Memorial Weekend visit to Virginia

This is a re-posting of a previous story from a couple of weeks ago. I tried unsuccessfully for weeks to post pictures to that blog. However, for some unknown reason Blogger allowed me to post a few to this one for a little today while until it quit. Then I read on a Google discussion group that someone had luck with deleting cookies first. So I tried it, and it worked!

Wife and I drove to Northern VA over Memorial Day weekend (1500 miles round trip) for a very pleasant visit with some of my family and friends.

Roger the cat thinks it's playtime whenever the suitcase comes out.














Going up we took I-40 east to I-81 north up the Shenandoah Valley, then I-66 east to my son’s house. We left Nashville at 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday and arrived at my son’s place about 11:00 p.m. Long drive!



I-81 was blocked at Harrisonburg, so I took us up old Rt. 11 through the charming valley town and enjoyed roadside scenes like these.


















Thursday morning we visited Harper’s Ferry with wife’s cousin. Harper's Ferry is situated at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers. It served as the jumping-off point for early expeditions to the western frontier in colonial times and hosted manufacturing plants of various kinds, but the town has been destroyed many times by floods. A big group of school kids had just left when we arrived, and the rain had just stopped, so there were no crowds, and it was dry.



















We enjoyed a leisurely late lunch at Hilltop House, an old hotel that overlooks the town and river from a high bluff. Here's a view from our table.











Friday night we accompanied my son and a friend to see a band at a local club. Three of the five band members were friends of mine with whom I had played for many years prior to leaving the area for Nashville in 1998.













They asked me to sit in and play keyboards on a couple of numbers (“Dixie Chicken” and “Mustang Sally”).













The drummer’s wife was celebrating her birthday; so many other old friends whom I hadn’t seen in 8 years were there too.















We made it a 2-day trip on the way back. First we took Rt. 7 over the Blue Ridge














and across the Shenandoah Valley, where we saw an unusually colorful barn.














We caught I-81 north to I-68 and I-79 across the stunning mountains of northern West Virginia (see wifie's pretty feet on dashboard).















































and spent a delightful night in Barboursville, which is near the West Virginia border with Kentucky.

The next day we continued west to the Bluegrass Parkway across Kentucky. On our way we passed by the Keeneland Race Track














and a beautiful horse barn that must be part of Keeneland.














The Bluegrass Parkway took us to I-65 and then south to home again.