north of the Mason-Dixon, but Virginia wanted to head up there to visit some friends and I haven’t been there for any sightseeing since high-school. Thursday evening, we headed out towards Lexington and made it there in time to watch the season finales of Bones and then The Office and 30 Rock. … and then we stayed up to talk with Virginia’s folks for a while. Friday, we had some tasty cheesesteaks with Virginia’s folks and my mom for lunch before leaving town, and then got on the road again.

Traffic heading towards DC wasn’t bad for a Friday afternoon, and we actually ended up getting there a bit ahead of schedule. So, since we were running early, we decided to stop at the Air and Space museum next to Dulles.

This place was awesome for so many reasons… for starters, we got there at 4:02pm and apparently after 4pm parking is free. (Before then, it’s $15 to park, then admission is free) But, after seeing the inside, I’d gladly pay the $15 to park, and then spend all day there. It closed at 5:30, and an hour and a half really wasn’t enough time to really take things in.

You might remember the above from Transformers. They had a TV over to the side that showed the transformation from what we see here into the CGI that was displayed on screen. Pretty cool stuff. There are a ton of pictures in the picture gallery, so I’ll give some quick highlights, but I recommend you click on the link in the text above for the full gallery.

So… awesomeness was had there. Then, we made our way to Will’s house in Arlington. That journey was also rather easy considering where we were. We really only got stuck in traffic once on the way there but what made it worse was that the Metro tracks were right next to the highway, so you could see other people heading towards where you wanted to be.

We made it to Will’s in time to walk a few blocks and grab some tasty margaritas and fajitas for dinner, followed by a quick game throwing bean-bags in the front yard.

From there, it was over to Abby’s house outside of Alexandria. We checked in over at Abby’s, met her boyfriend, David, then fell asleep.

NoVA Day 2

Thursday was travel. Friday was travel, then a few things later in the afternoon / evening in NoVA. I’m calling this day 2, but I suppose it was really just the first whole day in NoVA.

We woke up at Abby’s, she made breakfast of bacon, eggs, and crumpets. Then, it was time to be off. First up, we went to the National Zoo.

It seemed that for the most part, the animals there were a bit more social than what we’re used to. They were out in plain view for the most part, so that was cool.

Above, we have pandas, a big gorilla and baby gorilla, a lion “spraying”, and the little rodent…

The zoo was also free admission, but was another attraction that I would have paid to see.

After the zoo, we headed to get some food … … …

That’s Ethiopian food. Yeah. They got me to eat Ethiopian food. I’ll say… it’s not horrible. The spices used reminded me of Indian / Middle-Eastern food … but everything was prepared as one form of stew or another. The picture you see is food for the 4 of us. All on one plate, and all of the food is on top a piece of the “bread”. I say “bread” because the “bread” is what seems to be a cross between a crepe, and a wetsuit. The texture is very very interesting. Like I said, all in all, it’s not horrible… but I don’t think I’ll be running out to get it again anytime soon. However, if I’m with a group of people, and thy all want to go get Ethiopian food, I know I don’t have to be too scared about it.

After lunch, we went to a nice coffee place for a bit of dessert and coffee, tea, Tom Collins, etc. Then, we were off again to head towards the Lincoln Memorial / Mall area.

After feeding the meter, we were off to see the sights.

First up, we visited Einstein. That guy was cool, but he hardly would pay attention to anything except his book. If you look at the ground in front of the statue, you’ll see some markings. If you stood in the center of the circle, and looked at Einstein, when you talked you could hear an echo. Pretty interesting.

From Einstein, it was off to visit with Lincoln. He also didn’t have much to say, but looking at the guy, I think we human-folk are shrinking as we evolve. That guy was HUGE!

It was a bit overcast, which made for interesting contrast-y pictures, but it also seemed to keep the crowds down a bit. From the Lincoln Memorial, we made our way around the area with stops at the Korean War Memorial:

and the FDR memorial:

After the FDR memorial, we walked down towards the Jefferson Memorial (Take THAT Texas!! Jefferson still totally matters!!!) but at this point, it had started to rain so the picture taking stopped.

The evening consisted of going to “Scion” which is a restaurant in the Dupont Circle area that is owned by one of Virginia’s Sorority  sisters. We met up with Allie at this point, and a friend of hers from grad school who was in town for a conference. If you’re going to be in the area, I’d highly recommend Scion. The place makes the BEST Mac and Cheese with crumbled prosciutto on top. The stuff was so amazingly creamy and wonderful … I really can’t describe it in any other way than it seemed like after they made the best mac and cheese in the world, they put it into the serving dish, then poured a pint of heavy cream over it, added shredded cheese on top of that, some prosciutto, and finished it off in the oven, turning the heavy cream into gooey wonderful creaminess.

Day 3 in NoVA

The next day in the area, we woke up and Abby had a yoga class she was teaching up by Dupont Circle. So, we drove over to Abby’s bellydancing studio, parked there and then walked to the Metro Station. From there, we took the Metro towards Dupont Circle and then walked to the Yoga studio. While Abby, Virginia, and Abby’s mom did Yoga, I had some time to walk around the area on my own. I had a good time walking around, and stopped for some Krispy Creme Doughnuts straight off the conveyor belt. Also, there are a bunch of consulate type places around the circle, and there was even a farmer’s market going on.

After that, I sat in the little park / fountain area in the middle of Dupont circle and did some people-watching for a bit until the ladies got done with yoga.

After Yoga, we hopped back on the Metro and went back to the bellydancing studio where we met up with Virginia’s cousins, Ashley and Allison, to go have a nice lunch. I forget the name of the place, but they made an awesome salad. Virginia got the salad which came with chicken, walnuts, dates, olives, an all sorts of other flat-out awesomeness.

After lunch, it was getting to be time for us to head to Chantilly for the “Bellydancing Expo” that Abby was dancing in. This shindig was held in a local Middle Eastern restaurant / hookah bar and had a surprising amount of dancers in the show. Here are the highlight photos from that.

The show was a good time, but as far as a picture venue, it was less than ideal. Restaurants typically don’t have the best lighting, so I had to resort to using the on-camera flash… one of these days, I need to get my hands on a better flash that I can bounce of the ceiling and whatnot… and learn how to use it…

After the show, it was back to Lexington for the night, then Monday, back to Boone. The trip was uneventful except for the fact that the highways were lined with State Police for the new seat-belt enforcement in VA… but, on the way back, on 91 between Damascus, VA and Mountain City, TN I did see my favorite church sign again…

In other Boone news, the weather has been crappy, the internship search has not been going well, and the bike has been sitting in the driveway collecting spider-webs. But on a few decent days, I did head up to Shady Valley and grab some decent pictures. We’ll end the blog update with pictures from that area.

First Farmer’s Market!!

For us anyhow… There have actually been two Farmer’s Markets already, but the first week, I was studying for finals, and Virginia was in Lexington. Last week, we had planned to go, but with company in town, we got side-tracked and didn’t quite make it. So, today was the day finally, and the Farmer’s Market didn’t disappoint.

There were all sorts of fresh plants there, so we had to stock up our pots at home. So… we got:

Lemon Thyme

Pineapple Sage

Chocolate Cherry Tomato Plant

Flat Leaf Parsley

and of course, Basil

There was also some entertainment at the Farmer’s Market, namely, a kid doing magic, a guy playing violin and banjo, and 2 cowboys, complete with their six-shooters.

This has been a good start to the weekend, and there’s more good to come. Virginia is about to start to work on some spinach balls for a little get-together tonight… It should be a good time. The spinach balls will be on the cooking blog, and perhaps pictures from the get-together tonight will make it on this side of the blog.

Baby Jade visits, baby Dodge leaves…

Jonathan and Lisa came to visit with their lovely daughter Jade last weekend. We really just wanted to hang out with Jade, but I guess the parents still come with the kid as a package deal until a certain age. She, of course, is an awesome kid. Very quiet, very happy, and amazingly easy to please.

Look at how cute she is… I have no idea where she gets it from…

But, she’s a good time. She likes to laugh, and smile… she really doesn’t cry much at all, and when she does, Lisa has it figured out to exactly what she needs. Although, it seems like a pretty simple rotation… food, sleep, poop. In that order… and just repeating. But, Lisa was very good at staying on top of each of these functions before it was really an issue, so the result was very little crying.

Lisa gave the Snuggie some love … (for some reason, they thought 60 degrees was chilly… I suppose they’re not used to these Boone summers …) and then later on taught Jonathan how to tie his shoes.

We took advantage of a weekend full of nice weather and went on a walk on the Greenway trail. The trail, of course, is always a good time, but it’s amazing how many people love to stop and ask about the baby… I suppose it’s like having a cute puppy… I’m willing to bet that the same people that make “gootchie gootchie” noises at babies are the ones who wag a finger in dismay when the children hit two years old and become non-stop screaming terrors.

Here we all are on a bridge on the Greenway trail. We had a good little walk, and then came back to the house for some nice beef and veggie kebobs.

In other news… the truck left us… It said it was tired of the neglect, and just didn’t have to stand for this nonsense anymore. So, it grabbed its lugnuts and drove off into the sunset.

Actually, it’s going to a better place. A place where it’ll be driven. A place where it can dip its tire in saltwater, and watch the sunrise over the sand. It loaded itself onto the trailer and is heading off to sunny Myrtle Beach. If you happen to see it around that area, pet it softly, and feed it a set of platinum spark plugs. It always loved those.

That’s all for now, but the weather has been staying mostly nice, so we’ve been venturing out and taking afternoon walks and whatnot… Until next time… … …

Yay! May!

May is here. With the beginning of a new month, we’re finally getting some nice weather. So, as the school year is grinding to a halt, we took a nice little break today to go to Hebron Colony Falls; It’s one of the many areas around here that is just gorgeous. After a long, hard winter we needed a good reminder of some of the good points of this area. Below is a little taste of what it’s like at the falls. As always, click on the pictures for a larger version.

Looking at the scene as a whole, it really just looked like a mountain of rocks… but if you looked closely, in several spots, you could see waterfalls emerging from the rock. It was really a pretty amazing sight. So… we had a lovely little hike…

Climbed on rocks…

Played in the water…

Virginia soaked up some sun…

I hid from the sun…

And Virginia even chased a duck!

All in all… a very good day.

Beware visitors to Boone… the weather has turned nice again. If you come visit, we won’t just keep you in the house and fill you to the gills with food… We might make you go for a walk… or even a hike… But, it’ll be worth it. This is the time of year to stay up to date with the blog, as this is when we go out and enjoy the local sights… Hopefully, we’ll have some visitors to enjoy them with.