The Virginia leg continues…

When I last left my travel log updates, I was in the historic Linden Row Inn. Now I am in a less historic hotel in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where we are visiting an old friend from PhD studies. At one point, Annette had grand plans of hikes on some nearby trail through the bucolic hills. But with the wind howling and being more or less “tourist-ed out,” I think the plan is to meet our friend, go to her house, and eat pizza and drink beer.

Anyway, a few highlight from where I left off before:

  • Thursday night we met Dennis Danvers for computer fun and dinner. Dennis and I were in the MFA program at the same time at Virginia Commonwealth University, which means I have known him and been friends with him now for over 20 years. Kinda scary. And also interesting is that I think we’ve become better friends since I left Richmond in 1993 via email.

    Anyway, we went over to his house first so I could help him update the software he’s using to run his web site, a job that I thought would take about 15 minutes. Instead, I screwed it up royal and I had to restore one of the two backups I wisely made before I began the process. Oh, and while I was doing that, Will and Annette played with Dennis’ incredibly energetic dog, Ethel.

    But I’m happy to say that all is back to the way that Dennis’ web site was before I started, so no harm, no foul. Still, after causing Dennis some obvious worry, I thought the least I could do was buy at Cajun Bangkok, which was a fusion restaurant of sorts between Cajun and Thai food. It was a fine time– a very sweet and shy waitress, good food, and the fusion stuff worked pretty well for me. I had chicken-fried steak (though it was actually “chicken-fried chicken”) with a peanut sauce. And we talked and tried to convince Dennis to sign up for Facebook and appreciate the joys of the iPhone, both unsuccessfully.
  • Friday morning, we had breakfast at Joe’s Inn, which is a kind of “must stop” for us whenever we are in Richmond (which isn’t often, really). Dennis joined us again, and there was much chatting of science fiction, fantasy, and young adult readings, mostly between Annette and Dennis. Then we took a little walking tour that included stops at Annette’s parent’s house before they moved to Florida and a bit of a stroll down Monument Avenue.
  • Then it was on the road again to Harrisonburg (with a brief drive-through visit in Staunton, where Annette had her first reporting job way back when, and which has become in recent years kind of a quaint and quasi-touristy sort of town) to visit Mary. And there’s not much to report there, though with homemade pizza, wine/beer, and complicated television in the form of the new series Dollhouse, it did feel a lot like the way we often would get together in Bowling Green. Thanks Mary for good times and also for letting us watch the kooky new Dollhouse instead of your usual Friday Night Lights.

And that’s pretty much it. Back on the road today to Ypsilanti, hopefully an uneventful trip.

One Reply to “The Virginia leg continues…”

  1. Sounds like a great trip! Sorry I missed seeing y’all on your way through Richmond. Please visit again! Sarah

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