What's the capital of North Carolina?

 Washington DC!

Glenn and I went up to DC a few months ago to visit my friend Hillary, but I don't think I posted any pics except from karaoke. It's so nice having her close by although we'll have to make another trip to see her soon.

While we were in town though, Glenn and I also visited the Natural History museum and saw the WWII memorial. It was beautiful spring weather though and probably many schools' spring break though, because everywhere was packed!

It was nice to see Hillary, catch up with the Rohrings and see our nation's capital. I'm sure we'll be making another trip up there in the future. As long as traffic isn't bad, it's only a 3.5 hr drive!

Rhode Island

Over Memorial Day weekend, Glenn and I flew up to Rhode Island to visit our dear friends, the Gilberts! We lived a 2 second walk apart in Japan and Stella and often found ourselves there for hours at a time. Watching the kiddos, enjoying margaritas or having a good cry. Whatever the day entailed! I've missed Kristy, Drew and their little Giblettes so much!

We got in late on Friday night and stayed up late chatting. On Saturday, we headed to the Cliff Walk. A gorgeous walking/running path that overlooks the bay and is backed by humungeous old mansions. A perfect combination in my world.
On Sunday, we returned to the same area and checked out The Breakers. A Vanderbilt mansion. Our Vanderbilt world tour continues! It was huge, opulent and over the top, but so cool to see.

On Sunday night, Kristy got a babysitter and we headed out to downtown Newport to a great seafood restaurant and then to one of the bars downtown. Newport is a cute little town with so much history. I loved all the little shops and colonial homes.

The rest of the weekend was a lot of relaxing, donut eating and hanging out with the kiddos. It felt like we were neighbors again. I can't wait til they come down to Virginia in August. Thanks for having us Gilberts!

Asheville Road Trip

 

After all of our traveling in Japan, Glenn and I were feeling a little restless that a three day weekend was approaching and we didn't have travel plans! We had passed through Asheville on our way from MN to Norfolk and decided that we wanted to return.

The Biltmore Estate has always been on my list of places I wanted to visit. Giant, old house? Check! It doesn't hurt that Asheville is a college, foody, hippy town that Glenn and I always seem to like. It reminded me in parts to Austin or Madison.

We hit the road around 1:00 on Friday afternoon which was great to avoid the tunnel and general traffic on a Friday afternoon. It took us about 6 1/2 hours to get to Asheville, but we kept busy by listening to the Steve Jobs audio book (side note: we listened to the abridged version which is 9 hours long, the unabridged is 25 hours!). We both enjoyed the book and were able to finish it on our way home.

We went to a cute restaurant near Pack Square our first night. We were staying in the Downtown Inn, a former Comfort Inn I believe, but at only $53 a night (including taxes!) and walking distance to a lot of the bars and restaurants, it was a perfect location. I think next time we go, we'll bring Stella because Asheville is a very dog friendly town. We saw dogs everywhere including at the Biltmore Estate (in the gardens, not the house).

On Saturday, we went to breakfast at a local shop and then headed to the Biltmore. Since it is their off-season, they don't open til 9:30, but tickets are only $45 ($35 with a military discount!). I think during the summer and Christmas they approach the $60-$70 range. The gardens were obviously not as pretty this time of year, but it is still worth going since the crowds are smaller.

We toured the house in about 3 hours. The audio guide is also free this time of year so we listened to that all the way through. If I were to go back, I think I would take one of the guided tours just to learn different things.

After the house, which was pretty amazing, we toured the winery. Free wine tastings! As many as you want! Always a bonus. There are also tons of shops that we walked through and picked up a few things. The Estate also has a hotel, a dozen or so restaurants, horseback riding and tons of other things to do. You could easily spend 2 full days here. We were there until after a late late lunch until 3 or 4.

We hit up a few shops in downtown before they closed on Saturday evening and then went to the Thirsty Monk for dinner/drinks before heading back to our hotel.


On Sunday we planned to drive part of the Blue Ridge Scenic highway on the way home. All of the things I had read said it is one of the most beautiful drives in the country. Unfortunately after about 10 miles, we encountered this:

 Boo. So we made u-turn and headed home on our original route. I guess we'll have to make the drive in the fall when the leaves start to change. I guess that's my favorite time of the year anyway!

We still had Monday back at home to relax and get a few projects done. A great weekend, though! I'm excited for our next long weekend when we head to Maryland to visit some friends.

On the road again.

Glenn and I are taking advantage of being in driving distance, our new 50 mpg car and his time off to take another road trip. We're headed to Ohio for Thanksgiving #2 with the Lawson family.

I'm over the long drives, but I can't wait to see my family.

This is helping too. I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Graceland

On our road trip from Minnesota to Virginia, we made a few stops including two nights in Memphis. Since Glenn's birthday fell in the middle of the road trip, we decided to spend that day eating BBQ and relaxing without any driving.

We stayed at the Peabody hotel in downtown Memphis. It was a great location right off of Beale street and, thanks to Facebook, we had some great recommendations for that night.

For the afternoon, we checked in to our hotel, dropped off the pooch and headed to Elvis's home, Graceland.

Well, shortly after we got there, we got a call from the hotel that Stella was making all sorts of noise and they would have to remove her from our room. What a pain! They took her down to the office and fortunately, she was as sweet as can be down there and enjoyed attending the office meeting. Is this what troubled kids are like? Seriously embarrassing!

Needless to say, our tour of Graceland was hurried, but we saw his house, his cars and his airplanes. I might have done it at a more leisurely pace, but we saw what we wanted to see.

After picking up our PITA, we enjoyed a birthday bottle of wine and more BBQ and drinks that night. Stella got to spend our time in the restaurant in the car. We still wanted to spend the night in the hotel! She seemed to do alright. We definitely got strange looks since it was a pretty fancy hotel, but they DO allow dogs. They even gave us fancy Peabody doggy bowls.

Glenn and I definitely want to make a trip back to Memphis, maybe for their annual BBQ festival in May. We've learned a few tips for hotel living with a dog though:
- leave the tv on, ESPN is great because it is loud and has lots of talking.
- put her in her kennel so that she can't sit by the door and listen for noises.

Here are some pics of our time in Memphis.