The Journey Begins (sort of...)

Sort of, because I only went from Huntington, WV to Arlington, VA today.  But you have to admit - that does put me closer to Italy!  Anyway, I figured I might as well take a few pictures and post a little each day this week. This is in West Virginia on the WV turnpike...one can see why it's called wild and wonderful West Virginia - it's a beautiful state.

I have to admit, I can't remember if these were the hills of West Virginia or the hills of Virginia. Wherever they are, the trip is a beautiful one because this is pretty much the scenery the whole time.

And this is definitely in Virginia.  I think I'm really going to like my camera because both the second picture and this one were shot through my window as I was cruising down the highway.  Sort of amazing, huh?












So, one block away from my destination (my son's apartment), I pull out of the left turn lane I'm in into the right-hand lane and also into someone's SUV!  What an inauspicious beginning to my adventure!  Fortunately it only bent fenders - no bodies, but I was really bummed until I got some dinner in me and talked to all my kiddies who were properly sympathetic.

Now, I've got the food channel on (which I don't have at home) and am watching that Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives show and thinking, hmmm...my next journey may have to be to buy the book and just drive across the United States eating at all of them.  And for you non-Huntington folks, believe it or not one of our own was featured on this show - Hillbilly Hotdogs! 

I guess I'll take a picture or two here in the apartment ... hold on...

Okay - got 'em.  My son is an avid collector - he started out years ago collecting Pilgrim cobalt blue glass (Pilgrim's factory was right outside Huntington) but he's gone way beyond that now.  So here are two pictures of just some of his "stuff" - glass, paintings, cocktail shakers...I love coming here and seeing it all!

This is looking into the dining room...

And this is a corner of the living room.  Oops!  I just saw I cut off the top of the big oil painting.  Chris will cringe - I'm sure he has fantastic pictures but these will have to do.  That painting, by the way, is a rendering of the tympanum over the main doors of the National Cathedral in Washington, DC where Chris has been a docent for a long time.  Incidentally, the only reason I know the word tympanum is because I just looked on the back of his miniature resin cast of ...the tympanum...and there, fortunately, was the information I needed!

That's it for tonight.  Tomorrow I will be posting from my older daughter's home in Maryland and guess what's there to take pictures of?  My grandbabies! :)  

'Night!