Travel Update

Hi, everyone, and sorry for being MIA for the past couple of days.  Not much has happened here.

Tilly is experiencing some brake issues, so she is at the shop.  The rest of the crew is staying with our friend Denali in Portsmouth, VA, until she's fixed.

On Cinco de Mayo, we tried to go to a Mexican restaurant a short walk from our hotel.  I guess all the Williamsburg townies had the same idea, because the wait time was an hour and a half to get a table.  Nobody in their right mind should wait an hour and a half for a table, so we decided to walk to the closest grocery store/liquor store and make ourselves a fancy dinner back in the room.

At the liquor store, we picked up some rum to make mojitos, some tequila for margaritas, and a jar of moonshine.  As we were checking out, the moonshine fell over on the counter inside of the brown paper bag.  The woman in line behind us said "it's dat moonshine falled over in there."  The cashier tried to right the jar, but it fell over again, prompting the woman behind us to yell "IT'S AWREADY DRUNK!"  She and the cashier both dissolved into a fit of shrill, cacophonous laughter.

Dat moonshine

Our meal ended up being great.  We made mojitos and vegetarian burritos with black beans, refried beans, guac, sour cream, tomatoes, onions, and lettuce.  I can post the recipe if anyone is interested.  Would you like to see recipes on this blog?

We also discovered a new awesome snack: Stacy's Roasted Garlic bagel chips and guacamole!

Don't just take my word for it.  Please go try this.

Hopefully Tilly gets out of the shop soon so we can continue our adventure.  Our next few stops are Myrtle Beach, SC, Charleston, SC, and Savannah, GA.  If you have suggestions of places to go and things to see, please reach out and let me know!

Colonial Williamsburg

Today, we made our way into Colonial Williamsburg.  Field trips to Williamsburg are par for the course when you grow up in Virginia, so I've been here a handful of times.  New Mexican-born Josh was not as lucky.  I insisted we make this a stop on the way south so he could experience the magic of bygone days in the Colonies.  Here's how that went:

First, we hit up the Great Hopes Plantation, which is a small farm just outside of the main city. Here, I got to see oxen for the first time.

I grew up playing Oregon Trail, so seeing real live oxen was kind of surreal.  Like, these things really exist? They are very strange-looking.  And massive.  Kind of cute, though.

Next, we spent some time exploring the grounds of the Governor's Palace.  It was filled with beautiful flowers and shrubberies.

After wandering around for a very short while, we both found ourselves uncharacteristically exhausted.  I had made decaf coffee this morning instead of regular by mistake, so we chalked it up to caffeine withdrawal.  Apparently we are those people now.  Anyway, we needed our fix, so we made our way over to an old-fashioned historic local cafe.

Ye Olde Starbucks

Our next stop was the Wythe House, which was home to George Wythe.  George was a mentor to Thomas Jefferson, as well as a law professor and procurer of badass wallpapers.

We visited a bunch of the shops and various landmarks.  The coolest thing I learned today was the so-called "language of the fan":

Josh caught this creepy ladder house leering at us as we walked to dinner.

We had dinner at Berret's, a seafood restaurant in Merchant's Square.  It was awesome!

The day ended on a particularly high note.  We took the nighttime "Ghosts Amongst Us" walking tour, which brought us around to three different houses in the town to hear three different ghost stories told by great actors.  I would highly recommend this tour to anyone who happens to visit Williamsburg in the near future.

**Edit: I forgot to mention that if you are a Virginia resident, you get the rest of the year free when you buy a 1-day pass.  Virginia readers, take advantage of this!**

On the Open Road

Josh and I (and Tilly and the Love Bug) spent the past month in Falls Church, Virginia with my parents.  We were originally only supposed to be there for 2-3 weeks, but we've learned that everything on this trip is going to take at least 1/3 longer than we had thought.  At this rate, we may be nomads forever.

Anyway, yesterday (after spending many hours re-packing Tilly) we finally cut the cord and set off for our next destination: Colonial Williamsburg.

My dad and dog, Tasia, waving goodbye.

 Unfortunately, we couldn't leave until about 4pm, which means we hit a giant patch of traffic leaving the DC area.  Tilly wasn't running so well with all the stop and go, so we stopped for dinner at a random hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant in Woodbridge to wait for the traffic to die down.  The food was decent.  They had nice Cinco de Mayo decorations up.  And there was a mariachi band.

All of the tables around us were pounding beer buckets.  The guys at the table to the right of me went through 2 buckets while we were there, and the guys behind me went through 3 buckets.

We also slept in a Walmart parking lot last night because we are classy people.

 Today was much better.  I drove yesterday, so Josh was in the hot seat this morning. 

 Southern Virginia has an impressive array of flea markets and antique shops.  We stopped at one of them and picked up a couple things for Tilly:

We're staying in a hotel in Williamsburg for the next three nights.  We were going to stay in Tilly the whole time, but we got a really good deal on the hotel.  After checking in, we took the Love Bug for a spin around the town.

#selfie. Also, re. photo and layout formatting, please bear with me as it's been two years since I've had a blog and I can't remember any HTML or shortcuts/tricks.

 We went down the Colonial Parkway, which is a glorious stretch of road that goes through the forest and along the James river.

Afterward, we walked around the campus of William and Mary for a little while.  All of the students are gone for the semester, so it was eerily deserted and quiet.

I think we'll spend tomorrow in Colonial Williamsburg.  Josh has never been, so it will be cool to show him around.  That's all for tonight!