Winchester, Virginia
Some other time we will write about summer school studying consular law and most recently the "western hemisphere" - 44 countries in 10 days!
With our training wrapped up, and not scheduled to arrive in Trinidad for nearly four weeks, we had originally planned on flying to Phoenix and then touring California from there - but since we still love our new car and may never have so many weeks of unplanned vacation again, we decided to see family and friends by driving across the country, and hitting conveniently located presidential landmarks along the way.
Day 1
Today was our last day in training. We took a field trip to the Organization of American States for a lecture on U.S. policy in Latin America. The OAS features an unexpected local presidential landmark: the "Peace Tree" planted by President Taft in 1910, which has grown so tall it threatens to break through the atrium roof. After one final lecture, we hit the road. We hit traffic almost immediately and when we heard the announcer on the radio say that the Beltway was down to one lane 4 miles ahead of us (and we were already stopped) - we quickly exited and found another way out of the metro area.
We drove through Winchester, VA and saw a piece of land that George Washington owned. On to Berkeley Springs, WV where George Washington liked to take the waters. We also stopped at Sideling Hill, MD - where you can see lots of geology where they blasted through the mountain to make the highway.
Sideling Hill, Maryland
Several people had mentioned Road Food which is a book/website and a feature on NPR's "Splendid Table" and so during a break in class today (while overachievers asked the guest speaker additional questions about 'what's going on in Honduras') we printed out a review of Ruby and Ketchy's diner in Morgantown, WV which got their highest rating: "worth building a day around." We had a perfectly tasty meal but not one to build a day or a detour around. Dan had very beige turkey and gravy and I had stuffed cabbage rolls. We shared cherry pie a la mode which was indeed very, very good.
Along our drive several highway repair projects boasted that they were the result of the stimulus package. We also saw a billboard for a bank boasting, "Refusing government bailouts since 1881" My favorite bumper sticker urged us to "Practice Random Acts of Awesome."
Tomorrow ... Pittsburgh
4 comments:
we miss you already (and desparately hope the time stamp on your post was wrong!). Can't wait to read all about your adventure!!!
Wow! So, how did you like the stuffed cabbage? Some refer to me as the stuffed cabbage queen as I'm always talking about it and writing about it on my blog and here: Stuffed Cabbage. When I visited your blog today, a couple things struck me, well in addition to your having stuffed cabbage.
#1, I love the picture at the top of your blog and was looking for an explanation of what I'm looking at. It's beautiful and reminds of of the church in Satu Mare, Romania.
#2, you like The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants? Me too -- and I've got a charity project going, The Journal of the Traveling Squid.
So nice to meet you!
Love the picture. Did Dan deliberately time it so there was a Wal-Mart truck perfectly in the frame by Duffy's elbow to emphasize that this is a US trip?
Sam - we actually did wait for the Walmart truck :)
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