Virginia - Day 1

Our day began with a wonderful breakfast of french toast stuffed with cream cheese and strawberries with cranberries sprinkled over the top plus sausage patties and links.  Once we finished with breakfast, we met Jerry at Willbur Gardens, the care facility where Rainy's Grandmother, Jetta lives.  Jetta has Alzheimers and congestive heart failure, she is only expected to live another 6 months at the most.  She is thin and frail, yet she has the sparkle in her eyes and the beautiful smile that both Rainy and I remember.  An unusual thing is that Jetta sings her words, it as if talking in song might help her remember what she is trying to say.  She asked about my mom and dad and said that she wanted to go to Phoenix with Rainy and me.  Sometimes she thought Rainy was me, at other times she remembered who was who.  She sang that it was an awful thing to loose your memory.  We stayed with Jetta for a couple of hours, left when they began to serve lunch.

We drove into downtown Fredericksburg to take in some of the historical sights.  Our first stop was St. George's Church, which was established in 1720.  We wandered the graveyard next to the church where the founders of Fredericksburg now rest, then we went into the church.  There was a noon service going on, so we didn't get to see the original gated wooden pews, but we did wander around and admired the stained glass windows in the front area.

It was lunch time, so we wandered over to the Capital Ale House, a restaurant which claims to serve more than 300 beers!  From the looks of their refrigerated bottle selection, combined with what was on tap, I have no doubt about their claims.  Rainy ordered the Lagunitas Pilsner from California, I had the Jiver Pilsener from Germany.  We started with the Bavarian Pretzel served with a sweet and spicy honey mustard.  It was about 1 1/2" thick and as big as the plate.  I think it was the best pretzel that I have ever eaten!  We shared the main course, a Brat & Knack plate; Knackwurst and bratwurst served with Kraut, sweet and sour red cabbage and warm german potato salad.  What we couldn't finish, we took with us to snack on later.

By now it was in excess of 100 degrees with high humidity.  I took Rainy back to the Inn so that she could cool down and take a nap.  I decided to return to the downtown area to see the Mary Washington House.  Mary was the mother of George Washington and lived in this house during the later years of her life.  There were a couple of original pieces of furniture and original china, the rest were period pieces found that were similar to what would have been in the house at the time.  I wandered outside to see the kitchen and the gardens, yes the heat was immense, but I didn't mind.  When I was done, I went into the gift shop too cool off.  Of course I found a couple of items to buy; a postcard and a small vase for myself.  My next stop was the post office.....how ordinary!  I needed to buy some more stamps so that I could continue sending postcards.  Then I went to the library so that I could work on the blog as the inn we are staying at doesn't have wireless.  Afterwards, I decided to return to the inn to take a short nap before dinner.

We met Jerry and Glenda Lawson at Fujiya, a japanese restaurant where they cook the food at your table.  I really should have brought my camera to take pictures!  Oh well.  Dinner was excellent and it was nice to catch up o each other's lives.  I don't think I had seen Glenda in probably 20 years!  After dinner we returned to the inn, watched a movie and went to sleep!