Thanks be to Pirates

The last few days have been rather sleepless but exciting. We left New Jersey in a bit of a rainy fog, after a beautiful and sunny weekend as you can see from the pictures in the previous post! We headed toward Williamsburg Virginia with the phone number of Pat’s aunt in the door pocket, and the expectation that there would be a lot of holiday traffic during our trip.

While driving through Maryland Pat remembered oddly enough that the Dogfish Head brewery is there so we decided to look them up and see if we could go. Not anticipating the extent of what “Washington D.C Traffic” truly means, we plugged along innocently enough toward our new destination of the brewery. As most of you reading probably know, Pat and I are home brewers and have made all different sorts of beer for a few years now in various kitchens and yards and basements. Yielding (almost) always tasty varieties, and learning a whole lot about the brewing process, hence our appreciation on the subject, and art of brewing. I ordered the Midas Touch, an ancient recipe dating back 2,700 years discovered in the tomb of King Midas himself, and pat ordered the black and tan made from the ninety minute IPA and their chicory stout. Our meal was great and it was a fun and unexpected diversion.

The Midas

During our meal we heard back from Pat’s aunt who lives along the route to our destination of Williamsburg, as do his grandparents. So after the brewery we were off again into the view of a long string of break light’s and angry commuters. The Thanksgiving holiday really brings out the good in all of us, especially at six o clock on a Monday night. We’re both so glad that that drive is not something we have to put up with on a daily basis.

When we first arrived we got to have a visit with his Grandparents who he does not get to see very often, so that was important for him to get a chance to spend some time with them. I wish I had some pictures to show you of the three of them together but sadly the camera was forgotten back at Aunt Diane’s house much to my chagrin!

We were put up very generously for the night and got to have a visit in the morning over breakfast. Diane showed us a really interesting and detailed book of family documents that she has been working on. Inside are pages of birth and death certificates, a passport from Pat’s great grandfather, and a ton of really interesting genealogical information all preserved and dated for the future. The handwriting and the care taken in old documents are so much more beautiful than the way our information is translated today. We talked for a while about distant relatives and stories that don’t get told that often, unless the names associated with them are spoken, and the memories come back to the teller. Diane also gave us a quick showing of her dog’s agility skills on a course out behind her house. Her dogs Buzzy, Bethany, and Breezy are competitive agility dogs and have all the ribbons to show for it! They run literally through hoops and jump over obstacles with impressive panache.

After our visit we headed once again toward Williamsburg only to be diverted again by the national park only minutes from Diane’s house which includes several Civil War battlefields. We stopped at the place where The Battle of the Wilderness took place, the first encounter with Generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysees S. Grant. With great losses on both sides, the trenches are still visible in the open fields and through the still forested landscape. An interesting place to stand to observe history and also eerie at the same time to stand in a place where so many people died on the same day.

I’m going to share with you all about our trip to Colonial Williamsburg and all the fun we’ve been having over the past few days a bit later on today. We’re going to Jamestown down the road to have a Thanksgiving meal shortly so I’m going to wrap this post up! We both wish everyone a great day today, we’re thinking of you all. We’re thankful for all of you in our lives. Meanwhile, I’m going to honor Captain Kidd and his pirate band today, but that’s a whole other story.

Till later on

Emma