Category Archives: Travel

Virginia Trip, Day 4…..

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As I think I explained, this trip was family-time heavy. The State Plaza Hotel is a pleasant place and Hubby did take his camera and walk extensively yesterday to get down to the Mall and some of the monuments. I had work to do plus make sure the logistics for the evening were on track. I walked the five blocks to the Founding Farmers restaurant to see how their delivery timing was and had a light lunch as we would be eating dinner very early. Across the street from them was a place where I should have had lunch. Duke’s Grocery and Pub looked really interesting and I almost did go in there first, but waited until after. They definitely have more a sandwich-type menu and were not what we were looking for from a dinner perspective, yet had at least three great-sounding sandwiches. Anyway, Founding Farmers is part of a regional chain that started up in Minnesota (or somewhere like that) and has grown into three or four different versions. Founding Farmers | A Farmer Owned Restaurant (wearefoundingfarmers.com)

They use Door Dash for their main delivery and it worked perfectly. Mini cheeseburgers and fries for granddaughter, fried chicken salad for daughter-in-law, slow roasted pork chop for me, shrimp and grits for Hubby. I knew son would be starving after the very long day so ordered him the honey-thyme roasted chicken to have late. (Thanks for  invention of the microwave)

The dance program was the longest and most complex in the tribute to Bowen-McCauley’s 25 years. There were also a presentation from the State of Virginia for her/their contributions to arts and community outreach. I’ve previously explained Lucy was the first to adapt Dance for Parkinsons therapy in this area. She had mentioned she was going to continue with the program through another venue. What she didn’t know was the founder of the program from New York coordinated with the Kennedy Center for the program to continue there. He came on stage and made the announcement as part of acknowledging Lucy. By the way, in the string of accolades, she said she would not be making a speech. She thanked everyone and said she was  “an emotional wreck”. Closing out 25+ years of your life usually does come with intense emotion. During the after-party gala, Lucy did speak with different people about selected projects (yet to be disclosed) she’ll be involved with.

Our friends from North Carolina were able to make the trip. Even though we weren’t able to have dinner together because of the timing situation, we did get caught up with them.  It was a little after 11:00 when we headed to the hotel, then a bit for unwinding. Breakfast at the hotel at 9:00 this morning to let everyone sleep in for a bit. We’ll see how the trip home goes.

Virginia Trip, Day 3……

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This was the long day, well – not as long as today will be – as a scheduling conflict meant we did extra “grandparent duty” instead of resetting into the hotel near the Kennedy Center. We did have a late morning business meeting, then discovered an interesting place not too far away. The Blue Iguana featured a mix of Southwest theme, yet a slight Cajun flair as well as standard fare. Good food, enjoyable ambience and of course there are lots of craft beers in the area. We came on into the city for yet another new experience as we are staying at the State Plaza Hotel very near the Kennedy Center. It’s sort of a “boutique” hotel which is also close to the Foggy Bottom Metro station. Unfortunately, they are only serving breakfast instead of the usual full service bistro with a bar. This affects us for tonight as well, but more of that tomorrow.

Anyway, we got semi-settled and returned to Falls Church for the experience of picking granddaughter up from school as they still don’t have enough drivers to resume bus service. There were no great academic first-grade achievements to report and we made it back to the condo for a round of “Minecraft” with Grandpa. Not that he’s skilled in the game, although he did manage to maneuver a bit with practice. We later were given a tour of the property – a short tour considering the size – then walked over for dinner at the nearby Dogfish Ale restaurant. Wood grilling is their signature in addition to craft beers even though I did opt for crab cake again. Hubby had salmon and we did take wood grilled pizza back for mom. Then it was ice cream at home followed by curling up on the sofa with Grandpa to read two books. The change into nightshirt came next with only a little while Mom made it home about 8:30 and bedtime. Son was still at tech rehearsal, not expected in for at least an hour.

Virginia Trip, Day 2…..

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Okay, it was a pleasant park we took granddaughter to while the kids went to see whatever that latest Marvel Comic movie is; apparently lots of great special effects. The Dogwood Tavern last night was very nice; the kind of place that has something for just about every taste. That included some Cajun dishes so Hubby had shrimp and grits. The sauce was excellent and he said the dish was delicious. I did a build-a-burger with blackening seasoning, bacon, caramelized onions and Monterey Jack cheese. Son did almost the same except smoky gouda. Daughter-in-law did a tuna poke bowl and granddaughter has basic grilled cheese. There was the warm brownie sundae shared for dessert. In a moment of amusement, granddaughter has at least temporarily become enamored of another nearby restaurant, The Beach Shack. Daughter-in-law thought it was too close to what we usually get, however, there is one difference. I think I have mentioned previously that despite great seafood around us, almost no one does crab cakes well. If it is one culinary items you can be assured of in this area, it’s crab cakes. We will, however, forgo key lime pie for dessert.

Tomorrow is going to be a bit tricky as we will be picking granddaughter up from school because mom has to work late and dad will be stuck at the Kennedy Center in tech rehearsal. We don’t mind of course although we were supposed to re-set to hotel near the Kennedy Center tomorrow so won’t be able to get there until pushing 10:00 p.m. Ah well, it’s for a worthy cause.

Virginia Trip, Day 1…..

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Okay, flight out of MIA had a few delays, but not too bad. Airport services are definitely better than last year although still not back to pre-COVID. The Centurion Lounge was open with less seating, although we did get settled. The lack of logic of course is the “social distancing” everywhere, then you sit in coach virtually shoulder-to-shoulder. Anyway, we meet the kids this evening for dinner and are taking granddaughter tomorrow so mommy and da can have a date day.

Hampton Inn for the first two nights is nice, also with some limits. Indoor pool is open though. Plan for tomorrow is take granddaughter to one of her favorite parks in morning, lunch wherever, then pool in afternoon. It will be me again so Hubby can relax with football. NASCAR X-Finity is on right now, Cup is tonight. With us dining early, he’ll get to watch the latter part of the race back here. We’re meeting the kids at a place we haven’t been to before, the Dogwood Tavern. Menu is not extensive, yet looks good and Hubby may have a hard time choosing. They have shrimp and grits which I suspect is the way he will go. Several really nice beers on tap to include a porter. Report to follow tomorrow.

On a more serious note, our route from the airport did bring us past the Pentagon, and as with MIA, there was a notable local and state police presence. Many of you who follow this blog know we were in D.C. on 9/11. Hubby was scheduled to go with a few others to the Pentagon that morning for a meeting. They were gathered before going over discussing what they would be presenting when word came in of the attacks. My sister was visiting from Houston and I was taking her to Baltimore for her flight home. We didn’t have the TV on or the radio in the car and so didn’t hear until we were on the way up and she called her office to check on something she was scheduled to do the next day. It took her three days I think it was to be able to arrange a flight back.

Does It Belong In A Museum?……

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An interesting conversation the other day. I think I’ve mentioned Hubby and I don’t watch much network TV and prefer cable. Movies, BBC series, and the “Discover” family of channels  are mostly it for us although we don’t have the streaming and we stay with HGTV, Food, Science, etc. One of the shows  is “Dino Hunters” which is what it sounds like. There are a couple of different teams who look for fossils, but for profit, not academic/museum purposes. That led to the discussion about private collectors. I am a big believer in  museums – public as often as possible for the sake of those who can’t afford entrance fees. We certainly don’t mind paying and of course make donations when we are in one that charges no or small fees. The fact is most museums that have been established for any length of time have far more in their collections than can be put on display. If they have the resources, they can have appropriate storage and research areas that can be jaw dropping at times in their scope. If, however, space is limited, they may have to turn down items or prioritize and divest certain items to take something in they consider more important.

That leads to the question of does a private collector “deprive” museums of something that should be on public display? No doubt that is true at times; which then leads to the question of how many dinosaur bones does a museum need? (since we’re talking about this show) I’ll agree if it is a species they don’t have, that might make a difference. If they already have a velociraptor – or two or three; why not let a private collector enjoy one if they have the space and money? I suppose the actual “downside” of private collectors is they may contribute to black marketing of artifacts instead of going to legitimate dealers.

Undersea at Jules Again….

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I did a post back when a girlfriend won a lunch-time session at Jules Undersea Lodge in Key Largo. It was a fun and interesting experience. For those who may be new to the blog, Jules Lagoon is the only place in Key Largo where the open water part of scuba classes can be taught when weather keeps boats off the reefs. (https://jul.com/) It’s actually a complex with multiple segments/functions and the “Underwater Hotel” was originally a research habitat in Puerto Rico. The only way to access it is to dive and enter by the “Moon Pool”. You carry everything you need to change into in water proof bags and yes, that’s how meals are delivered.

The “Hotel” itself was closed during COVID although the lagoon stayed open for training purposes with the same kind of protocols as were used for other outdoor venues. As with many places forced to close, they used the time to make improvements and/or come up with ideas for changes once they re-opened. Hubby went down a few weeks ago to take photos and get an update on the plans. He’s written the article for the paper and it will run sometime soon.

One point discussed was whether to continue to bill it as a “hotel” or try to market it instead as a “habitat”. Even though you do have to dive to get to it, for someone only interested in the novelty of the idea, spending a single day and night will probably provide as much novelty as desired. The public area is nicely set up with small kitchen, dining table, couches, TV complete with DVD player and WiFi. There are snacks and non-alcoholic beverages, too. Naturally, there are wide windows to look out into the lagoon. For someone considering a Habitat stay though, they might want to do something like cataloging all the marine life they see over a couple of days. The shallow depth allows for extended dive time and night diving is especially easy. Different creatures are nocturnal and that makes an interesting addition. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a fan of night diving, but Jules would be an exception.

On the other hand, I don’t actually expect us to go do this since Hubby has to dive there so often.

Variability of Visibility In Scuba…..

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I was able to make my March dive although I did cut it close being the 29th. Hubby has been working multi-day stretches as it’s the time of year with “rolling spring breaks” where different parts of the country take off at different times. It’s always popular to dive here then, and of course some overseas destinations not yet open. That means divers who might go to the Caribbean are opting for Key Largo. Since Easter is early this year, that also means there will be divers and snorkelers who specifically want to go to the Christ of the Abyss site. I’ve posted before that it’s one of several statues placed underwater by the Cressi family in honor of I think it was a son who died. (They’re a big name in scuba equipment). I’ve forgotten how many statues there are, but it is a concrete robed figure on a rectangular pedestal with his arms outstretched upward set at about 20 feet deep. It’s used on many underwater ads for the area and is something to be seen. The drawback is because of being shallow and such a popular site, it’s usually crowded and often low visibility, as well as surge (which rocks you back and forth and can cause sediment to be kicked up reducing the visibility even more). Additionally, the actual reefs around it aren’t very good from a marine life perspective. Anyway, several people on the boat yesterday were hoping for the statue, but reports were poor visibility so Captain D broke the news and took us to one of the outer reefs.

Although the water is still cool, the visibility was excellent on both dives.  Since I didn’t see the small goldentail eel tucked into the rocks, there was nothing extra special for me. However, there were plenty of fish to include some of my favorites and a couple of older conch shells that had lost their colors. Even so, they still have the distinctive shape.

Juvenile Spotted Drum

No French Dressing in France….

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I’ve written before about me being a “picky eater” according to some and growing up with basic Southern fare in small towns where ethnic cuisines simply weren’t available. Something like pizza wasn’t really on-hand either and that wasn’t something we had at home. In fact, I had my first slice a couple of months before my seventeenth birthday when I was at the summer school in Quebec. It was of course France in my senior year of high school where I was introduced to many different items even though I was no where as adventuresome as a number of my classmates. Our dining arrangements did mean I often had group meals which is how I ate duck and horse. In these cases as you can imagine, I frequently had extra bread or cheese and soup was usually a first course. An interesting note is that vegetable soup in France is not what we generally think of, but is instead a creamy soup of vegetables pureed and cooked with stock. It is delicious. As for salad dressing, oil and vinegar on the table was most likely or a light vinaigrette. They do not have what we call French dressing and I truly don’t know where that comes from. I was also introduced to a few Moroccan dishes. My first Indian curry was on a trip to England. Oddly enough my first time in a Chinese restaurant was much later in Germany as two of my peers discovered I’d never been in one.

German food does tend to be heavier than French, although similar ingredients are used in their preparations and no, I never developed a taste for sauerkraut. I was glad to learn about white radishes. The multiple variations of pork schnitzel were as much a comfort food as you could ask for, too. Germany was also where I truly learned about wines as I was still being a good Baptist when I lived in France.

Too Complicated for Me…….

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My friend Richie Kohler called the other day and wanted me to take a quick look at an article he had due to the scuba magazine, “Alert Diver”. He just needed another set of eyes for “Hazards in Wreck Diving”. As usual with his writing, it was well done. It also brought to mind the whole recreational diving and technical diving. A quick detour though into scuba.

From the 1950s through at least the 1970s scuba was pretty much an extreme sport due to rudimentary equipment. As more people joined in and developed  increasingly sophisticated equipment with the idea of making it a mainstream kind of water activity it changed considerably. Yes, during training you focus on the safety aspects and how to handle emergencies, but with the right equipment properly maintained and following normal precautions, it’s a safe sport. Now though is where you diverge into two paths. Recreational diving (with no decompression) means you dive to 130 feet or less. But if you dive much below 50 feet when you start to surface, you do a “safety stop” where you hang at 15-20 feet for 3-5 minutes to allow the nitrogen gas in your body to dissipate. This is the primary precaution against decompression sickness (the “bends”). Since how deep you go also impacts how quickly you use air and therefore how long you can stay on a dive, most people will not go below 80 or 90 feet for long and 50-70 feet lets you have nearly an hour of diving. It so happens the reefs around Key Largo are shallow at like 30-40 feet with the deeper dives on the wrecks. This is the kind of diving I do.

Since there will always be those who “want more” in any sport, technical diving requires specialized equipment and training that allows a diver to go deeper than 130 feet and get into what are now decompression dives. So, if a diver goes to say 200 feet, he or she has to calculate “decompression stops” as part of the dive time. That means stopping multiple times on the way up for a designated number of minutes in order to allow the nitrogen to dissipate. (This is also referred to as off-gassing). Notwithstanding the fact guys like Richie, quite a few of my friends, to include Hubby get into this, it is simply way more complicated than I want to mess with.

When Willing To Pay A Little More….

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This is one of those fun things to hear. I may actually have previously posted about this  but if so, it’s been a while. As I have discussed before, I am not into spending money for the sake of doing so and those times when I have bought a “luxury car”, it has been a pre-owned, low-mileage one. The same goes for dining. Yes, we can afford the really high end places for special occasions, but quite frankly, we don’t care to special the extra money to encounter the attitude that too often comes with those.

On the other hand, there are times when spending extra is worth it, especially when it does support a small business. As we came back up from Islamorada this afternoon we heard an ad on the radio for a second location for Key Largo Chocolates.The couple that opened the store are hard working and have established a business that is pure, 100% discretionary. No one actually needs specialty chocolates.To succeed in such a business is impressive enough, but to be able to open a second store with everything going on right now – how great is that? Their secret isn’t really secret; it’s making this work the old fashioned way. They started with an excellent product of hand crafted chocolates. I won’t list the many types because you would start drooling. Yes, they cost extra, but they are fabulous. They added more kinds and create novelty shapes. Then they added an ice cream section. Apparently they also offer cakes now although it has been a while since I was in. They market well and attend many big public events as vendors.

A few years ago when my cousin brought her daughters down, she commented about wanting to get something special to take back for the lady who was looking after their dogs/checking on the house. I explained I knew just the thing. They were, of course, captivated and purchased a box as the present as well as some for themselves. Halfway back to our house my cousin remarked that perhaps she should have doubled up on what they bought.

It’s https://keylargochocolates.com and yes, they do ship.