Bye bye beard!

While lots of men started growing mustaches on 1 November for Movember, Chris started growing a beard just because he felt like it.  It quite quickly became a hot topic of conversation in DC social circles with the 'should he keep it?' debate dividing lots of our friends.  Even with it's ginger and grey tones (I liked to describe it as tortoiseshell) I have to admit that I quite liked it and of course that was the only opinion that really counted.

By Thanksgiving weekend, Chris was starting to get fed up with it itching so decided to shave it off on the Sunday evening but not before I had taken a photo as evidence!

Ice Skating at the Sculpture Garden

Instead of spending Black Friday battling it out with shoppers in the sales, we went ice skating at the outdoor rink in the National Gallery of Art's sculpture garden.  I say that we went ice skating but actually when we got there Chris decided that it was a bit too busy and therefore a bit too dangerous to let him loose on the ice!  Luckily we were with Chris's manager Andy, his wife and two teenage daughters so Andy and I went on the ice with the two girls.

After a shaky first few minutes, my confidence picked up and I spent a good hour skating around without falling over.  I just wish I knew someone that actually knew how to skate properly so they could give me a few pointers including how to actually stop without relying on the barrier!

Thanksgiving in DC

This year we spent Thanksgiving in DC.  We hoped that on Thursday morning Washingtonians might all be out of town or cooking their turkeys allowing us to have the new Martin Luther King memorial all to ourselves.  That wasn't quite the case but it's so big that it didn't really matter.

The sculpture is carved out of stone and faces the tidal basin looking across the water to the Jefferson memorial.  Behind MLK is a walk inscribed with some of his most famous quotes.

After visiting Martin we walked around the tidal basin to the Franklin Roosevelt memorial and the Jefferson memorial which were 2 memorials that we still hadn't been to.

Later in the afternoon we went for our Thanksgiving meal at a local restaurant Clydes.  It's only about a 5 minute walk from our apartment and is a very traditional American restaurant so served a good turkey dinner.  

Yes that is a full beard that Chris is sporting.  More beard photos to follow soon!

Chocolate pecan pie for me and apple pie for Chris.  Neither of us were brave enough to try the pumpkin pie.

Clydes is on Wisconsin Avenue which is one of the main roads near where we live.  It is always busy, it doesn't matter what day or time it is, there is always traffic queued up.  But for the first time since Snowmageddon the road was really quiet, it was strange to see it so empty.  

We love Thanksgiving.  As Brits it doesn't mean to us what it means to Americans, to us it only really means 4 days off work but it does give me that holiday feeling and starts me getting exciting that Christmas is coming soon!

Blue Ridge Mountains

Last Friday was the Veteran's Day public holiday so Chris decided to book us a cottage in the lovely Primland resort in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  The resort is in Virginia but it's still about a 5.5 hour drive away.

We left home on Friday morning and decided to take a slow drive down there through Shenandoah.  It was really beautiful even though most of the autumn leaves had gone but it was also really, really cold.

After spending the morning in Shenandoah we drove to the town of Bedford to visit the National D-Day Memorial.  The memorial was built here because the town suffered the greatest per capita loss of life during the invasion than any other town in the US.

 

We had spent a but longer than we planned in Shenandoah and at the memorial so we had to do the last part of our drive in the dark.  We finally found the sign for Primland at about 6.30pm and turned onto what we thought was the drive way. About 5 minutes later we arrived at the gatehouse to the resort relieved to finally be there, or so we thought! After going through the gatehouse it took about another 15-20 minutes driving down windy roads in the pitch black to actually arrive at the hotel, it really was in the middle of nowhere, we even had to give way to two raccoons crossing the road in the front of us!

There is a hotel in the main lodge but we were booked into one of the cottages just a few minutes away.  We were provided with our own golf cart for the weekend for driving around the resort so I quickly volunteered to take over all driving responsibilities for the rest of the weekend!

The hotel buildings were amazing, lots of wood and stone, it felt very natural in the surroundings.  

This room was part of the Observatory which is in the round metal part of the building, there were fantastic views across Virginia in one direction and North Carolina in the other.  We didn't do any star gazing but there were telescopes and star gazing experts (not sure what you call them!) on hand for anyone that wanted to.

On Saturday morning we walked one of the trails.  It was about 2.5 miles through the woodland but after about 5 minutes into the walk, I started to get serious bear fear.  We had seen a bear warning sign on the drive into the resort, there didn't seem to be any other signs up to say that bears were around but I'd convinced myself that they were out there.  It didn't help when I saw a footprint that I was sure was a paw print!  Just as I was examining the paw print we heard some leaves rustling and I saw something move in the woods.  I was certain it was a huge bear and started backing up, before deciding that my best bet was just to start to run, in hindsight that probably wasn't a good idea but I panicked!  Chris just stood still as the leaf rustling culprit, a giant deer walked across the path!  

The resort has the 13th best golf course in the US so on Saturday afternoon Chris had a bit of practice at the driving range before going out for a round. He only ended up playing 9 holes because despite the previous group going out 75 minutes before him, he caught up with them on the 6th hole then got stroppy at being stuck behind them. We worked out that the group he was stuck behind must have taken about 6 hours to play their round and Chris does not tolerate slow golf!

Because the resort is so remote you are limited to eating in the hotel unless you want to spend at least an hour round trip to drive somewhere.   This wasn't a problem at all, the food was great and very reasonably priced. We ate in the bar both nights but there were two other restaurants to choose from. I was happy because they served one of my favourite American foods - fried pickles!

Often we've found that when you visit somewhere posh like this, it can be a bit pretentious but this hotel wasn't like that at all. It was really laid back and friendly. The size of some American states is crazy, we entered Virginia about 10 minutes drive from our apartment but it still took over 5 hours to reach Primland. It did feel like a long way from DC, everyone had Southern accents which I love!

On Sunday morning after a long breakfast and a bit more golf practice we started our drive home stopping off at the Natural Bridge on the way.

Then we finally found a Golden Corral restaurant which I'd been wanting to try out for a while after seeing an advert about their chocolate wonderfall on TV.  The advertising worked on me!  It's a buffet restaurant and it was actually surprisingly good.  The mac and cheese was really good but the best part was the dessert table.  They had ice cream, frozen yoghurt, loads of different pies and cakes, brownies, cookies, cotton candy and the centrepiece - the chocolate wonderfall. I was not disappointed, it was every bit as good as the advert promised.  I want to come back again just to work my way through the dessert table!