Smitha and I got up relatively early (8am) and headed out to the Tavern, which is a classic country diner. The roof advertises that the Tavern is where "Townspeople, Students and Travelers come to Mingle" and that is definitely true. There were some huge preppies, true hicks and old people in there. Smitha had chipped beef, which is kind of like small pieces of corned beef in a gravy with biscuits, and then a side of grits. I had a pecan waffle, which is a crispy waffle with chopped pecans. They even had real maple syrup, so it was pretty good.
I then got on the road to Maryland. Google Maps directed me to take local roads, not the highway, so I got a real tour of some of the prettiest country I've seen so far. I was on US routes almost the whole way, except for a short portion of county road. The drive north mirrored the Skyline Parkway of Shenandoah National Park, which I have made once before in college. The mountains were spectacular when viewed from my perspective, and it was a nice change to be actually driving instead of mindless interstate. The drive from Charlottesville to Middletown, MD, where Grant's family farm is took about three hours. I got delayed because I was stuck behind a line painting truck for about 30 minutes, that was frustrating.
When I arrived at the farm, Grant was busy packing because he was leaving for Luanda, Angola tonight, which was a surprise to him as well as me as he just got the call to leave a few hours before I arrived. I saw his brother Luke who is at Harvard now, and his mom, who looks exactly the same as the last time I saw her seven years ago! He showed me the boat he has been building, it is a Chesapeake Bay boat that will have two sliding seats for rowing and he's putting in bulkheads for storage. He has built boats before, so it's nothing totally out of the ordinary for him, but he wants to go row around Alaska! Apparently he is thinking about leaving his job so that might actually become a possibility. I told him that he wasn't Grant unless he had a crazy scheme.
We had a nice time catching up, and then I had to get back on the road and he had to drive to DC to fly out for London, then Johannesburg, then Luanda. We were laughing at the crazy lives we led!
I then got back on interstate highways to drive up to Schenectady, NY, to visit my brother at Union. The drive from Maryland to Binghamton, NY, on I-81 was stressful. There was a lot of traffic and congestion and only 2 lanes going each way. Once I got on I-88 towards Albany for the last 120 miles it cleared up and I had a nice drive with almost no one on the road.
It was nice to see my brother at college, I met his roommate and some friends. We ate dinner (or at least, I did) at Five Guys burgers, their fries are so ridiculously good! We then shot some hoops outside because the weather is quite nice and cool here. Tomorrow we will have breakfast, and then my odyssey will finally be over as I will arrive in Vermont!
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The pecan waffle with real maple syrup sounds great! Did you happen to see where the maple syrup came from? (I know some is made in western MD; don't know about VA).
ReplyDeleteYou have really seen a great deal of our country on your trip!
How much time did you spend with Grant? Did you have a meal with the Salisburys? I wonder why Grant doesn't try to get on one of those SAA or Delta flights direct to Joburg rather than flying thru London?
Nice that you it was light enough to shoot hoops after you ate. You sure won't be able to do that here after 5:45 at this point.
Love, Dad