Skylining

Keeping level with the rain clouds

It's been 105 days since we returned to the U.S. from overseas, and one important member of our household has yet to join us: our car. Shipping privately-owned vehicles from one country to another is a time-consuming, bureaucratic process in the best of times; these, however, are not the best years of our lives. Our Honda Accord should've reached Baltimore at the beginning of this month, which means it should've been delivered to our address here in Falls Church, where it should've then been registered, plated and driven around by the time of this writing. Instead, the last I heard (as of October 4, the day after it was supposed to have arrived in port), the car was waiting for shipment to Italy, where it was scheduled to arrive there on the 9th. Once it's processed in Italy, it's supposed to be loaded onto a vessel going to the U.S. The key words here are "supposed to", as due to heavy port congestion the world over, there's no telling when the Accord will finally reach our welcoming arms.

Blame it on the coronavirus.

The lack of a car of our own to drive around has limited what we can do when my daughter and I are not studying. Weekend outings are largely restricted to places that we can reach on foot, or by using Uber or public transportation. A simple excursion into downtown Falls Church on a Saturday or Sunday, for example, can involve a half-hour walk (assuming the weather is good, which won't be the case for much longer, unless climate change has something to say about it), springing for an Uber, or waiting patiently for a bus to get us there and back. And while we live within walking distance of an Asian shopping center with its large supermarket, my wife would like to expand her horizons when it comes to grocery shopping, difficult to do without her own wheels. Now that Amber is finishing up Driver's Ed at school, she'll soon want to get her first learner's permit and then get started on the road (pun intended) to receiving that first driver's license, before the window of opportunity closes next summer when we return to China. A first world problem this may be, but our lives would be more convenient (and interesting) with our trusted Honda to get us around.

Not that this blog is anything other than a cure for insomnia, but these pages would be more interesting if I could get to more places in my free time. For the time being we've been renting a car once a month in order to get away on a weekend, such as when we went to Pittsburgh in August, or to Annapolis last month. This past weekend it was time to hire a vehicle again, and drive that Toyota RAV4 SUV (I'd reserved a VW Jetta, but apparently none of the standard-sized vehicles were in the lot when Shu-E went to pick up the car) on a Friday evening to Front Royal, Virginia, a small town roughly 60 miles (or about 100 kilometers) from Falls Church. There isn't much of interest in the town itself as far I could tell, but it serves as a convenient base as the northern entrance to Shenandoah National Park's Skyline Drive, a spectacular 105-mile-long (169 kilometers) road running along the Blue Ridge Mountains into Virginia's hill and wine country. At around half past nine on a Saturday morning we paid our fee and began driving the scenic route. Soon after we entered the national park, my wife caught sight of a black bear standing atop a boulder next to the road. It moved out of sight into the forest before any of us could get a photo:

There were far too many pull-offs with scenic overlooks to keep track of, but we pulled into almost all of them over the course of the day to check out the views. The weather was cooperative during the morning:

In some places we were just above the clouds:

Occasionally my daughter and I would get out and stretch our legs for a little bit:

The leaves were beginning to change color:

We stopped at the visitor center at Big Meadows around noon. It was here when the weather took a sudden change for the worse:

The rain came down in great torrents while dad had the unenviable job of filling up the SUV with gas while standing out in the open. The downpour was fortunately a brief one:

Dr. Wham, a peppery soft drink similar in taste to...you know. And no, I'd never heard of it, either:

At one point it appeared we were just keeping ahead of another rainstorm:

Despite the afternoon shower, Skyline Drive was an incredible experience. In all it took us roughly six hours from the northern end to the southern terminus in Staunton, where we checked into the Frederick House B&B. The Young House where we stayed Saturday night (one of five properties) dates from around 1810 but was very comfortable and cozy:

Downtown Staunton is a charming slice of Victorian-era small town Americana (if such a thing is possible). We went out in the late afternoon to have a look around. The girls check out the delectable goodies at Cocoa Mills Chocolate:

Staunton is an artsy college town (Mary Baldwin University) that is also home to the Blackfriars Playhouse, the only re-creation of Shakespeare's original indoor theater in the world, and host to the American Shakespeare Center company. Yes, I know, we should've seen a show but...:

Walking along the pedestrian-only West Beverly Street:

For dinner we decided on the Blu Point Seafood Co., where I started off the evening with a Virginia brew, the Basic City 6th Lord IPA:

Amber and Shu E both ordered the rockfish...:

…while I decided to go native (we were in the South after all) with the Shrimp n' Grits:

Dessert was key lime pie for the daughter, and Boston Cream Trifle for the paternal unit. No wonder I added a couple of pounds over the course of the weekend:

After seeing this, Amber naturally wants a cat:

Breakfast at Frederick House on Sunday morning was just as good as dinner in town in the night before. I thoroughly enjoyed the waffle:

While the girls were packing up, I took another walk around the downtown area, admiring the architecture:

The Young House. Our rooms were on the top floor:

After checking out of the B&B we drove over to the excellent Frontier Culture Museum, a 100-acre (40 hectares) open-air, living history museum that strives to show what life was like for Virginia's early settlers. This is done through authentic historic buildings from England, Ireland and Germany, with costumed interpreters demonstrating various crafts and explaining what things were like back then. There was also a recreation of an Igbo West African farm, acknowledging that not all of the state's earliest settlers (those of the non-Native American variety, that is) were there by choice:

The 1600s English Farm:

Shu-E was fascinated by the medicinal herbal garden:

A blacksmith explains his trade:

The 1700s Irish Farm:

This cat guided us into the interior of the Irish Farm, then basked in the warmth of the sun while we were inside:

The 1700s German Farm:

The 1700s American Indian Exhibit:

Moving into the American settlement:

Amber was fascinated by the massive pigs living at the museum:

 

The 1820s American Farm:

The Early American Schoolhouse:

Coming across another friendly feline. This one welcomed us into the 1850s American Farm:

The farm building looked like the blueprint for the kind of abode you can still see all over this country:

The view from the front porch - how things might've looked before interstate highways and strip malls. And not to mention electric golf carts:

There are a number of cave systems in the Shenandoah Valley - we returned to the Front Royal area to visit Skyline Caverns:

The caverns' claim to fame are the extremely rare anthodites - delicate white spiky formations that resemble sea urchins:

It goes without saying that it was great to get away for a couple of days. If only we could do this more often (rental cars aren't cheap these days). All the hiking opportunities and the weekend drives to picturesque small towns that we're missing at the moment because our Honda Accord is...well, I don't know where it is at the moment. The only thing I'm sure of is where it isn't right now...