Carrie’s Visit Saves a Boring Week

Charlottesville Virginia
Saturday October 12- Saturday Oct 19, 2013

 

 
Hands down the best thing that happened this week is Carrie’s visit.

She gets here on Friday night after work.  It’s about a 2 hour drive from her home in Maryland.
The sun comes out long enough on Saturday for us to go to the terrific Charlottesville Farmer’s market.   BUT, I forget to take my camera so these pictures are from her phone and she unfortunately is not in any of them.  Drat!
The peppers are as colorful as the autumn leaves. Fall raspberries, apples. blackberries and heirloom tomatoes look yummy.  Wonderful fall greens.  It all looks so delicious.


 

Carrie takes my picture chatting with my friend Maggie who makes the greatest beautiful and whimsical pottery.  Carrie loves the pig.




So many fresh greens from the organic farm Radical Roots.
 

The rest of the week-end flies by as we cook and eat and chat and play.
I really don’t do much with my camera.  I keep forgetting about it.  So the pictures from her visit are remarkably sparse.







Carrie’s boyfriend Matthew joined her for the second day of her visit and too soon it is time for them to leave.  But we’ll see her again at Thanksgiving in Georgia we hope.




Most of the week is taken up with doctors and other appointments.

I have a doctor’s appointment every single day of the week and get through them all in good order.  No problems says the dentist, the dermatologist and after an adjustment for my back, my chiropractor.   
I went for my annual physical with no complaints except for a trigger thumb problem I’ve had for about 3 months now.  My doctor gives me a shot which I hope will work to keep it from snapping in and out of joint.  The pain from it is enough to make me jump straight up in the air so I have really altered how I use my right hand.  This means turning door knobs is very difficult, opening jars impossible and my handwriting has gone from bad to nearly unreadable since I am right handed.   On to happier things.

Fall is a beautiful time of year.
The mums are looking beautiful this fall.  But the colors of the trees are slow to come on and not as brilliant.  I think there has just been too much rain.  But I am enjoying them never the less.




  

And I just love twilight time, that surreal glow that everything takes on is magical especially in a place you love.

 

I’ve had a lot of trouble with my last few posts getting them to appear in the blog rolls.  If any of you have had the same problem and found a solution please let me know.  I use Live Writer to post.

Some Bright Spots in the Rain

Charlottesville, Virginia

 

As I’m sure you’ve noticed from “Where is Winnona Now” that we’ve been back in the Charlottesville area now for over two weeks.  The time has been spent doing fairly routine things that we all seem to do if we return to our “home towns”-visiting friends, our known mechanics and doctors.  I’ll do a quick catch up, a week at a time, of the highlights and leave the seriously mundane in the shadows of history.

 

 

Monday October 7

 

Our take off from Williamsburg goes well until about 30 miles in to it, it starts to rain, seriously.

 

We know this route up Interstate 64 very well so I am not as nervous as I usually am.  Although at times the rain comes down in torrents.  I really don’t like driving in the rain or in the dark.

 

 

 

We arrive safely, leave Winnona in town and drive Ruby out to the farm to see what needs to be trimmed from the 3/4 mile drive in order to bring Winnona out.

 

 

 

 

 

As it turns out, trimming is the least of the problems. 

 

The farm road is in terrible shape due to all the rain so Winnona will have to stay in town until it can get graded and graveled.

The road is terrible but the farm looks fine and the sunset is gorgeous.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday October 7

 

It has rained for the past five days, every single day since we’ve been back.

 

 

 

The grading  and gravel can’t happen unless it quits raining.  We can’t do any of the things we stopped by here to do.  Other than the doctor appointments of course.

David had all of his other doctor appointments when we stopped by here on our way to New England in June.  Dentist, optometrist. You know the routine.   I have 5 medical appointments lined up for the next 7 days. Oh fun!

 

 

 

 

 

But the big medical news is  David’s myeloma check up which he passed with flying colors on Tuesday. 

 

Many of his blood numbers aren’t normal but they are “normal for him” given that he is on daily revlimid which seems to keep white and red counts down.  The even better news is that his main doctor at Moffitt in Florida and his doctors at UVA and at Dana Farber in Boston agree that he can stop two of the drugs he is taking. 

They also are going to try cutting revlimid back to every day for 3 weeks out of 4 to see if his blood counts might improve.

 

 

 

The GREAT news is that one of the drugs he will no longer be taking is Zometa which is the one he has to be at a cancer treatment center for since it is an infusion.  This will make our ability to travel even easier.  Now all he has to do is have blood tests once a month and a serious check by a myeloma doctor every 3 months. 

So who knows where we might go for the summer this year.  All we need is a myeloma doctor in January, April, July and October.   Not an easy thing to do but not impossible and LOTS easier than monthly infusions.

 

 

 

 

 

Those are  big bright spots in an otherwise rainy and cloudy week.  And to top it off, Carrie comes tonight.   Surely the sun will shine tomorrow for that.

General Washington and goodbye to Williamsburg

Sunday October 6, 2013
Williamsburg, Virginia

 

 

We are enjoying Williamsburg so much I hate to leave.

 

We are only here four days, not nearly long enough, but I turn those 4 days into 9 blog posts.  Good Grief!  But this one is the last, I promise.  We just had such a good time.   Our special passes are good until the end of this year but I doubt we will be passing this way again before then and we have doctor appointments to keep so we must go. 

 

For now, we leave the Palace kitchen garden and the wayward heron and walk on down the Palace green.  

 

David goes into the gunsmith’s shop that we missed when we visited Mr. Geddy’s residence.  I’m not so much interested in guns so no pictures from there.

I stay outside and walk over to Mr. Geddy’s garden.  Maybe he has a heron too???

 

Well no heron but look what I do see!

 

Talk about brazen – right here in broad daylight in the late afternoon just helping himself.  And right outside the gunsmith’s shop too. 

 

 

We have a stand off for maybe as much as 5 or 6 minutes until he finally waddles off into the shrubbery behind the garden.  

 

 

 

 

I need all the hugs I can get.  But not from groundhogs.

 

We’re on our way to the last of the craftsmen that we will have time to visit when we walk by another tree that really needs hugging.  I suspect this one might have been around to see all of the original events we’ve experienced in our time here.

 

 

We visited the printer on a previous day and wanted to come back to the bookbinder’s.  

The letterpress printer is here as well though it’s too late in the day for it to be in use.   That’s too bad.  I’d really like to see that.  Wish we had ONE MORE day.

 

 

 

It’s time to meet General Washington.

 

The very last thing we’ll be doing to day is attending the public audience with George Washington held in the coffeehouse backyard.  I’m afraid we are too late to run in for another cup of hot chocolate as much as I’d like to.

On our way we see the signs of coming cooler weather in all the piles of wood ready for the fireplaces and stoves which heat these 18th century homes and buildings.

 

 

 

We walk by Chowning’s Tavern.  I just love the 18th century “signs” which are often symbols of the craft or service.  Shoe hanging from the shoemaker, hat at the milliners.   Chowning’s of course is a tavern.

 

 

 

 

As you would expect, the place is packed when we come in.

 

Luckily  some very nice people in the front row slide on down so we can sit beside them.  And just in time, here comes the General.  He appears to have on his dress uniform right down to his gloves but then I guess he would to make a public presentation.

 

 

 

He is somber and talks about the war and the bravery of the fighting men.

 

 

Unlike Patrick Henry, he doesn’t say a great deal before turning things over to questions.  

 

 

 

One person asks if, when the war is over, and the country is independent, he would be willing to be king.   He very forcefully assures that there will be no king here.  Although he does see that there is a need for a strong federation between the states and a federal government.

 

 

Somehow he didn’t look like I expected him to but it was wonderful hearing him speak.

 

 

And now it’s really over.

As we walk through the town for the last time, these are some of the memories we will take with us

 

of the people

     

 

 

and the scenes.

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

Today we have parked at the end of this lovely path.

 

We walk out of town looking back at this idyllic scene of sheep grazing in the fields and who is that at the end of the path going down to the water?

 

 

 

 

He sure gets around doesn’t he??

 

  

 

Bah Bah Williamsburg!

 

We’ve had fantastic days here and I’d love to spend even more time especially since all our days from now until December 31st are already paid for with our special pass.  Of course that does not include our railroad track side campsite.  

 

But move on we must.  
Good bye Colonial Williamsburg, thanks for everything