I promised you a post with more details about the Museum of the Confederacy and today seems like as good a time as any to show you the photos I took just for you. The lighting was low so you will have to excuse the pictures as they aren’t of the highest quality but I still think you will enjoy them.

First up, these hand knit socks.

The card said they were knit for a soldier by a young girl from his hometown. The stitches are teeny tiny and they are not ribbed but were shaped in the calf area. I love the purl ridges at the top and also the fact that the soldiers initials were embroidered into the back of the leg.

While the main floor of the museum is mostly military related, the lower floor includes artifacts from civilian life. I enjoyed looking around there a lot and took a few photographs of things I wanted to share with all of you.

I love these fingerless mitts! The stitches on these are really tiny, too, and the thumb gusset looks pretty unique to me. Other than that they look just like something one of us would knit.

I got really excited when I read the information on this card saying that this was a remnant of a sleeve that was hand carded, spun, woven and sewn. I knew I wouldn’t remember all of the details so I took a close up for you.

Isn’t that awesome? Well, except for the part about her dying at the age of 21.

Finally, I have two more sock photos to show you.

According to the identifying card, these socks were hand knit by a young woman to wear on her wedding day. Aren’t they gorgeous? They are pretty long so I’d guess they were knee socks. And how about the deep stockinette cuff – so different than the way we knit our socks now.

Here’s a close up so you can get a better look at the lace patterning. I think it’s just lovely and I’m very tempted to try and reproduce them only with slightly less stitches. Heh.

See? Even when I go on vacation I’m thinking of you all. Or should I say y’all? This was Virginia, my friends.

I suppose I ought to wrap up this Virginia Travelogue so today I will cover our last 3 days. There may be more next week, as Dale will be telling you his Frank Harlow story, and I think the Museum of the Confederacy deserves a post all of it’s own but in the meantime, here are the details on the rest of our vacation.

Thursday:

• Got up in time to have breakfast at the hotel – thank goodness.
• Drove to downtown Richmond in order to be at the Museum of the Confederacy when it opened at 9.
• Parked the car, walked over to the museum only to realize that it didn’t actually open until 10.
• Whoops.
• Visited Hollywood Cemetery while waiting for the museum to open.
• Loved it there and took lots of photos. It’s quite moving and many famous Confederates are buried there, including Jefferson Davis, J.E.B. Stuart, and George Pickett.
• Headed back to the Museum of the Confederacy by late morning.
• Toured the Confederate White House. I was impressed with the many original artifacts.
• Toured the Museum of the Confederacy. Again, lots of original artifacts and I have photos of things you will like.
• Kept Dale on a very tight schedule throughout this time period so that we could be finished with the Civil War portion of our day by 2pm.
• It’s like herding cats but it does work.
• Went to the Carytown section of Richmond where there are lots of funky shops and restaurants.
• Hit The Yarn Lounge. Yay! Bought Plain and Fancy. Double yay!
• Relaxed over a cheese plate and cocktails at Can Can Brasserie.
• Crossed the river to the other side of town and relaxed some more over beers and nachos at Legends Brewery.
• Soaked in the whirlpool tub in our room.

Friday:

• Packed up our room and had our last breakfast at the hotel.
• Drove north to Fredericksburg, the last battlefield visit of our trip.
• Thank jeebus.
• Waited in the car while Dale hiked the battlefield as my interest in all things Civil War had completely evaporated.
• Drove north to Washington DC.
• Met up with Hillary and had a delicious lunch at The Old Ebbitt Grille.
• Drove north to Atlantic City. This should have taken 4 hours but took over 5 thanks to traffic on route 95.
• Checked into The Golden Nugget at 8pm. Loved our awesome room.
• Discovered that Happy Hour lasts until 11pm in Atlantic City. Rejoiced over our good fortune.
• Lost money at the black jack table.

Saturday

• Slept late and loved it.
• Admired our view of the brand new pool area and the marina.
• Had a delicious cappuccino and croissant for breakfast. It wasn’t free but damn it was good.
• Won money on a slot machine.
• Checked out and headed north to Massachusetts.
• Arrived home at 7pm only to be greeted by a very pissed off cat.
• Unpacked, collected the dog, and collapsed on our very own couch.
• Went to bed early and relished being home.

Are you ready to hear more about my travels through Virginia? Let’s go.

Wednesday

• Slept late and missed the free hotel breakfast.
• Decided we would get something on our way to our first destination.
• Despite having seen an abundance of strip malls and fast food restaurants we saw nary a one on our way to our destination.
• Ate an apple and grumbled about being hungry.
• Visited and toured the Shirley Plantation. I really liked it there, plus they had cats and I needed a cat fix.
• I grumbled some more about being hungry.
• Got lost trying to find the Malvern Hill Battlefield. We did eventually find it. I was underwhelmed, Dale was joyful.
• Finally had lunch at McDonald’s. That quarter pounder with cheese, which I know is horrible for me and disgusting, tasted like the best thing I’d ever eaten.
• Visited Chimborazo Hospital. We thought we were at the Richmond Battlefield Visitor Center and didn’t have the heart to tell the very enthusiastic volunteer that we did not mean to visit this particular spot.
• Visited the Richmond National Battlefield Visitor Center and the Tredegar Museum.
• Visited the Cold Harbor and Gaines’ Mill Battlefields.
• Announced that that was quite enough battlefields for one day, thankyouverymuch.
• Drove down Monument Avenue, admired the statues and the antebellum houses.
• Had dinner at a wonderful little restaurant on Strawberry Street. The bartender was friendly and awesome.
• Drank a truly delicious beer called Strawberry Harvest Lager.
• Bought 2 six packs of said beer to bring home.
• Soaked in the whirlpool tub in our room.

Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook know that my vacation, which I referred to as “hanging out with Dale” here on the blog, actually meant hanging out with Dale while we toured many of the Civil War battlefields of Virginia. Yay. Please note the lack of exclamation point. Heh.

Honestly, though, it was fun and it wasn’t all battlefields all the time. Here’s a recap of our itinerary for the first 4 days:

Saturday:

• Left at 6:30 am and arrived in Philadelphia at 12Noon.
• Visited the Liberty Bell and took an open air bus tour of the city.
• Split a delicious cheese steak (with wiz and onions) and drank Yuengling.
• Spent the night at the Valley Forge Casino Resort.

Sunday

• Toured the Valley Forge National Park.
• Drove south to Richmond.
• Sat in a lot of traffic.
• Stocked up on bourbon at a very scary liquor store in a neighborhood we probably should not have visited.
• Had burgers from Five Guys.
• Soaked in the whirlpool tub in our room.

Monday

• Toured the Petersburg Battlefield. I was bored.
• Found Frank Harlow’s grave at the Poplar Grove National Cemetery. This was sort of the point of the whole trip and it was totally worth it to see Dale bawl when he found it. There’s a long story to this but it’s Dale’s to tell – perhaps I can convince him to write a blog post about the whole thing.
• Drove to the Mariner’s Museum to see a replica of the Monitor only to find it closed.
• Sat in lot of traffic driving to Virginia Beach.
• Walked on the beach and stuck my feet in the ocean.
• Drank Yuengling and ate shrimp at a bar on the boardwalk.
• Soaked in the whirlpool tub in our room.

It’s hard to summarize a whole great week of vacation into one blog post but I’m going to try a new approach. I’m just going to give you the statistics!

• Days spent at the beach: 5

• Shopping excursions: 2

• Lobsters eaten: 12 plus 2 lobster rolls

• Seagulls photographed: 1
• Racko games played: 24. I never won once.
• Rummy games played: 1. I lost that, too.
• Apples to Apples games played: 2. I don’t think I won this either but the details are fuzzy.

• Drinks consumed: many, many
• Bike rides taken: 5

• Number of sunsets photographed: 1

• Smiles: countless!

We are home safe and sound from our Cape Cod Vacation 2011. Hurricane Irene did cut our trip short by one day but I won’t hold a grudge since we seem to have made it through the storm relatively unscathed.

I have loads of pictures to process and lots of stories to tell you but for now I hope you’ll be satisfied with this picture I took on the beach last week.

That’s my idea of heaven, right there.

As I said yesterday, we spent Sunday with our friends Jo-Ann and Shawn at their house on Lake Winnipesaukee. We stopped on our way down the mountain first, though, and took this picture.

See that little spot in the lake, just to the left of the tall tree in the foreground? That’s Little Mark Island and Jo-Ann and Shawn’s house is in the cove to the left of it. Sweet!

As you can imagine, they have a fantastic view of the lake. They also have their own private beach and a boat. It’s nice to have friends with great toys, let me tell you.

While hanging out on their beach we ate lunch, drank beer, and swam. We also go to see the Mount Washington go by and that was very cool.

After a bit we went out in the boat and checked out the sights. I love this sandbar where people park their boats and hang out in the lake.

Dale decided hanging out in the lake would be fun so he gave tubing a try.

Shawn drives the boat very carefully for newbies and Dale never fell off.

He just relaxed and went with the flow . . . errrr . . . wake.

What a fun way to spend the afternoon!

We left after dinner and finally got home around 11pm. We were tired but it was worth it. What an awesome weekend we had!

Last weekend Dale and I found ourselves with no commitments. No band jobs for him, no work commitments, no social engagements – - – a completely unscheduled weekend in July. This is sort of unheard of for us so we decided to take advantage of it and go away. We went back and forth about where to go and decided to try someplace Dale had been as a kid but we had never been together so we headed north, to Alton Bay, NH.

I found us an adorable little cottage online. It was reasonably priced and available. It was close to a medium size pond and also close to our friends Jo-Ann and Shawn on Lake Winnipesaukee. It sounded perfect.

And it was. We settled in on Thursday night and went out for a quick bite to eat down in Alton Bay. I had delicious fried shrimp and Dale had the biggest piece of fried haddock I have ever seen. It was wicked hot so we also had some ice cream!

On Friday we decided it was too hot for the beach so we headed to Center Harbor and Keepsake Quilting. I got inspired by all the fabric and am now committed to make 3 new quilts. I fell down so hard in the fabric store that I never even went into Patternworks next door. I know, I know, but I have a lot more yarn than fabric so I feel I made the right choice.

We ended the afternoon on the beach and then had an awesome dinner with Jo-Ann and Shawn at the Lyon’s Den. Dale said his swordfish was the best he’d ever had and the setting was beautiful. It was still hot so after dinner we took a boat ride with Shawn & Jo-Ann and their family to the ice cream place. It was the perfect way to end a wonderful day.

The weather was much more moderate on Saturday so we spent the afternoon at our pond. We met some very nice people on the beach and felt very welcomed by the whole area. The pond is very pretty and surrounded by mountains. We swam and drank beer and ate crackers and cheese and it was a great afternoon.

We cooked steaks on the grill for dinner and took a walk back to the beach to see the sunset. We missed the sunset but Dale got to play horseshoes with his new friends so it was not a total loss!

On Sunday we cleaned up the cottage and headed over to Lake Winnipesaukee to spend the day with our friends. You’re going to have to wait until tomorrow to hear about that, though.

On the day that we visited the FDR property we just so happened to finish up there right around lunch time. My Rhinebeck peeps know that the Eveready Diner is practically right across the street from FDR’s house and Dale had never been there so of course I suggested it for lunch.

We were not disappointed. We both had sandwiches and they were good but it’s the dessert that was truly spectacular. I had lemon meringue pie that was definitely no ordinary lemon meringue pie. It had a regular pie crust (which was fantastic) and then a lot of delicious lemon filling and then – then! – it had cake. Yes, there was a layer of cake on top of the lemon filling. On top of the cake was the meringue and on the outside edges there were crushed nuts. It was such a great combination of flavors and textures and I really need to figure out how to make it.

Anyway. After lunch we headed across the street to the Vanderbilt Mansion. We almost skipped it as the afternoon was fading fast but we decided to visit to not only take advantage of the free admission thanks to the  National Park Service week deal but also to work off that fabulous pie.

I’m glad we didn’t skip it.

We live pretty close to Newport, RI and have visited the mansions there many times so it was really fun to see the Vanderbilts “country” home. It isn’t quite as large as the Breakers since apparently they didn’t do much entertaining there, or at least not entertaining on the scale of those grand summer parties in Newport. It’s still pretty opulent, though, and the guide regaled us with stories and tales of the Vanderbilts and their wealth.

The grounds are beautiful and have a view of the Hudson that’s spectacular.

Of course. Why would the Vanderbilts have a crappy view of the Hudson?

I know that money can’t buy happiness but I can’t help but thinking, when I see places like this, that maybe being unhappy in this sort of place might not be quite the same as being unhappy someplace else.

Just sayin’.

We had a nifty guidebook on our vacation to upstate New York called Off the Beaten Path: Upstate New York. It’s arranged by location and sent us to a couple of really neat places that we probably would have missed otherwise.

Kaaterskill Falls was about an hour from our little barn but so worth the trip. It’s one of the highest waterfalls in the state and it’s beautiful. The tiny parking area is a bit away from the falls and you have to walk around a narrow and windy road to get to the best viewing spot but once you get there it opens up into a spectacular view.

It’s hard to capture just how large an area this is with just a few photos.

Dale made his way down the edge and stood at the base of the falls. I was pretty content to take pictures from above but he turned and shouted to me that I had to come down and stand there. His exact words were, “you have to come experience this.”

So I obliged and he was right, it was awesome. The sound of rushing water fills your ears, it’s quite deafening. And the air is cool and you get rather damp from the water spraying around. It really is something to experience.

I took almost 100 photos while we were there and it was hard to narrow them down to just a few to show you. I love this one with Dale on the side and out of focus while the water fall behind him is flowing and moving.

We stayed and took it all in for quite a while. It was loud and peaceful, energizing and restful, all at the same time. I’m so glad we took the time to visit this spot.