We’re now at Sunday May 19th. Agenda – a leisurely trip somewhat southwest. Got up, cleaned up, went downstairs for breakfast with Bob and Sheri, very nice, and heartfelt goodbyes as they wended their way back to Columbus.

On the road again. My very vague planning for this trip had indicated that I could probably head west from Baltimore and avoid the DC area completely, but it was Sunday, so traffic not a big deal and I ended up taking the Baltimore-Washington Parkway (not 95) south to the Beltway. I hadn’t done that drive in a while, it’s quite nice. Was on the (extremely) familiar northwest quadrant of the Beltway for a while, passing by the exit to my hometown, McLean. (‘do you want to stop? Naw’) And then at some point off on a diagonal to Manassas.

I’d picked Manassas just as a place to quickly use the bathroom and pick up a coffee drink. I have friends who live there, but have never been. I took 20 minutes or so to walk around the historic downtown district, right by the battle museum. They were having some sort of Latin-inflected street fair in the public square there, and I would have loved to explore the booths of stuff, but it was SO FRIGGIN’ LOUD. I did walk the (3 blocks, tops) streets, but headed back quickly to get an iced mocha and continue on.

My ultimate destination was Charlottesville, another touchpoint in Virginia history (and recent history too) I’d never been there either, and pretty much just wanted to see what it was like and particularly to visit the campus of the University of Virginia. UVa was the top college for my high school grads to go – the second was William & Mary, where I went, and UVa was our rival school. We made fun of their odd traditions – the campus is called “the grounds”, freshmen are “first years”, Thomas Jefferson (who graduated from our school, but who founded UVa) is revered as a godlike figure. Well, that was all fun and amusing, but I love college campuses in general, and wanted to see this one, where so many of my friends spent their time.

I was arriving pretty much right after UVa’s graduation – like, it happened that morning and I showed up mid-afternoon. Originally, I thought I was going to spend more than a couple of nights there, but once plans firmed up, I stayed in a Hilton “Home2”, a short-term residence type of place, rather than a hotel – figured that would make more sense since I’d actually be working on Monday. Got there, got confused by the one-way signs of the surrounding streets, ended up in the parking garage (where I didn’t really need to be, there was plenty of parking by the lobby entrance), and checked in.

My room was huge – not only the bed, but a very very long desk area, and a sitting area and a clear setup for people who had to work and maybe even hold meetings in their room (for instance, a curtain that could curtain off the bed area from the sitting area, and a little conference table on wheels, which I used as a suitcase table). Also a kitchenette, a full-sized fridge and so on. Big bathroom – and since it was the same price either way, I’d gotten an ‘accessible’ room, which I figured would have a shower spray and handles, which are helpful.

A little Google Maps magic later – the downtown historic mall was within walking distance, but it was kind of an odd walk, not direct – it made sense once I did it, though. I found myself at Otto, a Turkish street food restaurant. You could pretty much have them build any sort of wrap or bowl you want, but I just picked one of their classics off the menu, and it was enormous and awesome, so tasty. Also, the staff was very friendly, almost surprisingly so.

Then to the downtown mall, several pedestrian-only blocks of bars, restaurants, ice cream places, and fun shops (although most of them were closed). I explored that whole thing, went into some antique stores and bookstores, got some ice cream, picked some possible restaurants for dinner, and then back to the room. Unpacked, cleaned up, and did the news-and-knit thing until it was time to head back to the mall for dinner.

I went to Sal’s Caffe Italia. What I’d hoped for was a nice unrushed meal – have a cocktail, then order an appetizer, then after ordering the appetizer, order something else, if I felt like it. Unfortunately, my twinkie waiter did not want me to do that, kept pushing for ordering so he could get stuff in, and then was nowhere around when I wanted to order another drink or have him clear the used dishes off the table (I hate that – once I’m done, I want them gone.) So… nice meal, not the best experience.

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Monday was going to be weird, but I saw that coming. It was the two-year anniversary of C’s death, but I had no plans to ‘celebrate it’, just acknowledged it on social media. Tessa had reached out to see if I wanted to get together, which I declined because ‘not there’. Both nieces reached out to me, which was very sweet, and I had a good text chain with each of them. But, as I pointed out to Allison, I’d rather celebrate the birthdays and anniversaries than underline May 20th every year. We had a gathering last year for it, that’s enough.

I was also ‘working from the road’, something I haven’t done much of, and this trip was kind of an experiment to see if I could actually do that without too many problems. I usually use a battery of external monitors and keyboard and mouse, but here I was just using my laptop with no help (OK, I did have a mouse), and discovered very quickly that the laptop’s built-in keyboard had a ‘feature’ where the power button was right next to the Del key. Oops, he said, having powered down the PC accidentally the second time.

But work was light, and I decided to take a long lunch hour and finally go to UVA. I’d done some research to figure out where to start, and how to pay for parking. (Parking and, actually, traffic, in Charlottesville was pretty awful – and I had to pay for parking even at my hotel.) I’d hoped (before I actually arrived) that I could just walk over to the campus, but no, that would have been a schlep, so I droved and parked in the garage by the bookstore. Got a campus map from the bookstore and started exploring.

The visual everyone has in their head of UVa is the Rotunda, so I wanted to see that first. Headed over there, discovered the great lawn – which was filled with stacked folding chairs from yesterday’s graduation, and took a surreptitious picture behind enemy lines.

Walking around ‘the quad’ or whatever they call this area, I saw a lot of students moving out of their dorm rooms, and these dorm rooms opened out directly on the central space. I found out later from a UVA grad that these dorm rooms are quite prized and only available to a selected set of fourth-years.

So… I did walk around quite a bit of campus after that, but it’s huge. W&M, of course, is just a triangle that you can pretty much walk the length of in about 10 minutes, and Peabody’s all on the same block. There was some neat architecture, and fun stuff like an ampitheater. But I will say, after graduation, it did seem sort of empty, unkempt and sad.

I wish I’d had more time to see more stuff, but had to get back to ‘the office’, and find lunch first. I’d hoped to find somewhere within a short drive that had an effing parking lot, but alas, there was nothing like that and I ended up – I still can’t believe this – getting two corn dogs from the world’s saddest mini mart. (They weren’t bad, I didn’t end up barfing, and I had cookies in my room from the car snacks.)

After work, I decided to explore a series of historic buildings and parks immediately north of the mall, then go get dinner. The walk was really nice, and the historic buildings etc. was quite similar to what they have in Williamsburg.

The mall itself was far quieter, the grad-parents having cleared out. I realized that, although the mall had quite a lot of outdoor seating, every bit of it was ‘assigned’ to whatever restaurant it was by. In other words, there were no public benches or seating… and I realized why. There was a significant homeless population hanging around the mall. They weren’t aggressive, but I wasn’t sure what to think. I don’t know enough about Charlottesville’s economics to figure out whether it’s a magnet for the unhoused, or they were already there.

I made what was probably a stupid choice for dinner – Rockfish Brewing Company. I guess I’d just focused on the first word and thought it was a seafood joint, but no, it was really about beer, with food along for the ride. And I wasn’t in a beer mood. And it was so much not about the restaurant experience that when I asked for a glass of water, the bartender pointed me at the ‘serve yourself’ setup in the corner for water.

That being said, it was a really nice bar space, and I had two glasses of wine which were really nice, and had fish tacos, which were excellent. So although it didn’t match what was in my head, I had a great time. And then went to the ice cream place I hadn’t tried the day before, and got a mint chocolate chip milkshake. I very rarely get milkshakes, they’re so calorific and are gone very quickly, but this was delicious, and a good choice.

Back to the hotel, and basically the end of the Charlottesville visit. I’m glad I went, but I definitely would need a reason to go back.