Southern Hospitality.
August 14th, 2006 by amylherzog
Virginia is in full bloom. This is my Saturday morning breakfast, prepared by our extremely talented and generous hosts Moses and Melissa. Aside from the bread, I think everything on that plate is local to Williamsburg and in season. Fresh-egg omelette with local oyster mushrooms that smelled oh my god good, fresh blackberries from the farmer’s market, tiny sun-gold tomatoes from their own garden. Everything was more delicious than I could possibly describe.
The air in Williamsburg smells alive, and everything is completely lush and green and in bloom. We had a wonderful relaxing weekend, despite an exceptionally cranky Jacob. (Sorry, M&M!) I figure either he’s working on his first-year molars, or a band of demons has taken residence in his mouth. Definitely one or the other.
Sunday Jacob was feeling better, and Moses treated us to freshly made pasta with tomato sauce and meatballs. Jacob was kind enough to help Jon with the meatballs.
After dinner, Melissa and I knit while the guys played board games.
And we had a gorgeous day of driving today, and now we’re in Charleston, WV. It’s really true, what they say. People are much friendlier in the South than in New England. Everywhere we’ve been people stop and smile and talk to us, give us advice, ask about the baby, and so forth. (Mental note: It’s time to give Jacob a haircut. He’s often mistaken for a girl now.)
A bustling and prosperous state West Virginia is not, however. When searching on the web for a mall to stop at for lunch/walk break, we were directed to the “Mallow Mall”. We were underwhelmed.
That’s a boarded-up Burger King, there. Niiiiiiiice. Fortunately, a little further down the highway we found an Applebee’s and had a good lunch. It was right next to a Walmart Supercenter, so we even got to walk Jacob somewhere other than outside in the 90-plus degree heat.
So if you want to shop, don’t come to West Virginia. The countryside is gorgeous, however.
The road trip is officially going pretty well. Our strategy is to start off early so that Jacob can catch a long nap in the car, take a mini-break at a rest stop (where he can play on the grass), drive a little further to a mall or other place we can take a long break for lunch, wear him out at lunch, and hop back on the road for another long stretch while he naps again. Then another rest stop break in the afternoon and some tv (courtesy of Nancy’s portable DVD player) as we finish our drive. Jacob absolutely loves the rest stop breaks, because he gets to run around.
Today, we got to the hotel around 4pm which was great, because the hotels are definitely Jacob’s favorite part of the whole experience. Every time we come into a new hotel he gets this huge grin on his face, makes little laughing-hooting noises and crawls as fast as he can around the room, pulling himself up on everything he can.
And for those who were wondering, Jacob has begun to walk. Only a few steps at a time, but at this point he’s done 3 steps perhaps a dozen times and it’s fairly easy to get him to try it. We’re hoping that he doesn’t begin racing around until after we reach California. Wish us luck!
Hope you’re all happy and well, and we’ll see you tomorrow night in Evansville, IN.