ANYWAYS, ON TO VA! So we have visited: Roanoke, Christiansburg, Blacksburg, Lynchburg (a.k.a. Forest), Charlottesville, Williamsburg, Virginia Beach, Fredericksburg, and Fairfax (many towns in this county!). Yes, we've seen a lot of this beautiful state, which is nothing new to me because I did in fact spend a few of my growing up years here. However, it's nice to see it as a grown up who actually/finally cares.
Ok so first, we stayed in Christiansburg, a rather sleepy town near Blacksburg (think Virginia Tech). After getting sick of eating at Cracker Barrel and Denny's, we decided to head in to Blacksburg to try a local sushi joint, and see the VT campus. The sushi was just o.k., but we also found a Rita's Water Ice, which was exciting. If you don't know what "water ice" is, maybe try googling it :) And one day, try it yourself. It was Trent's first taste, and he enjoyed it. Anyways, after a short and quaint jaunt on the VT campus, that pretty much summed up our visit to this area. We left with a new understanding of what a "hokie" is! :)
Virginia Tech:
Next, we traveled, to Lynchburg/Forest, where Thomas Jefferson once owned a house in a "poplar forest" of sorts. We visited this lovely agency, and fun was had by all.
Yup, we got all our lovely cohorts to follow suit:
Following Lynchburg, we visited Charlottesville (That guy is Larry, our BDM for VA/WVA).
Enjoyable, yet largely uneventful, we carried on to good ol' Williamsburg.
It was this point that I realized something: I have been to Williamsburg almost every year for 16 years! That's a pretty good record there. I love this place. It's comforting, like a 2nd home. My parents came to visit for this weekend. We saw all the normal sights, such as Colonial Williamsburg, the Prime Outlet mall, The Trellis, etc. The first night, we took a stroll in the colonial area during the night, and stopped by one house that is supposedly haunted.
See any ghosts in there? I didn't.
Then the next day was Trent's birthday! Since he got a lovely new bike for his birthday, we decided to ride on Jamestown Island to celebrate:
Interesting pink berries
Trent on his new bike (holding mine too!)
My mom, me, Trent
Cute mom and I
Cute Trent and I
Trent and Mom gift shopping it:
My mom and I hit up the Yankee Candle Co outlet later that day. I was fascinated by this place. It was huge, and had a section for Christmas stuff, and it was really elaborate, with a faux bridge and stars on the ceiling:
^ Yes, I am a dork for being so excited about such a lame thing :)
Ok, so Williamsburg was fun, but we had to carry on- on to Virginia Beach, to be exact. We didn't actually see the beach, but we enjoyed beach type weather from the event here.
I regretted not actually wearing beach clothing!! It was really warm.
Then off to Northern VA.
Luckily my parents live only 1 mile from where we lodged. It was really nice to see them and to be in a very populated area, with all the stores at our beck and call. We went on a beautiful bike ride on the W&OD Trail, and enjoyed a couple funky restaurants. Mmm..and it was nice to have people to drive us around so we didn't have to find a place for the bus to park! :)
The sad part is that my camera was m.i.a. almost the entire time of our visit to Fairfax! I was searching high and low for it for 4 days! It was weird because I knew it couldn't have gone far, so it was a complete mystery. Then, just as I was about to consider it long gone, I found it under a stack of brochures! Duhh..
Well, so that brings us to now, where we are just beginning our visit to PA. I love it here, it is gorgeous! We are in a town in the suburbs of Harrisburg, called Pine Grove. It is set in these beautiful rolling hills, and all the leaves are turning to vibrant colors!! I will let you in on this trip in the next post. Thanks for reading! :)
