GarysBlog: April 2012

Our driving route(click, takes a few sec to unfold)
..... a few photos on google picasa taken with with new Nikon L120

Apr 16 sunny 30C, for an 8 hr drive Strasburg PA, ...left home at 8am, took about 9 hours due to delay at border and a wrong direction near Harrisburg. Border crossing was pretty routine, guard checked the trunk. Clarion in Strasburg PA is a better class motel, and dinner: spinach/crab flat bread pizza in the adjacent Fireside tavern.

April 17) In Amish region, saw a plough pulled by 8 horses (two teams of 4),....before setting off 223Km to Welbourne Inn(link) near Middleburg Va. Dinner at Hunters lodge, lamb stew ... not that good.

April 18, rainy cold miserable... so no cycling likely, .... considered going to Washington just 66 minutes away, but weaseled out. Tonight was the Welbourne in-house meal, prepared by the staff, baked chicken mac and cheese, apple crumble, .. good.

April 19, pretty nice day 74.7 km, especially nice in afternoon. Dinner was a picnic(at dining table) where volunteers went to town to buy BBQ cicken coleslaw at Safeway, and three bakery pies,.... the lemon crumble was very good

April 20, also a nice sunny day, but transferred to Staunton, a two hour 15 min drive, stopped at a Costco in Harrisonburg to compare, ... seem to have lots of different stuff, .....bought a pair of noise cancelling headphones (with the thought of that long flight to Istanbul coming up. Bought gas at Costco, $3.66/gal or .96/liter

April 21 the thunderstorms may come later, but as of 3PM it was still nice, 74F, did a 65 km ride. Tonight is the preplanned dinner, at an Mediterranean restaurant associated with the hotel Ailoli,... had seafood paella, was exceptional, not the usual gob of rice, but rather all carefully placed 3 scallops, 4mussels, 6 shrimp etc. Merguese lamb sausage as appetizer, ... one of the best meals ever!. Watched 'Survivor ' of Apr18 on my netbook, ...sort of embarrassed to say.

April 22 rainy and cold ... much ado: ... though the headphones seemed nice (quality feel), the AA didn't slide in easily, so I force-pushed it in, and the power wouldn't go on, and the AA wouldn't come out, and worse I couldn't find the receipt, ... shit. But it's a cold and rainy day, so dove back the 35 min to Costco Harrisonburg, ..and they looked up my card and saw it was purchased, and gave me the money back. I went to buy another and asked the salesman to test the new one, same problem. ... so I didn't buy. Had seen a Nikon L120 Friday and after thinking about it for 2 days, ... bought it 21x zoom, mostly because my Canon (while I like it) is getting a bit flaky (lens opening issues).

April 23 onto Scottsville, cold and rainy. Before leaving spent a couple hours in Staunton, visiting the Woodrow Wilson museum, the drove over Blueridge range (northbound close/weather), and onto Scottsville (pop:500), James River Inn, built for Secret Service, fairly remote. No wifi.... watched Notebook then Slingblade(again)... both good movies.

April 24 Sunny day coolish, didn't cycle till11:00 AM, yellow route about 60 km, ..ended up mostly by myself

April 25, Sunny and warmer, cycled blue route with Penny and Geraldine, 50 km, toward Walton mountain, and then drove to Meander Inn in Locust Dale (my favorite place), 1 hr 10min, wifi is back. Dinner was asparagus soup, filet mignon, choc mousse, .. all very good. Got email notified by Turkish Airlines about flight changes, (fairly slight) and used Gmail chat to call the 888 number to accept...worked quite well.

April 26, fancy schmantzy breakfast (took an hour) but since raining in the AM, drove, 15 min, to Culpeper, saw nothing of interest at Target, but bought 7 impressive minor things at 50% discount (leather iPad case, RL underwear, Polo golf shirt, etc ) at TJ Max. Also went to the "Bike Stop" store, .... nothing of interest.

April 27 nice sunny day (a bit cool), 4 of us on a 74.3 km on a route northeast of Rapidan... with a diversion at the end to the sheepmilk cheese factory that the host had suggested (run by an 80year old coroner).

April 28 (Saturday) was a mostly cloudy cold day so decided to go to Washington DC, and Christine accompanied me. Spent about 4 hours visiting the Capitol, saw a short film, and a guided tour of the senate, house of Reps, the Crypt, etc, then Library of Congress, .. then walked to the Canadian Embassy (... impressive). The drive onto Winchester was rather congested, took an extra hour, or so. Glad I made good use of the day. Group had already decided to leave a day early (Sunday).... unpleasant weather.

Satisfaction ranking (overall personal, very subjective):

2010..... a "7" out of 10
2011..... an "8", (several 90+F days)
2012..... a "6" ( too cool/rainy for my liking)

..... a few photos on picasa taken with with new Nikon L120

link to favorite inn, Meander Inn in Locust Dale
another,(nothing sassy pecial): FrederickHouse in Staunton