On Friday, 9 August 2013, Janice and I took a JetBlue flight from Boston’s Logan Airport to Dulles in Virginia. We met my parents, whose birthdays were both that week. I hadn’t seen them since attending a cousin’s wedding in Chicago back in February.
It was nice to catch up with my parents on our extended family worldwide, current politics, and history and art. We had dinner at the fancy Blue Rock Inn, and while it rained the next day, we enjoyed lunch at the Griffin Tavern and dinner at Graves’ Mountain Lodge, where we’ve been going for 30 years.
In addition, we stopped by the some farm stands, the River District Arts gallery, and the Rappahannock Library Book Barn. At night, we watched some Detective De Luca, a mystery TV series taking place in World War II Italy, on MHz Networks.
That Sunday, we visited my brother and his wife and children in Northern Virginia. We stopped at a massive Wegmans on the way. My brother’s newly expanded porch was impressive, as were the massive hamburgers from the grill. It was a brief weekend visit, but I look forward to seeing my family again around the holidays.
On Friday, Aug. 16, Janice and I drove to rural Pennsylvania for her cousin’s wedding. On the way, we stopped at Rein’s Deli for sandwiches piled high with thinly sliced meats. We had heavy traffic most of the way down, but we got to Allentown around the same time as Janice’s folks. We had dinner at Fegley’s Brew Works, an upscale pub.
Despite dramas around divorces, midlife and adolescent angst, and Janice’s parents’ move from Upstate New York to Florida, everyone had a good time. Kristy and Shawn’s wedding that Saturday went smoothly, and it was nice to see Janice’s extended family at the reception.
We drove home on Sunday, stopping by the Vernon Diner in Connecticut for yet another filling meal. I’ll have to work off all that good food this week, although munchies at the latest games and discovering that Yangtze River in Lexington, Mass., has a dinner buffet are conspiring against me.
Gene's Worlds 