Saturday, July 18, 2009

Well, I told you last year that we planned to head to Europe this summer, but the financial crisis did a number to our travel budget and we will perhaps be able to head over the pond next year.

Graham has two meetings with colleagues in Baltimore on Monday, so our starting point was established.Today, however, we stayed in West Virginia, heading to Morgantown to the West Virginia University to drop Sam tomorrow at the Governor's School for Math and Science. More on that tomorrow.

Sam has started running cross country this summer. Each morning at 8am a group of guys and gals that go to Huntington High meet in Ritter Park, 2 blocks from our house. Sam has been running 5-7 miles per day and a group decided, with the coach's blessing, that they would participate in a 5K run this morning in Hurricane, about 30 minutes east of Huntington. So we got up really early to get there for the race start at 8. There were maybe 75 people altogether, with about 9 kids from the high school. The race started with 2 of Sam's teammates falling.

But they quickly got up and everyone else managed to jump over or around them. The course had a variety of surfaces and varied terrain. While Sam’s time was not what he hoped, he came in 13th overall and 3rd in his age division.

Most of the guys won a glass mug, etched with the race name and date.

We headed onward then, stopped for breakfast and then also stopped at a Bulk Foods shop in Flatwoods where Sam could get snacks for the 2 weeks ahead.

Then, because we had lots of time, we got off the interstate and drove to a Civil War re-enactment in the small town of Belington. That's a bit northeast of Buckhannon.

Another reason we went was a few weekends ago we went to the Cass Railroad State Park and enjoyed a murder mystery train ride. One of the other passengers was dressed in the period costume and was participating in the skit. Her husband, who was also costumed, had no idea she was in character when we started asking her questions. Later, she came out of character and told us that it was his birthday and they are re-enacters, so it was not hard to get him to dress in costume but he was pretty confused for a while. They are do civil war re-enactments and we thought perhaps we would see them, but they were not there.

We visited the encampment and chatted with some of the people. Most said they had gotten involved because someone they knew invited them and they had a love of history. While most of the people were in units affiliated with the South, many were ready to switch colors for the “battle” the next day and there were too many Rebels and the Yankees had won

We met Father John Stonesifer for dinner. He had been the interim priest at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Huntington, and we had enjoyed his friendship immensely. He is now the interim priest at Trinity in Morgantown and was happy to join us for dinner at a seafood restaurant called Back Bay.

Last year we seemed to enjoy our duty to taste lobster wherever we went. This year, for at least some of the trip, we are willing to test crab cakes. So I started my task. I ordered one broiled and one fried and decided I liked the broiled better. These were pretty good, lots of crab meat and not much filler.

Sam had his first experience with crawfish, learning how to rip off the heads and shell them.