Charleston, South Carolina

Clockwise from top left:
Unmilked Mexican coffee
Shadowy Vines in the Battery
Folly tidepool
School Spirit on King Street

Quiet moments are often what I remember most when I travel.
Quiet moments can find you on the busiest, loudest street of New York when the enormous magesty and agitating lights overwhelm the nosie and the people and suddenly you are alone and it's silent. It's quite cinematic.

In some places, however, quiet moments come easily. This was true of Charleston, where it felt as if the city was resting after a few hundred years of Revolutionary and Civil battles. In Charleston, there were small quiet streets that cornered into cobblestones and porches and graveyards of Spanish moss. There were empty porches you could imagine yourself sitting on with a tall glass of grits (HA! you thought I was going to say iced tea there, didn't you?). There was a small coffee shop with delicious Mexican coffee into which I stirred copious amounts of whole milk. Sitting there every morning, looking over our itinerary of past, present and future pie, markets, strolls and collard greens, I felt I was in a familiar place. That solitary and quiet place that is familiar to traveling.

The Baltimore Aquarium

On Friday Drew and I went to the Baltimore Aquarium. This is important to you for two reasons (1) It is only $8 Fridays after 5 and stays open until 9 and (2) They have tons of sting rays, which I love.
There's also a big orange octopus, sharks, a sloth and dolphins (supposedly).

Don't leave during rush hour and don't visit when you're thirsty. Do be aware if you go on Friday, you are going to be pushing wide-eyed kids out of the way to see the seahorse.

Driving through Maryland I can only see it as the sum of its stereotypes. It's hard to imagine the place as anything other than a giant factory that spits out drugs, crabs and fratty dudes, no thanks to The Wire and the various lacrosse tournaments, I'm sure. This is why I'm always surprised when people praise Baltimore and why I rarely, if ever, make the hour trip North. Yet every time I go it suprises me. The Inner Harbor is a little touristy but Fell's Point nearby, well, that's pretty touristy too but it's so nice to be near the water on a beautiful day.

I'm going to make an effort to remember that this is a state of abundant but runty crabs, cheap crack and Sperry Topsiders, yes, but it is also home to the Renaissance Festival, charming towns and a giant sea turtle with only one flipper.

Virginia Beach in the Winter

The Beach in the winter is a simultaneously depressing and exciting thing. While a lot of things are closed until the high season and the empty streets seem to wait for throngs of vacationers to fill them, it's also like accidentally seeing someone naked. So that's what they look like in the winter.

Drew and I went to visit Plum and Grandpa this weekend in Virginia Beach. There were lots of tunnels and holding our breath, lots of walking on the windy beach and dog-spotting and lots of Taylor Swift and snacks (he had never had Sour Patch Kids).
The Old Cavalier Hotel was closed, so you can see we had to suffice by riding a bike around the parking lot and maybe climbing up onto the roof and praying we didn't fall through the roof. Even peering through the windows and trying to devise ways to break into the Hotel was exciting. That has to be one of my favorite places.
On Sunday we drove over the 17-mile long Chesapeake Bay Bridge (terrifying) into the Eastern Shore. What a deserted and strange place. We didn't see any wild horses, but the pebble-littered bay side was hidden behind grassy dunes and it made me feel like I was on the edge of the Earth.

January and February always seem to be the longest months but they are absolutely flying this year. Slow down before I'm 24!

My Favorite Kitchen

Is in Blacksburg, VA.

In the kitchen is a giant wood stove that eats wood all day and night. It heats the house and makes it smell of wood smoke. In front of the stove is a big comfy chair to sit in and read. The kitchen was added after the house was built and the original siding still makes up one wall.

The house has slanted stairs and wooden floors painted blue, it has a library with a record player and whiskey, but that doesn't matter.
Not as much as the kitchen.

But maybe as much as Mike's roommates' amazing dog Finn, a retired racing greyhound and the tallest, sweetest dog.

Oh also, you can walk from the kitchen of Mike's house to the basment of the Cellar in less than 2 mintues. Whaaaaat?

Woodberry, VA

Woodberry homecoming, corn hole domination, worn paths through fallen leaves, Charlottesville in the fall, a good bench outside a good book sale, Ghirardelli brownies and then, after all that, John left Virginia.

I was warned I might swoon by merely stepping inside the grounds of Woodberry Forest, an all-boys boarding school. Really I was just amazed that they had chandeliers in the dining hall, a view of the Blue Ridge Mountains and little silver tags on all of their (amazing) trees.

This is my effort to take more pictures during the weekends.

Might I add the first and last photos were taken by Drew on my camera.

the apple festival.

syria, va

i love fall, obviously. but there's also a lot of anxiety that comes in october. every so often i get panicky that i'm not giving autumn the attention it deserves. i explain this and offer it as an excuse as to why i have a lot of mini pumpkins.

this weekend we went to an apple festival in the blue ridge mountains.
we made apple sage chutney and apple pie as we played cornhole under what may or may not be a maple tree.
i think this weekend calmed some of my seasonal anxiety. now i just need to start watching scary movies. i love scary movies like i love fireballs. they can be tough to get through at points, and sometimes you need to press pause and remind yourself that you're sitting in your parents livingroom in the middle of the day and later you're going to be eating lasagna.
but there are such things as ghosts.

thanks to drew for photoshopping apples. i can't wait until santa brings me my own photoshop because i gave a dollar to the hobo with the bright blue eyes yesterday.

orange, va

the street festival. a giant pumpkin, American flags (spell check was basically calling me a terrorist for keeping "American" in lowercase), kettle corn, the high school marching band and a boxer puppy.

fried chicken crisis in his press badge.

scrabble and oktoberfest on the porch. croquet in the backyard.

tornado chips with lots of salt & malt vinegar & pale legs.

starr hill brewery in crozet, va. black and white because drew's eyes were red-rimmed on account of the crack (just kidding! please please don't get angry...again). just kidding again there. i think i'm going to go watch tv.

lake anna.

best. purchase. ever.

watermelon teefs only in th'mornin.

highlights:
monica, temporary tatoos, bathing in the lake, oversized lasagna portions, no wake zone swing chairs, icees, surviving the haunted drive, stick-on earrings, sparkly beach/vampire maker, jack-wagons and hitting on 11-14 year olds.

Richmond

Virginia's capital: A place that is seeped with history and PBR. A place where hipsters and hoodlums can live in harmony.

Richmond, VA. Okay, i'll admit you have some pretty good restaurants and porches and maybe the church bells sound really good on Sundays. And okay, so it was 60 degrees over the weekend, bigggg deal. Remember that time it snowed and everything was closed except Kuba Kuba?
Yeah you're right, i guess that's the exact place we wanted to go for lunch, but still, i didn't even bring boots for godsakes. And yeah, i guess the Byrd Theatre was open as well and I got to see The Fantastic Mr. Fox, which was soooooo good.

What i'm trying to say, Richmond, is that I had a pretty good time with you this weekend. The pickle plate at Balliceaux was a lot of fun and the fried oysters and truffle fries were delicious. The duck hash at The Black Sheep was pretty good too (and i've now been there for breakfast lunch and dinner).

Also you look good in warm weather. No really, you do.