Oh, and sorry about it being so wordy but sometimes i just can't help it.
GETTING THERE
I woke up on friday with a sore throat but I thought it was just my normal sinus related sore throat. Nope. I officially have a cold. The day I'm scheduled to leave I get sick...God really does have a sense of humor doesn't he? Anyway, our flight on Friday wasn't until 11:25 so all day Friday we putzed around with errands and such and dropping of the dog, etc. We got to airport fine, we get on our flight and take off fine, no prob. Now, for those of you out there that stumbled on this blog by accident or divine intervention, whatever, and don't know me, I'm not by any stretch of the word a "petite" woman. I have a rather wide and expansive butt. When I sit down it covers a good 20 or 22 inches from hip to hip. Airline seats are 17" wide. this makes for a very uncomfortable 5 hour flight. Put that together with sitting in an emergency exit aisle where the armrests don't go up (but bonus, lots of leg room) and a redeye flight and, my friends, you have a recipe for, ok not disaster really more like pain and agony and lots of it. I also have a very sensitive tail bone so by the time we fly into Dulles in DC I can no longer sit.
We're told to go to gate c27 for our connecting flight to Richmond so we hoof it on over and while I stay with the bags my sister goes to check the monitor to see if our flight is on time...nope. Cancelled. huh? how? what the?? Okaaaaay we go to customer service and find out that the next flight isn't until 12:30 and it's 7:30 (4:30 my time...shouldn't I be asleep right now?). As we're standing in line we find out from the guy in front of us that he's been trying to get to Richmond for the last 28 hours. He slept in the airport overnight cuz twice they cancelled his flight, this was his third. So we all decide to rent a car and just drive because it's only a two hour drive from DC to Richmond. So after much phone calling and haggling Al (our new friend) finds a car for $103 and it's being put on his corporate account so none of us actually has to pay any dough out of our own pockets...thank God for corporate accounts! We convince the nice lady at the desk, Renee, to get someone to get our bags from the pile waiting to go to Richmond and off we go. Luckily, Al lives in the area so he knows all the short cuts and such so we make good time and get to Richmond before the plane in DC is scheduled to take off. AWESOME!! Take that you stupid United Airlines (except for Renee)!
There's Al and April. They're smiling cuz this pic was taken in Richmond, not DC...no smiles then, that's for sure.
DAY ONE
So we say good bye to Al and we go off to drive around the city. Here're a few pics of that adventure...
This is Virginia's capital building. Very pretty!
This statue has a bunch of important historical figures on it. I don't really feel like elaborating...fading fast, must take nap and dayquil.
I don't know what this is but it's cool looking.
After we left the big city we went and visited a couple planations (there's about 12 billion here). The first one is called Shirley and has been owned by the same family since it was built in the 1700's they're on their 13th generation...I find that amazing. There's a connection to Robert E. Lee in the family also. The second one is called Berkeley and it was owned by the Harrisons, as in Signer-of-the-Declaration Benjamin Harrison and President William Henry Harrison. Both have a whole butt load of history behind them and the tours were very interesting but the best thing about them was actually the grounds themselves - absolutely beautiful. Check 'em out...
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Then it started to rain...
so we headed off to our campground where we're staying in a cabin...
and I conked out for the night. And that was day one. More later.
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