Apologies for slowness of updates for a while. This has mainly because I’ve had some work to do for a deadline yesterday and so blogging and posting pictures of food could to the untrained eye be been construed as procrastination!
Much has happened since I last wrote. I met up with Hannah at Dulles Airport on Saturday night as planned, although she took 2 hours to get through customs. That gave me just enough time to pick up the Mustang for this 2nd leg of the journey, a tour of the East Coast.
After reuniting, we swung South to Fredericksburg deep in the Civil War heartlands of Virginia. Fredericksburg was a Confederate stronghold and an important strategic site on one of the most inland rivers navigable from the Atlantic Ocean, the fast-moving Rappahannock, where locals fish out catfish and bass and the occasional person foolish enough to try to swim in it.
Fredericksburg is achingly quaint and picturesque; the colonial buildings have been kept in pristine condition by the local preservation society. There are tons of antique shops and a few nice pavement cafes and restaurants.
This is famous for being the home town of George Washington, who lived here from the age of 6 until 20, and the stories of him throwing a silver dollar into the Potomac are interpreted locally as a rock into the Rappahannock. It is also the home of Mary Washington who lived on here until her death.
We stayed at the rather quirky Richard Johnston Inn B&B, the architect of whch was an original signee of the Declaration of Independence. Breakfast, always a fraught affair in a B&B on account of the other guests was pancakes, whipped cream, blueberries and sausage balls. Other people staying in the inn were a selection of East Coasters from Connecticut, Massuchussets and New York. One was curious to know whether Gordon Brown was going to survive the next few weeks.
Right now we’re holed up in Virginia Beach which is decidedly more low-brow destination, with the sounds of Americans enjoying their holidays on the beach punctuated by low-flying fighter jets on manouevres.
Will keep you more up to date hopefully from now on!