Econo Lodge University Arena Charlottesville

... Madison Suite. Deciding not to drive far we ate in Orange at the Silk Mill. Completely below average - mediocre crab dip and crab cakes, edible fried shrimp. We drank Stone Mountain C******nay - I thought it was fine but Roger just said 'Bah!' when I asked him to remind me of the name. The service was good. <br><br>Ah! But the sheets on the bed at Holladay house were fantastic. The bed was ...

... had its charm. The children were thrilled by the fact that the rain we had enjoyed in Washington had fallen as snow here and during a walk on part of the Appalacian trail (which runs from Maine to Georgia) they took the opportunity to have a snowball fight!<br><br>We stayed the next couple of nights in Charlottesville, home to Thomas Jefferson&#8217;s mansion: Monticello. We were very impressed by the house and by its presentation. I have to say that ...

Um....yeah. Red wine, pinot noir, is my new friend. Got rowdy with Aaron and Luca. Kelly and Ed made an appearance as well. Went to the UVA vs William and Mary because we got free tickets from a gentleman named Davies. He had walked in on us smoking and could not have been any cooler. And even though UVA lost we had fun anyway. Lots of ...

<br>As we left Albany driving towards Charlottesville, i kept thinking how absurd it is that I have yet to ramble in my own backyard. I've lived in New York for years and yet, I've never traveled south of Philadelphia! Our first stop was Shepardstown, a beautiful college town with

Europalooza: Our 34-Day, 5-Country Blitz Across the Pond<br><br>Us: Me (aka "Mom", age 43), K (girl, age 15), A (boy, age 13)<br><br>Some background information: Having befriended several European exchange students in high school, traveled to Sweden on my own at age 18, and then having lived in Germany for a couple of years (1984-1986), I was quite infatuated with Europe. I wish I had taken advantage of more opportunities to travel around while I was ...

... dreaming that one day he would build a house there. In order to build he had to reshape the hilltop, smoothing its summit and laying an ingenious set of circular roads following the contours so that goods and later guests could make their way up the slope easily. His plans for the house evolved over forty years into the building that we saw; the visitors' centre had brilliant exhibitions on all aspects of his life, with many of his personal ...

... was a warning siren for buses and trucks that were taller than 10 feet that went off periodically. The siren could have been heard 4 counties from where we were. You could tell it happened often because the kids at the bar didn't even skip a beat. They seemed completely unfazed while Jeff and I were both screaming and plugging our ears with our fingers. Strange. Well...the funny thing was that the siren seemed to go off AFTER the large bus or truck went under the ...

... that in order to kill time we'd head down to Charlottesville's historic district and check out several cute stores!  While we browsing there was a lot going on as people had gathered to thrown a Tea Party in protest of the current governement...it was interesting to see it live as we were hearing about them on the news.  When we exhausted that area we drove over to Jeffereson Vineyards for a quick tasting ...

... site before turning around back towards the house. The house tour started at the East entrance and unfortunately no photography was allowed. Over the entrance there is a 7-day clock. Along the wall where the counter-weights are hanging are markings for the days of the week except Saturday. The Entrance Hall was not high enough for all 7 days, so a hole was drilled into the floor for the counter-weights to recess into ...

... flight, AMS -TIP uneventful, TIP-JNB hum needed to cross Chad at FL 370 but got stuck behind Speed Bird at FL 290. Fianally got up to altitude. All was well.... Joburg is nice just like florida. Totally diff**ent to Lagos lol. Way back comm**cial on Olympic Airlines to Amst**dam via Athens. Then they shipped me home..... My bags are packed I am ready to go back out I can't wait.....