Harrisonburg Visit
We visited Jon this weekend! He's a week away from finishing research, and has been really happy with it all. Seems like he's done a great job, too.
Momdad and I left at 2:30 on Saturday, shortly after I got out of work. We took the three-hour drive, met Jon in Staunton, and walked around for awhile before going to dinner at the Clocktower Tavern. We went to see a hilarious performance of "Measure for Measure" at the Blackfriars Playhouse. Afterward, we checked into our hotel. Jon soon went back to his apartment, leaving Momdad and me in a room for which we got a discount because, when we arrived, we found a scary leak disintegrating the ceiling over the toilet - and all of the other rooms in this and the surrounding hotels were full.
This morning, Jon and I swam in the hotel pool. Then, we all went to the Little Grill Collective for brunch. It was fantastic. Blueberry-banana pancakes! Soysage! Probably the best omelettes I've ever had! All of it was fair-trade and organic - and also, our server happened to be from Maine and actually know some of Mom's family from up there. (Both my parents have family in Maine.) Neato!
Jon showed us his beautiful walk to work, then gave us a tour of the science building. Our family calls it the "science palace" - it's enormous, and has lots of lounges with rolling chairs that are awesome for racing. And, um, technology. It has a fair amount of that, too. Jon's working with silicon and gold; he showed us his workstations in various labs. We're all so proud of him!
On a side note, JMU's campus is huge. It has a great recycling program, and is working very hard to be a green campus. Good stuff.
Next, we meant to hike on Reddish Knob. It is unclear as to whether we succeeded or not. There were no signs, and the road numbers were not the same as those indicated in our directions. What we did do was to drive through several small, idyllic farm towns ("They must be hiding a deep, dark, terrible secret," Dad said) toward what the map called "the ridgeline." (Mom, looking at the map, said brightly "We might be able to see, or even step into, West Virginia!" Dad: "There's that terrible secret.") We got on a road about one and a half lanes wide, which wound slowly, almost imperceptibly upward until suddenly WHOAH, look at that DROP on the left, what a view! And then WHOAH, IT'S A DROP-OFF ON THE RIGHT SIDE, TOO! Without guardrails! And people sometimes coming the other way! And an inordinate number of motorcyclists! So then, just as we're really freaking a fair amount, the road narrows to one lane. Still no signs. Eventually, we reached a flat area with a burned out campfire, a half-hearted guardrail, and a lot of graffitti. Still no signs. Perhaps more peculiar, no sign of most of the motorcyclists who had passed us going up. There was one biker and his bike, alone - and there was really no other way down. They hadn't passed us the other way. :P Perhaps they had flying motorcycles.
Jon and I hiked around a little before taking the drive back down. We went to Coldstone, then dropped Jon off at his apartment and came home.
Momdad and I left at 2:30 on Saturday, shortly after I got out of work. We took the three-hour drive, met Jon in Staunton, and walked around for awhile before going to dinner at the Clocktower Tavern. We went to see a hilarious performance of "Measure for Measure" at the Blackfriars Playhouse. Afterward, we checked into our hotel. Jon soon went back to his apartment, leaving Momdad and me in a room for which we got a discount because, when we arrived, we found a scary leak disintegrating the ceiling over the toilet - and all of the other rooms in this and the surrounding hotels were full.
This morning, Jon and I swam in the hotel pool. Then, we all went to the Little Grill Collective for brunch. It was fantastic. Blueberry-banana pancakes! Soysage! Probably the best omelettes I've ever had! All of it was fair-trade and organic - and also, our server happened to be from Maine and actually know some of Mom's family from up there. (Both my parents have family in Maine.) Neato!
Jon showed us his beautiful walk to work, then gave us a tour of the science building. Our family calls it the "science palace" - it's enormous, and has lots of lounges with rolling chairs that are awesome for racing. And, um, technology. It has a fair amount of that, too. Jon's working with silicon and gold; he showed us his workstations in various labs. We're all so proud of him!
On a side note, JMU's campus is huge. It has a great recycling program, and is working very hard to be a green campus. Good stuff.
Next, we meant to hike on Reddish Knob. It is unclear as to whether we succeeded or not. There were no signs, and the road numbers were not the same as those indicated in our directions. What we did do was to drive through several small, idyllic farm towns ("They must be hiding a deep, dark, terrible secret," Dad said) toward what the map called "the ridgeline." (Mom, looking at the map, said brightly "We might be able to see, or even step into, West Virginia!" Dad: "There's that terrible secret.") We got on a road about one and a half lanes wide, which wound slowly, almost imperceptibly upward until suddenly WHOAH, look at that DROP on the left, what a view! And then WHOAH, IT'S A DROP-OFF ON THE RIGHT SIDE, TOO! Without guardrails! And people sometimes coming the other way! And an inordinate number of motorcyclists! So then, just as we're really freaking a fair amount, the road narrows to one lane. Still no signs. Eventually, we reached a flat area with a burned out campfire, a half-hearted guardrail, and a lot of graffitti. Still no signs. Perhaps more peculiar, no sign of most of the motorcyclists who had passed us going up. There was one biker and his bike, alone - and there was really no other way down. They hadn't passed us the other way. :P Perhaps they had flying motorcycles.
Jon and I hiked around a little before taking the drive back down. We went to Coldstone, then dropped Jon off at his apartment and came home.