Nomads, Long Beach 2, CA (9/24/2023)

Welcome to my second posting that discusses our visit to the Long Beach and Los Angeles area. As of the writing today (9/24/2023), we finished with the trip to the aquarium and the yarn store (the Alamitos Bay Yarn Company). Donna was impressed by the wool store (they had some rare Dutch wool); and honestly the aquarium wasn’t bad. I have been to a few other aquariums and in my opinion the one in Baltimore is still the best; however, this one was absolutely good. The nice thing was that it concentrated its effort on the Pacific and had a lot of touch and feel stuff for kids. However, despite its great quality, it somehow conveyed its age (25 years-old).

We visited the Rancho Los Alamitos. This was a great place housing one of the oldest ranches on the west coast. We had a history talk and then wandered through the gardens. I was blown away by the Morton Bay fig (Ficus macrophylla) trees. These trees were enormous and had an impressive root base. We loved walking from the rose garden to the vegetable garden. Eventually we popped into a desert type garden, ending up in a more native garden with an artificial stream. It felt that we eventually needed to be kicked out because it was nearing closing time.

It blew me away on how may restaurants there were in the area. So what did we eat? Indonesian, Japanese (ramen), (south) Indian, Chinese, Korean (tofu soup), Cambodian and of course contemporary American. Moreover, we had some magnificent donuts; there are a lot of Asian owned donut stores in the area. I mentioned in my previous post, that we encountered a few (13 or 15) between the home and the church where the ordination took place. The most exotic was the Cambodian fermented fish stew that I had for dinner. Our daughter told us that many people she talks with never cook, but only eat out. I can believe it. There are so darn many different restaurants in the area, that I think you can eat out every day of the year within a 10-mile radius of where they live and never visit a place more than once.

General impressions? The area where the kids lived is very ethnically mixed. But they spoke about Cambodian, Mexican and other street gangs. There are a lot of Taco stands (legal and pop ups, most probably entrepreneurs that run a taco stand without a health department permit), and indication to me that some folks are probably unemployed and are earning a living this way and that the area is thriving. Here I am only guessing, but a taco stand beats being homeless, which we were constantly reminded of. On both sides of the block where my daughter lives had a homeless camp or at least a place where two or three homeless were living. One group had a children’s play pen. I did not see a kid in it, but I did not look very long, not wanting to be accused of staring. It just reminded me that children can also be homeless, no matter what age they are. I wrote a little about homelessness in my previous post. Finally, the smog. We did not experience it or were not bothered by it, but only noticed it when we drove into and away from the area.

A little more about the homelessness. Of course we saw the occasional person who missed out on admission to a mental institution, maybe a few illegal alien, entrepreneurs who can make more money panhandling than holding a regular job, or what might appear as a drug addict; however, I am sure that I was also running into folks who had been kicked out of their rental home or apartment because they could not keep up with the rising rental rates, or lost their jobs. I find it difficult to distinguish amongst them all and it is therefore difficult deciding who legitimately deserves a handout and who is going to abuse it. In other words, it is so difficult to show empathy and compassion. I am therefore trying to do that in this blog and make you all aware of it and show compassion and love for mankind. I do not believe we are being overtaken by homelessness, but this is a sign of what politicians argue about but do not want to compromise to everybody’s detriment. I’ll leave it at that for today, but let's resolve to be a little bit kinder and understanding towards each other.

At Los Ranchos Alomitos

At the rancho

The homeless behind our daughter's townhouse

At the yarn store

No mass shooting in Fredericksburg (4/17/2023)

“No mass shooting today!” Those were the first words I dared to say to my wife when I called her this past Tuesday night from my hotel room in Fredericksburg. We just had another one the day before, now in Louisville. I had driven to Fredericksburg the day before, and that Monday evening I eventually had to turn the TV off. I had enough of it! It was so depressing; I did not even go out for dinner. I bought a tray of cheeses, nuts, and cranberries to snack on, a kombucha, and a four pack of beer (oatmeal raisin cookies porter) at Wegmans. So, when I got to my room at around 5:30, I had the kombucha and by 7 pm I had my cheese tray and a beer. Life was too depressing to go out and somehow enjoy myself in a restaurant.

I had set out with grand ideas of where I was going for dinner, but good plans are there to be squashed by a nut with an assault rifle and I just did not feel like celebrating my last visit to that town. Instead, I wrote the draft for the report on my Wytheville visit.

I actually enjoyed the cheese. It somewhat reminded me of my hitchhiking days though the northwestern part of France. I did that the year I decided to drop out of high school and somehow snuck into college. Crazy to think about it. This high school dropout somehow weaseled his way into college and eventually ended up earning a Ph.D. But I still think fondly about my trip to Dieppe, France, and the surrounding countryside. Yup, the long-term memory is the last thing to go, or so they say!

Back to Fredericksburg. I had two classes there with only 15 people in each. It is nice to be able to go more one-on-one. Moreover, I am finding that I have been going more off on tangents, embellishments lately. Oh, I am not lying at all, but I like to tell stories and maybe reminiscing is a better word. I have become more nostalgic these past weeks. It makes me wonder, is it old age, or is it my way of saying goodbye? Oh my, that is what I have been doing in this goodbye series as well, haven’t I? My blog posts have mellowed.

To continue, the next days, breakfast was at Panera’s and at the hotel (Hilton), and lunch was at a Taste on Spice (Indian) and again at Panera’s. The hotel breakfast is way too expensive for what you get, and I will not do it again. For the rest no complaint.

The one dinner I had was at a local brewery (6 Bears and a Goat) and it was not bad. Service was terribly slow. When I visit a place, I prefer a table or a booth instead of eating at the bar. I had to wait 15 minutes to get service, then another 15 to 20 minutes to get two samplers and another 10 to get my beer. However, then I ordered food, and it was there in 5 minutes. No time to finally enjoy my beer, or multiple. I decided to order dessert (ice cream); that took another 25 minutes, which got me worried it had melted under the heating lamp in the kitchen. However, I could at least have a coffee stout as a second beer for dessert. The menu told me it came in 5 and 12 once servings, but they waitress told me that the menu was wrong and forced me to order a 12 once stout. Considering the wait time for the ice cream, this was not a bad idea. Suffice it to say, while I usually tip 20 to 22%, this time I tipped only 18%. While the beer and food were decent, the service was off, the place was probably way understaffed.

As I mentioned above, the classes I teach are becoming different. Folks wish me happy retirement. Some applaud, I get handshakes, and even hugs. Folks tell me that they are going to miss me, that I am the best teacher they ever had. I take it all in stride, with a grain of salt. It is all very nice to hear; but soon I’ll be forgotten. However, I will not forget my time with this program, my teaching and hopefully some of the good I have been doing for the environment.

I have been fascinated by Walmart parking lots lately.  Now I own a camper and we plan to go across the country once we retire, stopping over in a Walmart parking lot is an option.  Even here in this somewhat upscale shopping area it seems that Walmart allows people to camp out.  This is great since there are nice restaurants nearby, the Panera, Starbucks, and restrooms for early mornings.

And the travel goes on, Wytheville (4/14/2023)

Things are increasingly winding down. They are going so fast, that the post for my last trip was written while watching television and drinking either coffee in my motel room or a beer at a brewery in Wytheville. I guess the final touches to this post will come in a brewery at my next stop, Fredericksburg. I am really starting to wonder why I did this to myself; I knew I was retiring, and I should have kept it easy the last year.

Oh well, I wanted to go out with a big bang. But man, retirement is going to feel good and deserved. Less than two months to go.

It is all bitter sweet, Wytheville, the town of last week’s visit, didn’t feel like usual. It felt like I had already distanced myself from the town I actually like a lot. I tried to visit some of the old haunts for that pop-psychology word “closure.” However, it just seemed that the restaurant choice for the first night did not seem as good as I remembered.

The Log Cabin was busy for a Monday evening; however, the meal I got was tasteless and the salad seemed to have been thrown together with little attention. I had a south of the border pork roast which tasted anything but south of the border, it had raw onions in it, which were distracting. For vegetable I ordered a stuffed squash, which turned out to be a limp half zucchini with some stuff in it. The only redeeming part were the French fries. But the desert and coffee were good.

Lunch on both days were at my favorite Chinese restaurant (Peking), day one was great, but my second day meal choice was somewhat disappointing. I usually switch between the Chinese restaurant and the Mexican place down the street. However, that place was closed, shut down forever. On further investigation it seems that one of the owners had died and that was it!

The beer at my favorite brewery (Seven Sisters) was still great, but the place was still empty, and the food truck would not be open both days I was there. So, off to the pizza joint (Moon Dog Brick Oven) the first day. That place is always good, no complaint there. My friends at the place I teach had told me about another Mexican restaurant in town which according to them was great, so I tried it the second evening. It is located in the Walmart shopping center and I wanted to look there anyway to see if folks were camping out in the parking lot with their campers. We have bought a small camper and are wondering if that would be an option for us, free camping at Walmart. Well, the restaurant (El Patio) was mediocre in my eyes. Oh well.

So, all together, maybe a bittersweet visit, maybe a good way to close out my 14 years of visiting Wytheville. Somewhat of a letdown. Not at all like my visit to Fairfax. But then maybe it’s good to be done with this part of my life very soon.  The best thing came at the end, on the way back I had a nice walk on the New River Trail.  I even found a good rock that I might be able to use for a root over rock planting for my bonsais.  

Seven Sisters Brewery.  Quiet at usual when I go there, but I had a chance to finidh my Fairfax blog while sipping some tasty brews, and then walking down the street for a nice pizza.

The Wallmart parking lot had a few campers already there.  I was scouting it out to see if it may work for us during our travels.

Just a picture on the New River Trail.  I love the shape of this tree.  Who knows?  A future bonsai design?

The redbuds were in full bloom on the New River Trail.  

Goodbye Fairfax (4/4/2023)

In one of my latest Facebook posts I quote the famous Anthony Bourdain:

"Eat at a local restaurant tonight. Get the cream sauce. Have a cold pint at 4 o’clock in a mostly empty bar. Go somewhere you’ve never been. Listen to someone you think may have nothing in common with you. Order the steak rare. Eat an oyster. Have a negroni. Have two. Be open to a world where you may not understand or agree with the person next to you, but have a drink with them anyways. Eat slowly. Tip your server. Check in on your friends. Check in on yourself. Enjoy the ride."

When he traveled, Bourdain had an entourage, camera men/women, a producer, sound and light engineers, makeup folks, etc. I travel alone. He was lonely. Now I am not depressed like him, not contemplating suicide, or anything like it. But yes, I am writing this in my motel room, again, from a different town, on my goodbye tour. I’ll write about that town (Wytheville) later in a next post. This post is meant to be about my visit to Fairfax and Falls Church two weeks ago.

But back to Bourdain for a paragraph. In Fairfax I was able to get together with an old friend at a local brewery and then have dinner at a local Thai restaurant (Sisters Thai) on the first day. On the second day I went to a local Whiskey tasting room/restaurant (MacMillan Whisky Room) and although I love my whiskeys and bourbons, I decided to have a Manhattan (or three) and a potpie. I closed that evening off with a coffee and gelato at a place next door (Dolcezza). I was a happy camper, both evenings.

The Thai restaurant, whiskey bar and the gelato place were all establishments I had never been before, so in a sense they qualify to what Bourdain was talking about. Meeting my friend as well, and then what happened at the whiskey bar. Let’s go into the details.

I was sitting at the bar, and the folks I sat next to soon moved away. A lady sat next to me with a book. I estimate she was in her early 50s and before I knew it, we had a fun discussion going on. We were talking about hiking, marathons (which she runs), social issues, whiskey, our backgrounds, our respective parents, and so forth. Just an enjoyable time. She ended up being a kindergarten teacher and when her husband travels, she tries different restaurants in the area. She had never been there. After an hour or so a guy sat next to us who tried to dominate the conversation talking about the book he wrote.

Eventually it was time to leave, and on our way out of the door, we both were going opposite ways, she told me: “Funny, I had fun talking to you, and to think I am an introvert, which is why I brought the book. So, I could hide in it, and I did not read a word.” If you are a regular reader of my blog, you should know, I call myself an introvert as well. We had a chuckle when I told her that as we split our ways and I went for my gelato and back to my hotel room; a very Bourdain experience.

My friend David and I grabbing a brew at the Cabous prior to going to dinner at the Thai Sisters in Fairfax.  We have been good friends for the past 15 or so years.

The goodbye tour continues, Lynchburg. (3/29/2023)

Last week’s Jan’s farewell tour brought me to Lynchburg. I have written so much about this town. I speculated about good old Jerry Falwell and his kinky hobby of watching his wife in bed with younger studs. I wrote about my secret perversion of watching young female students in skimpy outfits studying the bible at Panera’s or Starbucks. I wrote about my pain of visiting Lynchburg the day we had to put Jake the dog to sleep, my visit to a new hotel, and so on.

Lynchburg has been one of my richest subjects to write about in my blogs. In other words, traveling there, “what was there to write about?” Or so I thought. Please understand, I like this town, even though it is somewhat conservative, courtesy of Liberty University and its location in the center of the state. The downtown has a great vibe, some neat restaurants and two microbreweries to boot.

My first evening was somewhat boring. Google sent me the regular way and after checking into the hotel and a brief rest, I went to grab a beer a Starhill. This brewery serves great beer, but is just not very exciting to me. But I had to visit them since this was a goodbye trip.

Another must visit was Bootleggers. This is a sophisticated burger and bourbon joint with a nice view. Lynchburg has a boardwalk of sorts, high up with a view along which there are restaurants and apartments. Bootleggers is one of them. I noticed that huge burgers still turn my stomach after I consumed about half of one. It tasted great, but it is just too much. Beer selection was fair. Desert was great. A three-and-a-half-star place for me (out of five). It was a cold walk back to the hotel; some claimed it was the coldest evening of the winter.

The second day was more exciting, at least after teaching. I met a friend for beer. He had a thumb drive for me with pictures that I want to use for a presentation that I will be giving after my retirement. Well, he ran into a friend who had heard about me and literally greeted me with “Oh my god, so you are the famous Jan.” This gentleman used to be the director of public works in the area and all his staff had gone through my classes and mentioned me. He had now gotten an even more important position iin town. A little later another gentleman showed up who turned our the be the director of the school district. We just had a fun time sitting around the table drinking a brew and talking about different things.

Once the party was over, I stopped over at my favorite Japanese restaurant for a ramen dinner and just had a very satisfying late afternoon and dinner. It was a shame that my regular companion Doug who lives in town could not be there this time. He had to teach elsewhere. But I had fun. Just a good few days to remember the times I stayed in Lynchburg.

The view from my table at Bootleggers.

Charlottesville (3/10/2023)

This week’s goodbye tour took me to Charlottesville. It has been a while. Our previous scheduler always complained that Charlottesville was so expensive for us to stay at, moreover, it was thrown in the western region of the state on our schedule, and it showed that we were having too many classes out west. I always tried to argue that the town is very central and could pull in a lot of students from everywhere. Luckily our new scheduler, Lee was easy to convince.

Truthfully, I think I was correct, the class pulled in students from Woodstock (VA), Hampton, Richmond, Culpeper, Appomattox, and the region around Charlottesville. It was good to have folks in the class that I had not seen in a while.

The nice thing was that I had a social calendar while in town. Usually during my travels, I am alone, and since I am somewhat of an introvert, I do not mind eating on my own in a restaurant and being alone. I love to people watch, or even maybe talk with folks next to me. Some trips I make with my colleague Doug, who might take over some of my classes when I retire in June. However, while I was alone on this trip, I had people to meet and talk to. The first evening I met with old friends from Newport News who moved to Charlottesville some 7 years ago. Then the first day of classes the guys from Albemarle County invited me to go out to lunch with them. That evening I met an ex-colleague for dinner. The second (which was the last day) I had lunch with a colleague who was driving through town after her appearance in traffic court nearby. Wow, what a life for a loner introvert.

I just realized that I did not take any photographs in Charlottesville this time around, so this blog will become a restaurant/hotel review. I basically have two main hotel chain brands I stay at; one is the Holiday Inn and the other the Hilton. While the Hilton is more luxurious, I find that some of the Holiday Inn allow dogs in their hotels. Since we are dog owners and now, we are in the process on buying a conversion van and are considering some serious (semi) RV-ing, I need to accumulate hotel points in a chain that allows me to bring dogs. You get it, I stayed at the Holiday Inn near the I-64 interstate highway. I have always liked the place, and it has only gotten better, except it has also gotten more crowded. So crowded in fact that it was difficult to find a parking spot. Reading about boondockers or folks that travel in RVs from free-to-free sites, I am wondering if there were a few staying here in the parking lot. Folks were having charcoal grills lit in the back of their trucks and having fun. More power to them for not getting caught by the hotel staff, if that was the case.

So where did I eat (I am not going to report on breakfast)? In order:

• The Beer Run
• Bodo’s Bagels
• Chang Thai
• Durty Nelly’s Pub

They were all different and all pretty good for different reasons. The Beer Run was difficult to find for an out-of-towner like me. There was hardly any signage and the parking appeared below the building, which I never found in the dark. As you can expect, beer was plentiful, and my eyes went to chicken pot pie. This was more or less a deconstructed chicken pot pie, but nonetheless very good. While their draft beer selection was decent, their bottled and canned beer selection was out of this world. When I mentioned to locals in my class that I ate there the night before, many told me that next time I need to try the nachos and the stout infused brownies.

I had eaten at Bodo’s before and it is still great, service is fast. I had their lox bagel. My only complaint is that it was messy. The cream cheese was a little runny.

Chang Thai was great. It appears to be a relatively new place. I actually have photographs of an inspection I did of the place when it was under construction. Good service, good food, at least what my friend and I had. I am a duck basil fanatic, so I could not skip that when I found it on the menu. They allowed us to sit there for two hours and catch up. No pressure.

Durty Nelly’s is something else. You step into the place, and it is dark. When your eyes get used to the place you figure out that it is a dive bar. The music of the day was some good old-fashioned blues: Howlin’ Wolf, Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and alike. I was in heaven. I had a Reuben, and truthfully, it was so-so to OK, but one day, a few days after I am still alive. I got fed and I can tell you it was good. I would love to go back for a beer and just hang. The food was fair, but maybe dinner is better.

Again, no photographs this time, but all places I would go back to and visit again when I return to Charlottesville. But then there are so many other restaurants to try in this great town.

The goodbey tour begins, Virginia Beach (3/6/2023)

As I mentioned in my previous post, in-person teaching and travel season has started in earnest. This past week I was in Virginia Beach for the last time in my long career as an instructor for the State. It wasn’t even time to revisit the old haunts, instead I tried a few new things. One was a disappointment (Harpoon Larry’s) and one was a rousing success (Gringos Taqueria).  The first night I had a beer or two at the Smartmouth Brewery at the beach which makes good beer.  I was also looking forward to the pizza by the Bakehouse located in the brewery; however, this time they disappointed me by burning my pizza.  But overall, I enjoyed being out there again, doing my thing.

I have written a few posts about Virginia Beach in the past, ranging from complaining how folks don’t pay attention to their surroundings and just sit there or walk staring at their phones instead of enjoying the ocean front, to a discussion about the shooting at the municipal building a few years ago. That shooter actually was a colleague of mine 20 some years ago when I worked in the area.

I know Virginia Beach relatively well, so it is always fun to return, and see what is going on. What has changed, what stayed the same. Talk about old friends and colleagues (no murderers please).

Sorry for the short post.  Hope you like the restaurant and brewery reviews.

I know, I usually do not publish selfies on my blog.  However, I was giving my workshop on photography and was illustrating a poing.  so here it is.  Not a great photo, but a neat reminder of my visit.

December 2022 (12/15/2022)

December: it is that time of the year again. Many of the “How to blog” websites tell you it is time to write a year in review post. Should I, or shouldn’t I? I am writing this as I am sitting in my hotel room in Lynchburg, under much better circumstances than my last visit to the area around the end of March. It was the same day we put our dog Jake to sleep, and I had a rough time driving and staying here. I drank and ate too much that evening, and it wasn’t even satisfying. Oh well, isn’t that the case that many drunks or overeaters feel afterwards? Did I learn anything from that? Tonight, I did, I just had one and a half beer and some nice Japanese food. Back in my room before 7 and now behind the keyboard.

While I am not sure if I will publish this post tonight or even during my stay here in Lynchburg tonight or tomorrow evening, I do feel compelled to write a little bit about the year and about life in general. Life this year has been good. We are back from COVID (although I read it is back in an upswing); we are wondering at times if we had it in June when we suffered from a summer cold but tested negative, once. I decided to take part in a medical experiment and took an experimental RSV vaccine. Our daughter got married and we are still paying for it. Oh well, it was worth it and fun. A week before the wedding we moved my 95-year-old father-in-law from independent living to assisted living. In other words, July was an absolute blur. It was an insane three weeks for us, but it was Nietzsche (I think) who said, “What does not kill me, makes me stronger.” We definitely gained a lot of strength in July, and we are still drinking wedding beer, or better I am using it as the liquid in some of the bread I am baking, in particular my rye bread.

From this year’s posts you can see that I still travel for work and teach. Again, today my supervisor wanted to know how long he can still rely on my or in other words, when I will retire. Loyal readers know that I struggle with this. I enjoy teaching, but then I feel I also need to spend more time with my bonsai trees. I have a greenhouse now, and it looks like that I am getting more serious about those darn little trees. Yes, I have been dabbling around with them for the past 34 years, and in a way, so little to show for. For all those years, I should have had some magnificent trees; but I have ignored them for extended periods during those years. They were pot bound and that does not help their development.

So yes, I am still kicking and screaming, working, complaining that I am getting old and decrepit, politically active, baking bread, hiking, forest bathing, and bonsai growing. I love my beers, although it seems that my taste is changing from IPAs to black lagers. I am getting bored with American restaurant food (I assume that this is because I am eating out so much during my travels) and I am starting to like Japanese food best.

While not a true a look back on the past year, I hope this is somewhat of a review of my life to-dated. As I alluded to in a similar post last year, maybe it isn’t very Buddhist to look back (and live or dwell in the past). It may be better to live in the present and prepare for the road ahead. As I recently mentioned, I am in a good place mentally, I have been feeling happy lately. Hopefully 2023 will be as good or even better. But who knows, I might get inspired to write another post this year. Cheers!

Having breakfast at the hotel (The Virginian by Hilton in Lynchburg).  This is absolutely a nice hotel.  I visited two microbreweries: 3 Roads which was OK and Star Hill, a satalite brewery from the main one in the Charlottesville area which was great.  Lunch was in Rustburg and dinner at El Jefes Tacos (good) and Mizumi Japanese Bistro (absolutely great). 

August travels or Hotels 12, 13 and 14 (8/31/2021)

Wow, yes I have missed reporting on some of my travels. It should not come as a surprise if you have read my last post. A move of my father-in-law, followed by the wedding of our daughter. Almost immediately I had to pack up get on the road, and travel for work.

• Hotel 12 was in Herndon at the Windham near Dulles Airport.
• Hotel 13 was a week later and I stayed at the same hotel again, the Windham, near Dulles.
• I stayed the week after that in Hotel 14 at the Renaissance in Portsmouth.

All three hotels were by the Marriott chain, a new experience for me. I frequent the Hilton and Holiday Inn chain, so this was new and honestly I was not disappointed. Maybe except the price of meals which was above my state per diem rate. But times both locations had so much going for them so I could go out and find something to my liking. I was lucky, the Renaissance gave me state rate, I booked in June, but a colleague who booked in July could not get the same rate and had to stay in a second rate hotel. This was no fun, in particular since we were teaching at the hotel. This will certainly be the deciding factor for us in booking future training locations now we have been stung once.

Great room and view at the Renaissance.  It's a shame that we might never stay there any more because of their treatment of State employees.

Only the second Herndon stay was I on my own, I traveled with a colleague the other two times. Knowing that my readers like to see my microbrewery and restaurant reviews, here they come.

During my stay in Herndon I visited two microbreweries: The Aslin Beer Company, downtown Herndon; and The Beltway Brewing Company in Sterling. A favorite between the two, I don’t know. They are both different and both very good. Aslin has a corner brewery vibe with a pizza shop attached to it. They make some good beer. Beltway is slightly more industrial and speaking with one of the managers the do some contract brewing for others. Beltway makes some mean empanadas, which tasted delicious, as long as you are prepared to wait and drink another beer. But then, the pizza at Aslin was great too. There are some other eating places around both breweries, more around Aslin and the second time around I ate at a Korean/Japanese restaurant (Red Kimono) nearby which was absolutely wonderful. Lunch places galore, I ate Thai, Indian, and Vietnamese. In other words I was in Asian heaven.

Just a shot of a beer at Beltway while waiting for my empanadas

Downtown Herndon in Fairfax County.  That evening there was a gathering of cyclist.

In Portsmouth there were no brewery visits, but we stopped by the Bier Garden, a German Restaurant and had some delicious German draft beers and food. I highly recommend it. There is a Legend brewery near the hotel, but I have visited the original Richmond location enough that this seemed redundant. We also ate at Fish and Slips a restaurant at the marina in the Portsmouth harbor. Last time I ate at this place as in August of 2000 when I was house hunting in the area. I could not help myself but I ordered a Manhattan. Food is good but deep fried thus not the healthiest. Other lunch places included a down town Mexican joint and a Thai place. Both great.

So now you are up-to-date!

Walking back from the Bier garden I saw this in the harbor and had to take this photograph. 

Abingdon or Hotels 11. (6/10/2022)

My latest trip was uneventful for a change. No mass murder, no start of a new war, it was boring, or at least nothing to be glued to the TV for. Although, I think there was a shooting at a hospital in Oklahoma, but that one received only minor attention after what happened in Uvalde, Texas. Not that it should become so common place that I should call it uneventful; however, the media hardly covered it because the atrocities in the small Texas town and the screw ups by the police and the Governor still dominated the news.

Enough, I want to step away from that for a change of pace. This past week brought me to Abingdon, a town in Washington County, in southwest Virginia, approximately 10 miles from the Tennessee border. Now if you think that this is the far end of Virginia, think again. Some of my students had to drive an hour and a half form the farthest tip of Virginia, near the Cumberland Gap area in Lee County. To think that when I left Abingdon Friday morning at 8:30 to return home I had to travel 8 hours. This included lunch and switching out my state car for my personal vehicle in Richmond.

Knowing that my retirement age is approaching, I have been inviting one of my colleagues to join me and co-teach my classes with me, or at least attend them and learn. My regular compatriot grew up in Abingdon, so he was thrilled to join. Although his mom (as he calls her) still lives there and he visits her regularly, it was funny to see that I had to show him where all the good restaurants were for lunch and dinner, or even where the town’s microbrewery was (darn they changed the location of the entrance and the tasting room). I like to treat myself to an ice cream from Dairy Queen after class, and I had to show him where that was (near the turn to mom’s place). We spent three nights in town and had fun together on two of them. One of the evenings he visited mom and I spent time on my own. That evening it rained, but not hard enough to prevent me from walking from my motel room via the Creeper Trail to one of my favorite restaurants in town (128 Pecan).

We stayed at the new Holiday Inn Express, which was great. Rooms were new, clean and up-to-date. It is in a newly developed area next to sports fields that are connected to the Creeper. I saw them develop the area two and a half years ago (pre-COVID) and thought it would become a sub-division of some sort. One of the evenings, my compadre and I had fun trying to figure out the post development hydrology and stormwater management of this and a site downstream from this site. It seemed messy and kind of screwed up. It is difficult, at times, to leave your work in the office at the end of the day, isn’t it?

My nice, updated room at the Holiday Inn Express.  The view was something to be desired, but OK.

Restaurants we visited were Bella’s Pizza and the Hardware Store (BBQ) favorites of both of us (both definitely get a high 3.8 or 4 stars out of 5). Lunch was at some Mexican joint (ok) and Milano’s. Both lunch spots were new introductions to our Abingdon native and he (we) liked Milano's that much (also a 3.8 for sure) that he swore that he needed to bring mom to Milano’s for dinner when he is back in town. 128 Pecan has been a favorite of mine for a long time, and it did not disappoint me again on this trip (4.2 stars out of 5).

Then the piece de resistance: Wolf Hill Brewery. While they moved to a new taproom two years ago, I found that the atmosphere of the old funky place had disappeared. This tasting room is clean, sophisticated and dull in my eyes. But the beer remained the same and is still good. Their hours appear different and they lost their taco food-truck, one of the things I was looking forward to. A COVID casualty according to the lady behind the bar. Naturally, we got there right before trivia started, so the place filled up and I never had a chance to sample a second beer. We just wanted to get out of there before the noise started. Oh well.

I realize that this has become a travel log, so a little more. After Wolf Hill Brewery and dinner at the Hardware Store my friend decided to show me the sights around town. It was not what a warm blooded guy had secretly hoped for (just kidding); regular readers know that I am a sucker for nature. However, in the back of the training room were four (cheesy) paintings of a mill and he had recognized it as the mill at White Mill, just 4 miles west of downtown. During dinner, the server told us that grits served by the restaurant were milled by the mill which had recently been restored. This had triggered my friends need to show me the mill in real life and off we went. A nice country drive later we visited the mill and got to walk around it, look at nature and take a few photographs. On the way back we observed a grove of dead trees and speculated why this happened; a subject we brought back the next day in class: flooding caused by beavers, herbicide drift, who knows?

Common Ninebark blooming just below the mill at White Mill, VA

Just a bench at White Mill, VA

The mill and White Mill, VA.  I took the photo from the bench above.

Altogether, I had a good week. At times it is nice to have company on my travels. Other times, being an introvert it is nice to travel alone. But I did enjoy the company this time around. For sure it was nice to have a fellow driver behind the wheel. I am getting older and I noticed it when I got home, I was beat.

My excuses to those of you who were looking for more depth, politics, philosophy or whatever in this post. At times it is good to be light hearted and write an account of my travels; a diary of sorts. The original objective of my blog was a photo blog and an account of my travels through Virginia. Moreover, I can’t be a philosopher every day.

Hotels 10. More beer and Manassas (5/26/2022)

What was going to be an uneventful or even a somewhat boring training trip to Manassas turned out to be another trip where the news and therefor the television was dominated by a horrendous news story. Not long ago it was the Russian invasion of Ukraine; however, that was completely pushed out of the headlines and the news was dominated by the massacre in Uvalde, Texas and the stupid Republicans who immediately tried to close ranks and started politicizing it and calling for more guns on the street and turning schools into fortresses instead of places of learning. While at night in my room I usually watch HGTV or the Food Channel, or maybe one of my bonsai YouTubes, this time I could not switch away from the news about the carnage, really not learning much more, but just getting everything repeated over and over and over.

Enough! On a more pleasant note, it had been approximately two and a half year since I visited Manassas. Since the training venue was in Gainesville, I should have probably stayed there; however, that area is ultramodern with mostly chain restaurants stuck in strip malls and an ultra-modern town center where I was already getting lunch these two days. So why stay there? But instead of staying at the Holiday Inn Express, where by the way, I did some of my more creative thinking and writing <here> (I actually wrote that post while staying at the Holiday Inn Express), I opted for the Hilton Garden Inn. Honestly, the hotel was great. I had absolutely no complaints about it. It had the regular post-COVID things like the restaurant was closed on Monday evening, but I generally do not eat in the hotels I stay in, so that was not a big thing; no bed making and waste basket emptying between days; and the worse no coffee pod refurbishing. So I went down to the reception desk to ask more coffee pods and they did not have any! I am an addict, I need my coffee at night, otherwise I wake up with a headache. Finally, the breakfast was buffet style and fairly mediocre. I would still rate it 4.5 out of 5 stars.

A different hotel view this time, but still inspired by the Hopper exhibit.

The part of Manassas I stayed in had changed a bit. It appeared that some restaurants had permanently closed. The Giant Supermarket seemed to have closed its doors as well. It also looked like the Mexican (or Latin American) restaurants had proliferated. While during past visits I frequented these establishments <here>, I somehow avoided them this trip. I wanted something different.

Being somewhat of a microbrewery connoisseur or reviewer lately (see my Wytheville posting), I wanted to go that route. My usual issue is that most of my visits fall on Monday and Tuesday evening and a lot of microbreweries are not open on those days. Googling microbreweries I came up with a few in the area and man, was I happy that 2Silos was closed on Mondays. I just went to look for kicks, but this place is a miniature Disney land or something and absolutely not my style. It is commercial, has not funky vibe and if you are really into the microbrew scene I recommend that you avoid this place like the plague (or is it COVID). I ended up at Heritage Brewing Co. just outside downtown Manassas, and it was love at first sight. Then I tasted the beer and I was hooked. They make some good hooch. Good enough for me to return the second day. Tell you the truth, the staff was nice and personable too, and that helps. Definitely a 4.8 out of 5 stars from me here. I am not sure why I am holding back the 0.2, but as they say, only Allah is perfect, and that dude doesn’t even drink alcohol, I am told.

Heritage Brewing Co. is a must visit when you are into microbrews and in Manassas.  Absolutely worth a visit!

Dinner both evenings was an experience. The first evening I ate at a fish place. Here I was hoping for a nice healthy fish meal at “Long time no Sea” which appeared to be a chain specializing in some kind of seafood bake. It wasn’t bad, but not what I expected, 2.5 stars out of 5. The second evening; however, dinner was at Vera, an Ethiopian restaurant. I was in heaven, lamb stew, injira, and eating with your hands. Great flavors; 4.3 out of 5.

My injira with lamb stew.  I had already taken my first few bites, hence the nibbled appearance of the injira.

Concluding, except for all the news, not a bad visit, I enjoyed myself. Teaching was good, great students, good beer, decent food, and a very nice hotel room.

Motels 9. Wytheville and beer (5/11/2022)

This week’s stop was Wytheville, Virginia. I have written a lot about my visits to this town <here>, <here>, <here>, and <here>. But my favorite post is here; however, be warned that one is R-rated. Folks scheduling my travel with me always joke that Wytheville is one of my favorite places. Now, I had not been in Wytheville for probably two and a half year, and the visit would be a good illustration what happened to or changed with a more rural conservative town in the age of COVID. Not much. Actually, looking at Google maps prior to leaving, I rejoiced and told my wife “Hey they now have a second microbrewery in Wytheville (more about that later).

Trying to book a decent motel in town was somewhat frustrating. My two favorite places no longer offer state rates, which would mean that I would have to supplement my stay out of my own pocket. Since I was staying three nights that would mean something close to at least another $35 to $45 for the stay. This is ridiculous, so I was required to find a new favorite motel. The Hampton Inn by Hilton was nice enough to still charge the state rate. Rooms were clean and actually it was less than 2 minutes removed from the place I was teaching. As you have probably noticed, I do not play favorites when it comes to motels, I try to spread my stays out between chains. This is based on a number of factors, including location (in town and the proximity to the place I am teaching), past experience in the town, and the chain that I accumulate loyalty points with. However, the stay in this motel was new and I liked it. The Hampton Inn was clean, well maintained, staff was friendly; so, what was not to like? I will come here again when returning to Wytheville.

Checking my company phone for some recent emails before hitting the road.

Driving to the western part of the state has not changed much. Interstate 81 is still insanely crazy. It is one of the major connectors between the East Coast and the South. I noticed that in fall and spring the hotels in Wytheville always had a great number of vehicles with Canadian license plates parked in front of it. I guess that why they are called the snowbirds. However, the truck traffic is insane as well. Thank goodness the roads around Roanoke have been widened and more is coming. This should help a little with this bottleneck.

There is Public Radio almost all the way on the trip to Wytheville. You may need to do some searching, but you can find them. Searching by itself can be interesting. You hit the obligatory religious stations with either fiery services or pious/ glorifying music. On the AM, I found a station that read obituaries which was somewhat interesting for at least 5 minutes. You can also find sports talk (not really interesting to me), a Spanish station, and your regular right-wing talk/hate stations. I wrote about this previously as well <here>, but since the leaked documents from the Supreme Court, listening to these stations was somewhat amusing/infuriating. The craziest thing I heard was Glen Beck proclaiming that liberal men were pro-abortion because that made it easy for them to pick up women for casual sex. If abortion would become illegal, women would no longer be willing to sleep around. According to this jerk, this is the only reason men could be pro-abortion. I’ll leave it there, but as you might understand from a previous post or two, I do not agree.

Thunderstorms abound on this trip, so no walks or bike rides on the New River Trail as I was able on previous years (just look for Draper in the keywords). Oh well, so I spent more time exploring and comparing the two microbreweries in town. Now I don’t consider myself an alcoholic; however, I do like my beers and wine. In previous posts I have compared wineries in the state, and I have reviewed the occasional microbrewery. I also review the motels I stay in, as I have done above.

The first evening I visited “the Seven Sisters Brewery”. This is a large place on Maine Street and my first impression was that it was deserted. I was there alone for a while and finally two or three folks came in. Actually, the beer was good, the DIPA was my favorite, followed by the bock and the lager. This is surprising for me; I am usually not a bock or a lager drinker. The atmosphere was good, and I met the brew master, who seems very knowledgeable about brewing. On my return two days later folks who frequent the brewery were surprised that he appeared sober when I met him; probably a good sign for a brew master that he samples his beer. This brewery is new to me and was not there when I visited two and a half years ago. I did go back my third evening and there was a larger crowd; plus the beer was still very tasty.

My beer flight at the Seven Sisters

The “Seven Dogs Brew Pub” was on my agenda for thee second day. These guys have 20 beers on their menu and these beers were all brewed on premises. Truthfully, I think they overextended themselves. While not bad, some of their beers were plain mediocre at best. I often see that with restaurants as well. When the menus are large, the food is average, because they cannot concentrate on doing their best. This place has a full kitchen, and the food is ok. I visited the place two and a half years ago, and I think they have gone down a bit.

The entrance to the Seven Dogs.  Absolutely not bad, but right now not my favorite in town.

I asked what the relationship was between the two sevens in the names, and there is none. Thank goodness, the Seven Sisters has a food truck, and you can get food there as well. To me the Seven Sisters was my hands down favorite of the two. I think I will go back there on my next visit and avoid the Seven Dogs. Although, the Seven Dogs operate the pizza joint down the street, which is pretty darn good and what beer doesn’t taste good with pizza?

Hotels 4 and 5. A view from the road, Fairfax and Staunton (3/11/2022)

My travel and in person teaching has resumed in earnest. Driving to the locations, in motel rooms and even in the classes there is no way of avoiding of being exposed to and talking about the stupid war that Russia is waging in Ukraine. It appears that everyone in my classes is willing to accept the higher gasoline prices and know whom to blame for it: the Russian president (more about this below). But, as I mention in a previous post it is good to be back out. Since the last post on teaching, I have taught live in Richmond (no overnight travel), Fairfax and in Staunton (all of course in Virginia, more about that later in this post, as well).

At the Homewood Suites by Hilton i  West Falls Church in Northern Virginia.  This is a great place, were it not for the view from my room which was of the back of a strip mall and dumpsters.

No this is not me after drinking a beer, but I was demonstrating how the timer on your camera works to my students in a photography class that I taught this week.

In the meantime, it has been difficult to tear myself away from the television these past few weeks to do something productive, like writing a blog post. The war in Ukraine, the atrocities that Putin and his army is inflicting on that country and its people (like bombing a maternity hospital and killing innocent women and children) is keeping me in its grip. What is really upsetting me are the falls pretexted that he is using for the war and from what I am hearing the way he is preventing the people in Russia of finding out that it is all based on a big lie.

There are no Nazis in Ukraine that are killing ethnic Russians. The president of Ukraine is Jewish and calling him a Nazi is an insult to the Jewish people. Soldiers are killing civilians, and they are slowly becoming war criminals by the order of just one deranged crazy person: Putin. On top of all this countries like China, North Korea and Vietnam are telling their folks the same shit. Honestly, the international community should issue an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes and revoke his diplomatic status. When he sets foot in any other country, arrest him and haul him in front of the International Court in The Hague!

Enough ranting. My travel did afford me some distraction, including the ability to try out some different restaurants and different beers and believe it or not, wine. For example in Fairfax, I got to eat Lebanese and Korean, while in Staunton I ate an exotic grilled cheese sandwich and a cup of tomato soup that I washed down with a glass of wine at a wine bar named the Yelping Dog. The second night an old friend and his wife took me to their favorite local pizza shop. In other words, it was a somewhat cheesy week for me but enjoyably so. I even visited a new microbrewery for me: the Seven Arrows Brewery in Augusta County (Waynesboro). They make some darn tasty beer!

The red IPA by Seven Arrow.  A very nice a good tasting one!

The final hotel photo!  This one was taken in Staunton at the Holiday Inn. A nice hotel, I have been coming here many times.  I love the view of the golf course.  All the photographs I take of me in my rooms based on an exhibit we saw a few years ago at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts on Edward Hopper the American Painter. 

The one thing that I found to be different now is the room service. I always stay two nights in a room. Pre-COVID folks would come in your room to clean it, give you clean towel and make your bed. Now, probably to save money, this does not happen. I have to go downstairs to ask for more coffee for my in-room coffee maker. I think it is fine, I am sure it is difficult to get good help for the wages these hotels are willing to pay.

In both overnight travel cases; however, the drive was bad. At those times, I miss Europe and the ability to jump on public transportation like the train and zip from point A to point B. We had a big storm this week and there were many trees down on the road between Charlottesville and Richmond. This meant tree cutters everywhere and traffic delays. The week before I was stuck in Northern Virginia traffic with bad tires that were losing air. C’est la vie.

As you can see here, just a very superficial update and in the hope that this blog still penetrates the Russian sensors (I used to have a lot of Russian readers) I wanted to let them know about the big lie that they are being told about the need for this war. As I mentioned in my past post, my heart goes out to the Ukrainian people and to the Russian folks as well, especially those who oppose this insane war but are afraid to express themselves.

On the road again (Hotels 3: Virginia Beach) (2/22/22)

One year and eleven months ago after returning from a teaching gig in Lynchburg the then governor and the department I work for decided that we should temporarily shut the office, stop all traveling, and start teleworking. We were completely in la-la land about COVID or the Corona virus, and figured this would be temporary, maybe till June or at worse, September. Ah, little did we know.

So, after teleworking and teaching online we decided that 2022 was going to be the year that we were going back into the classroom. And there came Omicron: We had to cancel January classes. Again, email student the sorry emails and reschedule everything, from hotels to meeting rooms, etc.

One of the things I was looking forward to, was returning to real live teaching. Remarkable as that may be for an introvert like me, it is not a thing about being around people, but more about being able to read their facial expressions and get live feedback. These interactions are invaluable compared to talking to a Webcam.

Finally, live teaching started in February. I became the proverbial “canary in the coal mine,” I was going to try it out for the rest of us. Well, I now have taught four live classes and honestly these classes were exhausting but exhilarating. So maybe I am not an introvert? I really don’t know any more. I enjoyed the one on one so much more than the web-based classes. Maybe it’s just the format; colleagues of mine tell me that since our recent switch to Zoom things have gotten a lot better. Zoom allows you to turn on and view the webcam of your students and makes it more personable. That is of course if the students are willing to share their camera. However, the format that I had been using was not very personable and you have to rely on typed questions in a question box which do not allow for a free- flowing discussion. In addition, you don’t see people’s faces and really cannot have a good follow up discussion. During breaks you cannot have any personal interactions with folks.

Overall though I was good to be able to directly interact with folks. It was just much easier to respond to questions and to enter into fun deep discussions.

Then finally the travel. While somewhat scary to be on the road again; my father-in-law recently survived COVID and I do not need to be afraid of bringing it home. I assume I would survive an infection (knock on wood). Eating out is kind of fun again, although I need to watch out for my waistline again. I have been the main cook at home during these past two years of COVID and I am slowly running out of inspiration. I always told folks that I love to cook, I never thought it would get old, but somehow it does. It is nice to eat something different and sample different flavors to bring home and try them out here. Variety is the spice of life, or so they say.

I watch some different TV, drink a beer and just relax in my motel room. So, what’s not good about it? Maybe sleeping in a strange bed; loneliness, although I don’t mind eating alone; and the drive after teaching a whole day will get old after doing it a few times. Who knows?

My third photograph in the Hopper tradition (little did I know it would take such a long time for the third one).  This was taken in Virginia Beach at the Holiday Inn.  You can see the Atlantic Ocean in the background (Marocco or Portugal over the horizon).

Hotels 2: Lynchburg (3/13/2020)

Another trip out into the hinterlands of Virginia. This time I graced Lynchburg with a visit. Lynchburg’s claim to fame of course is Liberty University which was started by the reverent Jerry Falwell. Passing by Lynchburg over the past 20 years has been an amazing sight; that university has grown by leaps and bounds and is now ready to enter the big league. 

From what I understand, the university has its religious quirks. I am not sure about it all, and I will not describe it here, but as I understand it there seems to have a fairly strict religious ethical code and people are required to go to general assembly and religious gatherings. It is really interesting and almost perversely sexy to visit the local Starbucks and watch all the young college girls studying or discussing the bible; something this atheist does not encounter in many Starbucks shops around the State; and let me tell you, I visit a lot of Starbucks stores. 

All the conservative (read Republican) presidential candidates with any ambition make sure to stop by Liberty University and give a speech. Old Jerry died and Jerry Jr. is now in charge of the University; but they still pay their respect to the president of Liberty University. Recently, Mr. Falwell was in the news when he did not like the newly democratic state legislature and in particular their stance on gun control. Mr. Falwell suggested that parts of Virginia that did not agree with their decisions should succeed and join West Virginia. This made him the laughingstock of the state. Oh well. 

I took this photograph during my walk through downtown Lynchburg.  They have a great elevated walk, almost like a boardwalk but without the beach and the boards that overlook the James River valley.  There are all kinds of warehouses along the trail that are being reclaimed for more useful purposes including restaurants, shops, offices and condos(?).  I took this picture to mock the succession talks and to show I was still in Virginia.

So here I had to spend two nights in Lynchburg. I always used to stay at the Holiday Inn downtown. It is not the best place, but it is ok. I really love the downtown of Lynchburg; it has character, great restaurants, and safe to walk. I got an email from Holiday Inn about a month before my visit that they had broken ties with that particular hotel and the hotel was no longer part of the Holiday Inn chain. Since I accumulate loyalty points I decided to look if there was a Hilton downtown, the other hotel chain that I use. 

Hilton had a hotel downtown, the Virginian. The hotel is part of the Curio chain, something I had never tried. Well, I was not disappointed! This was a great place to hang out and to stay. What luxury. The hotel has a nice breakfast (and lunch?) counter with a restaurant bar on the roof. There is a nice restaurant on the lower level. I only tried the breakfast area and enjoyed it. The rooms are luxurious. You even get a robe although I really did not need it. The bed was great and in one-word, things were good. Being in town in a taller building traffic noise was somewhat amplified but it was all very tolerable. 

My "Hopper shot" of the motel room at the Curio by Hilton that I was staying in.  Again, I was very happy and satisfied with my stay at the hotel and in Lynchburg. 

The room without me and a better view of the bed.

The first night I ate alone at Bootleggers. This was the second time I ate there, and the food was good. Thank goodness they had something else than burgers on the menu. Their beer selection was great. The Depot grill was on tap for my second night. I was joined by my friend and colleague Doug, who lives in Lynchburg.  I had been avoiding this place since a disappointing visit 6 years ago. Funny how you do that. Well, they redeemed themselves. Dinner was enjoyable and the waitstaff was great. In all, I had a good two day visit to Lynchburg. 

Now for some depressing news. This will be my last trip for 30 days. The department I work for has cancelled all classes (and trips) for the next 30 days as part of the state of emergency in the effort to slow down the spread of the Corona virus and the associated COVID-19. So, my young hotel series is going on a hiatus. I will continue blogging and hopefully will come out alive on the other end.