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.

Life goes on (2/28/2023)

Well, life goes on. I have resumed my somewhat regular activities, including walking the dogs in the morning, feeding them and going upstairs and getting behind the computer to work. The main difference is the nice monitor I commandeered from my late father-in-law’s desk. It is much better than the old flat screen TV that I was using as monitor. Oh well, a small piece of my inheritance.

This past week was the first time I was teaching again, and it felt good after a three-week hiatus. I had a few issues, on the second day my computer microphone seemed to lock up with the external webcam. This really highlighted the need for a backup when you webcast.

The weather has been extremely strange; weekends are outright chilly while it has been balmy during the week. It got to 80 degrees this week. The temperatures in my greenhouse got up to 102 at one point with the door and window wide open. My bonsai trees are leafing out which is distressing to me. I need to repot and I do not have enough pots, soil, or time. Moreover, folks in the neighborhood are donating trees to me. I had put the word out that I grow bonsai and if they had either potted plants they did not want or shrubs or small trees they were digging up, I would love to take possession of them and torture them. These past two weeks I received seven plants that required urgent root work, potting and pruning. This to the determent of my own trees.

This is all on top of a room full of furniture and other stuff from my father-in-law’s apartment that we had to vacate. We now need to decide what we want to keep, exchange for the old crap we have (my father-in-law had impeccable taste) and what we want to donate where. Let’s not talk about the fact that my travel starts up again. Let the excitement begin!

Four weeks in it still feels strange having lost a close member of the family. However, life goes on. The strangest things include life events that you cannot share, or simply going to the grocery store and not having to buy those items you used to have to buy for him. It is an anxious time in a way for my wife, the will, his worldly goods, his taxes, and trying to morn. On top of that we need to make arrangements for a memorial service, our retirement and apply for pensions and social security. We live in stressful times. But this too shall pass we hope.

I can find solace in nature, walking with my dogs, and working on my trees. That keeps me going. Life is stressful right now, somewhat insane at times, but what is the alternative? It goes on whether we like it or not!

Walking in the woods help me regain or maintain my sanity in these interesting times.

Death comes easy. (2/17/2023)

Boy, it has been almost more than a month since I posted something here on my blog. In my eyes I have a valid excuse for it, but then, don’t we all have that when we procrastinate? But I really do! In the intermediate time, my wife got COVID, and my 95-year-old father-in-law had an accident and passed away, died, kicked the proverbial bucket! Since my wife had COVID during the onset of the whole affair, I all the sudden was trusted into the middle of it all as the main care giver, which left me little time to attend to this blog.

OK, if this hasn’t left some of you gasping for air, let’s dive into the details and a little of my feelings. I’ll try not to make this a tearjerker or terribly sentimental, I promise, I just want to share some of my observations and feelings. I still feel that I have been burning the candle at both ends and somehow got through it without COVID. My wife and I received our booster around the same time. Moreover, we did not isolate after she felt sick and tested positive. My only explanation is that I was running on adrenaline and that this somehow protected me.

She came down with it on a Monday evening. I had to teach an online class on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. In addition to this I had to take care of a sick wife. My father-in-law was anxious that his daughter had COVID and although we tried to convince him it was not that bad; however, we could not visit him in the fear of infecting him. My wife had actually visited him the afternoon before she got sick. As a result, he had been isolated by his assisted living place as well in the fear that he was infected as well. He survived COVID earlier in 2022 so we hoped he still had enough antibodies. In addition, he had gotten a booster in November.

Things looked up on Thursday, but then Friday morning we got the word he was in the emergency room. He had fallen twice the night before. The wife was still in isolation, and it fell on me to find out what was going on. He was admitted to the hospital later that afternoon, which meant numerous hospital trips for me the next couple of days. On Tuesday they finally transported him to a rehabilitation unit 5 minutes from our home, which made it a bit easier on me. That Thursday my wife came out of isolation and was finally able to visit her father. He passed away the next Tuesday night (or maybe early Wednesday morning) around midnight. When he was in the hospital the doctor kept telling us he was 95 (almost 96) and that he was near death. Eventually it came out that he could no longer swallow and that he had two to three weeks to live. I am just happy that my wife, her brother, and our daughter got to see him while he was still alive in the rehabilitation/hospice unit.

All together, these were a rough combined two weeks. But as you can guess it is not over. Then comes cremation, memorial arrangements, lawyers, emptying apartments, you name it. It reminded me of 19 years ago when my mother died. I felt that I never had time to grieve until I got on the airplane to fly home. She died in the Netherlands, and I was there and watched her die. It was a sudden death; however, almost immediately I had to deal with a hysterical sister, the next day pick up my brother at the airport, make funeral arrangements, keep my brother and sister from killing each other, have a service, pack all her belongings, put her condo on the market and arrange the inheritance. Do this all, in one week. Having had no time to really grieve, I burst out in tears when the plane took off and cried or was hurting all the way home across the ocean, finally. As a result, I became alienated from both my sister and brother.

Death is interesting. You die and then it is over. When my father-in-law entered the rehab/hospice unit the doctor explained what was about to happen to him. The doctor told us that when he was about at the end of his story my father-in-law interrupted him and said, “and then I die.” He was an engineer and did not believe in anything after death. Neither do I, nor does my wife. It is wishful thinking that there is anything after death. Both my wife consider heaven here on earth and want to make it so.

My father believed in a strange form of reincarnation. Something like your spirit or soul returns to a great lake or a reservoir from which a minute amount comes to enter a new human (baby) to grow and develop. Once this conscious has grown and is fully developed and the host (person) dies it returns to the reservoir thus enriching the grand total making the overall grand mind richer in the log-term. It’s an interesting thought.

One final thought. Raquel Welch died this week at 82. Tim McCarver at 81. Whenever, I see those numbers I think “damn, 12 more years for me.” Thinking about it that way, it is not much fun. But then I could have a heart attack tomorrow. Mortality is not a prominent part of my thinking, but I am more aware of it now since I am getting older and closer to retirement <read here>. This afternoon, I saw two young chicks (sorry that sounds sexist, I know) smiling, walking their dogs. I could not help wondering if they are aware of their mortality and live in the moment. More and more, I am starting to appreciate everything I experience, life and nature around me. I hope you do too. Life is short and very precious.

I rarely post a picture of myself, but this is the most recent one of me with my father-in-law.  It was taken about three weeks before he died.  We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant.  You can see the edge of his margarita glass on the left side of the picture.  He enjoyed those.  On his death bed, while having hallucinations he kept hinting at drinking a beer or wanting to have a beer.  We should have smuggled one in!