Good things
Okay, so. Instead of izhilzha's "10 Things That Make Me Happy" post, I'm just going to give a list of good things that have happened in the past month or so.
Last month, there were two festival-type things that Geo and I attended. The first was the Taste of Culpeper, which was essentially a wine tasting from vineyards all over the area. In theory, it should have been really cool, but neither of us really enjoyed it very much. My main issue was that I can't drink on an empty stomach, and I hadn't had lunch yet, and all the food was really expensive. So we quickly quit that place in favor of driving to Graves Mountain Lodge for their apple festival.
Graves Mountain Lodge, for those who don't know (which I didn't) is where they shot the exterior resort shots in Dirty Dancing. It was kind of cool recognizing the cabins and some of where I think various shots were filmed.
The apple festival had a variety of vendors, which was kind of neat, but the best part was finding the unpasteurized cider and freshly made apple butter. Yum! Unfortunately, the cider wasn't hardened by the time Izhi came to visit, but boy, does it have a kick now.
izhilzha's Visit:
The weekend before Halloween, Izhi came to visit for a few days. What fun! We spent a day in Washington, DC, and a lot of time watching movies and TV shows.
Her first day here, we just sort of kicked back. I took her through quaint little downtown Culpeper, showed her the store where I work, and stopped by the State Theatre, where she got a tour from my boss there. Then we came back to the house and just chatted and watched DVDs.
We set out for DC, parking at the outermost metro stop in Vienna, and riding in to the Madison Building, which houses some of the offices of the Library of Congress. I've never entered the Library proper from the front. I've always entered from the side, through the tunnels from the building where Geo's division is headquartered. Sarah got to see that part, and then we had lunch in the cafeteria upstairs. From there we went to the Jefferson Building, which houses the Rotunda, Main Reading Room, and most of the rest of the Library. If you're ever in DC and you're a reader, you must see. It's amazing. The mosaics and the artwork and just everything. It's phenomenal. And since Geo is a Library employee, they let him take Sarah and me into the Main Reading Room, which is off limits to everyone but serious researchers. Very cool.
It was a very rainy day, and after going through the gift shops, we asked Sarah where she wanted to go, given the weather. She wanted to see the "big" monuments--the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial--so off we went. I don't think I can sufficiently describe the downpour we slogged through. It became laughable and quite the adventure. My shoes were completely waterlogged, to the point where they were producing air bubbles with every step I took.
We went to the Washington Monument, and on the way to the other end of the mall, we saw the WWII Memorial before heading over to the Lincoln Memorial. The WWII Memorial is pretty amazing. Sarah went around and read all the quotes, I think. I only read a few because I couldn't see much through the rain. The Lincoln Memorial was impressive as always, and underneath they have a room with displays that talk about the building of it. One thing I learned: the American Civil War was not fought over slavery, not as far as Lincoln was concerned. His primary purpose was to preserve the Union (meaning the United States).
On the way back to the metro station, we stopped at the Vietnam Memorial, which is always quiet and moving. Before you reach the memorial, you pass a statue of soldiers pointing toward the memorial. The memorial itself is set into the side of an embankment. The marble upon which all the names are listed is highly polished black marble in which you can see your own reflection almost as clearly as in a mirror. There's also a monument to the nurses who served, which is very much similar to The Pieta.
Then it was back to the metro, and then home. It was nice to get out of our sodden clothes and into warm fuzzies. We then had pizza and watched Moonlight and N3.
We had planned on going to Jamestown on Saturday, but we decided that if the weather was going to be this horrible, it wouldn't be any fun. So we opted to sleep in and schlep around the house on Saturday.
So Saturday turned out to be beautiful. Still we decided not to go anywhere. We watched all sorts of DVDs and posted to our real_numb3rs community.
Sarah introduced Geo and me to Supernatural. The pilot ep is really cool, and I knew Geo would like it. Turns out he likes the show a lot. More on that later. But SPN very much reminded me of The Lost Boys, so I introduced Sarah to cheesy-fun 80s horror starring a very young Keiffer Sutherland. SPN very much echoes Lost Boys--brother element, supernatural freakiness, great soundtrack, cool cars. I'd forgotten how fun the movie is. I used to go running at night with the soundtrack in my walkman. Very freaky.
We also showed Sarah The Haunting (the original, thankyouverymuch). Great, great movie. I highly recommend.
We also introduced her to Wonderfalls during the course of the day. A very fun, highly mishandled show.
Okay, I think the rest will probably have to wait for another post. It's late, my brain is mushy from 3 eps of SPN, and I'm toddling off to bed.
Last month, there were two festival-type things that Geo and I attended. The first was the Taste of Culpeper, which was essentially a wine tasting from vineyards all over the area. In theory, it should have been really cool, but neither of us really enjoyed it very much. My main issue was that I can't drink on an empty stomach, and I hadn't had lunch yet, and all the food was really expensive. So we quickly quit that place in favor of driving to Graves Mountain Lodge for their apple festival.
Graves Mountain Lodge, for those who don't know (which I didn't) is where they shot the exterior resort shots in Dirty Dancing. It was kind of cool recognizing the cabins and some of where I think various shots were filmed.
The apple festival had a variety of vendors, which was kind of neat, but the best part was finding the unpasteurized cider and freshly made apple butter. Yum! Unfortunately, the cider wasn't hardened by the time Izhi came to visit, but boy, does it have a kick now.
izhilzha's Visit:
The weekend before Halloween, Izhi came to visit for a few days. What fun! We spent a day in Washington, DC, and a lot of time watching movies and TV shows.
Her first day here, we just sort of kicked back. I took her through quaint little downtown Culpeper, showed her the store where I work, and stopped by the State Theatre, where she got a tour from my boss there. Then we came back to the house and just chatted and watched DVDs.
We set out for DC, parking at the outermost metro stop in Vienna, and riding in to the Madison Building, which houses some of the offices of the Library of Congress. I've never entered the Library proper from the front. I've always entered from the side, through the tunnels from the building where Geo's division is headquartered. Sarah got to see that part, and then we had lunch in the cafeteria upstairs. From there we went to the Jefferson Building, which houses the Rotunda, Main Reading Room, and most of the rest of the Library. If you're ever in DC and you're a reader, you must see. It's amazing. The mosaics and the artwork and just everything. It's phenomenal. And since Geo is a Library employee, they let him take Sarah and me into the Main Reading Room, which is off limits to everyone but serious researchers. Very cool.
It was a very rainy day, and after going through the gift shops, we asked Sarah where she wanted to go, given the weather. She wanted to see the "big" monuments--the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial--so off we went. I don't think I can sufficiently describe the downpour we slogged through. It became laughable and quite the adventure. My shoes were completely waterlogged, to the point where they were producing air bubbles with every step I took.
We went to the Washington Monument, and on the way to the other end of the mall, we saw the WWII Memorial before heading over to the Lincoln Memorial. The WWII Memorial is pretty amazing. Sarah went around and read all the quotes, I think. I only read a few because I couldn't see much through the rain. The Lincoln Memorial was impressive as always, and underneath they have a room with displays that talk about the building of it. One thing I learned: the American Civil War was not fought over slavery, not as far as Lincoln was concerned. His primary purpose was to preserve the Union (meaning the United States).
On the way back to the metro station, we stopped at the Vietnam Memorial, which is always quiet and moving. Before you reach the memorial, you pass a statue of soldiers pointing toward the memorial. The memorial itself is set into the side of an embankment. The marble upon which all the names are listed is highly polished black marble in which you can see your own reflection almost as clearly as in a mirror. There's also a monument to the nurses who served, which is very much similar to The Pieta.
Then it was back to the metro, and then home. It was nice to get out of our sodden clothes and into warm fuzzies. We then had pizza and watched Moonlight and N3.
We had planned on going to Jamestown on Saturday, but we decided that if the weather was going to be this horrible, it wouldn't be any fun. So we opted to sleep in and schlep around the house on Saturday.
So Saturday turned out to be beautiful. Still we decided not to go anywhere. We watched all sorts of DVDs and posted to our real_numb3rs community.
Sarah introduced Geo and me to Supernatural. The pilot ep is really cool, and I knew Geo would like it. Turns out he likes the show a lot. More on that later. But SPN very much reminded me of The Lost Boys, so I introduced Sarah to cheesy-fun 80s horror starring a very young Keiffer Sutherland. SPN very much echoes Lost Boys--brother element, supernatural freakiness, great soundtrack, cool cars. I'd forgotten how fun the movie is. I used to go running at night with the soundtrack in my walkman. Very freaky.
We also showed Sarah The Haunting (the original, thankyouverymuch). Great, great movie. I highly recommend.
We also introduced her to Wonderfalls during the course of the day. A very fun, highly mishandled show.
Okay, I think the rest will probably have to wait for another post. It's late, my brain is mushy from 3 eps of SPN, and I'm toddling off to bed.