Category Archives: Travel

Chautauqua

Chautauqua Time

Louie and I prefer to visit many different places in the summer: we know people who always do the same thing every summer with their families and it has never been our thing. Yet, we find ourselves visiting Chautauqua for the fifth year in a row, because it’s a lovely place, but it’s also a place we can go hang out with my niece and nephew and sister and brother in law and relax!

Though, when you are dealing with a 5 and 9 year old, relaxing isn’t as much of a thing as you might like. I’m just going to give you some of the highlights of what we did.

We had dinner out at a place called Pine Junction. I recommend the coconut shrimp!

We spent some time at the library on the grounds of the Chautauqua Institution. This lion tried to keep us from entering. My nephew really enjoys seeing the library, but he also loves riding the elevator in the library and pretending he doesn’t know it is an elevator and being surprised every time we get to a new floor.

I brought a few gifts, and the biggest hit seemed to be a game called “Cats and Boxes”. I recommend it!

One day Leslie, Louie and I did some kayaking. It was harder that we thought it would be!

Louie had the single kayak and was much more skilled at using his.

Some of the lovely homes overlooking the lake.

We went to Westfield one morning for brunch at the Parkview Cafe (sadly no picture of that, which is sad because Louie and I live in a neighborhood called Parkview), and their claim to fame is that Lincoln got a letter from a young girl who said he should grow a beard in order to win the presidency, and then he did, and visited Westfield later and met the girl. The story is printed on the mugs at the Cafe and then we noticed there was a park on the corner commemorating all of this.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer of February 20, 1861:

At Westfield, Mr. Lincoln greeted a large crowd of ladies, and several thousand of the sterner sex. Addressing the ladies, he said, “I am glad to see you; I suppose you are to see me; but I certainly think I have the best of the bargain. (Applause.) Some three months ago, I received a letter from a young lady here; it was a very pretty letter, and she advised me to let my whiskers grow, as it would improve my personal appearance; acting partly upon her suggestion, I have done so; and now, if she is here, I would like to see her; I think her name was Miss Barlly.” A small boy, mounted on a post, with his mouth and eyes both wide open, cried out, “there she is, Mr. Lincoln,” pointing to a beautiful girl, with black eyes, who was blushing all over her fair face. The President left the car, and the crowd making way for him, he reached her, and gave her several hearty kisses, and amid the yells of delight from the excited crowd, he bade her good-bye, and on we rushed.

Louie and my niece reenacting the statue which was of the meeting. It seemed like a pretty big deal for something small, but I guess you make a statue when you can!

We watched Jurassic Park live in concert. I guess I hadn’t seen Jurassic Park in a long time, and it was a much better movie than I recall–have action movies gotten so much worse lately? Or perhaps it was always pretty good and it was the sequel that was bad? In any case, the music was too loud sometimes but we really enjoyed the evening.

My niece is in an opera this summer and we saw part of a rehearsal. She is in Hansel and Gretel as part of the children’s chorus and this was the rehearsal where they starting adding in the staging to the music. I’m sorry we won’t get to see the performance.

We had been doing some nice photos and some silly ones, and evidently nobody understood which was which.

Selfie at Bemus Point. I bought new sunglasses on this trip (I really needed a pair as my “good” pair had broken and I had been wearing a very scratched up pair) and I like the look of them!

Overall we had a lovely visit. Not pictured: time in the hot tub, walking around the farm land where they live. Lowlights: waking up early with the kids and sometimes a 5 year being a little whiny, but super cute and loving as well. The 9 year old was definitely more mature than ever, very skilled on the violin and piano, worked great with her little brother, and they both seem to be having a great summer! My sister and her husband are busy running around doing more than one job each and keeping the house running.

We got home then, and I got to truly sleep in yesterday: I slept till 9 and it was absolutely glorious. I always love spending time with my family, but it is also wonderful to get home. Oh! We got Taco John’s on our drive home, which was good. We like to get bean burritos and potato oles and then put some potato oles into the burritos to add texture and flavor. Delicious!

Philadelphia

Philadelphia to Home

St Louis to Manhattan to Brooklyn

Brooklyn to Elizabethtown

Elizabethtown, Lititz, and Back to Philadelphia

It IS a 4 part series! The whole trip was about 9 days, and we really got into the vacation feeling, where you feel like you can’t quite remember what “real life” was like and you are just sightseeing and following people around.

So, we left off having gotten to Philadelphia.

This was the view out of one of the windows of the hotel.

It would have been nice to really sleep in, but sightseeing awaited, and we had made arrangements to meet my brother for coffee and breakfast (at least for us), so we met him in the morning and went to a place called Elixir, which was near the hotel (and we had been in the past). It was excellent, and Louie and I enjoyed an almond croissant, some sort of savory cheese pastry, and cappuccinos.

After that we met up with Louie’s dad, Richard, and walked to the Barnes Museum. It’s a museum that is all a collection from one man’s house, and it’s really fantastic.

It was a pretty nice day temperature wise, but the weather seemed to be threatening rain.

The rooms of the museums are filled with art, and arrranged mostly how Barnes had them arranged in his home, so works from different periods and different artists are all side by side. I enjoyed it, though I always feel a bit ignorant when it comes to art.

It did start raining at one point, which of course didn’t affect our museum enjoyment, but then when it came time for lunch we decided it was a good reason to simply eat at the museum cafe. This was no hardship as the food was delicious.

After lunch I think Louie would have gladly spend more time at the museum, but the general consensus was to move on, but to where? Jesse remembered the Eastern State Penitentiary was both nearby and a part of our uncle Ed’s Philadelphia tour these days, so we headed there next.

It was a bit rainy, but not too bad, and most of the tour is inside with an audio guide. It was really interesting and thought provoking, and we learned about the history of prisons in the US, specifically this prison as well as more broadly, and thought about how many people are incarcerated in our country versus other countries as well.

After the tour we walked back towards the hotel and Richard’s apartment.

Me and my brother Jesse

We had a little downtime and just hung out in the hotel lobby while Richard rested and then we met for dinner with Kiyoko as well. We went to a Chinese restaurant which only served vegetarian food, and it was really tasty: we ordered a bunch of different dishes and shared. Nobody went away hungry! Jesse took a train back home after dinner. Louie and I stopped at a nearby dive bar called Dirty Frank’s: we couldn’t resist as our old neighbor’s cat is named Dirty Frank. We had a beer and then headed “home”.

The next morning we had Elixir again, though we tried different pastries, and then met Richard to visit the Mercer Museum in Doylestown. It was about an hour drive, and is a fascinating place, filled with old objects from around the country.

It’s hard to describe, but you walk into a giant room with stuff everywhere, different floors to walk around and items hanging from the center, and it’s just a bit overwhelming. It’s the sort of place you could return several times and never see everything.

I like how this was free from all opiates. Evidently worth mentioning. The pharmacy area was just full of fascinating old medicine bottles.
If you look, you’ll see Richard and Louie.

There are chairs and bikes and all kinds of things just hanging from the ceiling.

Anyway, after wandering around for an hour or two, we were hungry, so headed off on foot for lunch. Doylestown has a cute downtown, and we found a nice looking Peruvian restaurant.

My dish had ceviche in it and was delicious, albeit rather spicy.

We went to the Moravian Tileworks next as Richard wanted to buy something, and I ended up getting a tile with a cat on it as a souvenir. After that we headed back to the hotel, and rested up before dinner.

We went to Positano Coast Restaurant for dinner and shared some oysters and other cold fish, and then I had the sea urchin linguine…it was really delicious and amazing! We again ate until we were stuffed and then walked back. It was actually pretty funny: on the walk to the restaurant we ran into some of Richard’s former students and ended up taking pictures with them (they were in town for a sort of reunion!) Small world, as always. It should be noted that while we walked a decent amount in Philadelphia, it was never as much as we walked in New York, and the streets were much less busy.

The next day we again started with Elixir (yes, it was that good and also that close to our hotel) and then mostly walked around. We were going to do a tour of the Masonic Temple, but it turned out that they had a private event there. We walked over to the Library and looked around, joined a rare book tour and got to see some things not normally open to the public, including a stuffed raven that belonged to Charles Dickens that most likely inspired Poe. And then played the theremin for a bit.

We had a late lunch with Kiyoko then, and ate at the Oyster House (mmm shrimp salad sandwich) and then had to head to the airport to fly home.

It was a fun trip: we saw a bunch of relatives, ate some delicious food, walked a ton (averaging 9-10 miles a day in NYC and 5-6 miles a day in Philadelphia), and got to relax after a stressful year of teaching.

It’s also always lovely to be home. The cats seemed happy to see us.

And now I’m teaching, playing Les Mis, eating less delicious food and more just normal food including food that can be eaten quickly, and it’s been a long week! Muny shows get out late (home around 11:30) and then I’ve been having to get up around 7, which was less fun. The rest of the week will be easier though, and I have to say that I’ve been having a lot of fun with the show. Louie and a friend of mine are coming to see it tomorrow night, and I think they will enjoy it.

Travel

Elizabethtown, Lititz, and back to Philadelphia

Wow, per usual, this trip recap series is taking an embarrassingly long amount of time. Current life continues, with teaching, going to see THREE operas, and playing in the pit for Les Miserables at the Muny (very fun!).

St Louis to Manhattan to Brooklyn

Brooklyn to Elizabethtown

We left off on the train from New York to Elizabethtown (via Philadelphia). We arrived at the Elizabethtown train station and my aunt Connie (my mom’s sister) picked us up. We went to her house for lunch–just a few minutes in the car. Her boyfriend Carl (she has a long-time boyfriend just like I do, haha!) met us and we had a nice time catching up and such. I probably hadn’t been to Connie’s house in this millennium but I remembered it a bit still. She’s lived there a long time and has it decorated just how she likes it and it is very neat and tidy. She had some decor out from her recent trip to South Africa.

After lunch we drove to Lititz to pick up my uncle Ed (my mom’s older brother) for a tour of Lititz. Ed loves giving tours, this has always been his favorite thing (it seems) and he has always been incredibly energetic and full of interesting knowledge. In my younger years we went on tours of New York City and Philadelphia with him. Ed is sick, so his physical energy is low, but he was still as eager as ever to tell us the wonders and history of Lititz.

Our first stop was the Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery for a guided tour.

This factory is where the hard pretzel was invented. We got a tour that showed us how they used to make soft pretzels and the story of how Julius invented the hard pretzel. Ed had hoped his granddaughter (hmmm…my first cousin once removed) was working, but she was done for the day and so we missed seeing her.

Carl holding a bag of horse and buggy shaped pretzels. We would have bought some if the bag were smaller, but nobody in our group wanted that many pretzels!

Part of the tour involved shaping your own soft pretzel. Apparently they then used to bake the pretzels and give them to you, but they don’t do that any longer and they just take them away and give you a small bag of hard pretzels at the end.

After the pretzel tour, we went nearby to the Lititz History Museum where Ed works part time as a volunteer guide, and he showed us through the museum and told us all the interesting things. We learned quite a lot about Moravians, who were the big religious group who founded the town of Lititz. This was all somewhat interesting as I’d never really been to Lititz: my mom grew up in nearby Akron and my grandparents lived there until they passed away. Ed and his wife Twila did too, until they moved into a retirement community in Lititz, and Ed has really gotten involved in the town since then.

The Lancaster Symphony was playing a Memorial Day concert in the park that evening, so we got dinner at the restaurant in the park (burgers and such) and walked around a bit more. Ed needed to rest a fair amount, and at one point a storm blew through, which delayed the concert a bit. But they were able to play after all, and the weather was lovely at that point.

After the concert, we took Ed home and then headed back to Elizabethtown (about thirty more minutes drive). We were exhausted by then so went to bed.

The next morning we met Carl again and went to brunch at a nearby restaurant, the Whisk Cafe. We sat outside and enjoyed the weather and delicious food. After lunch we drove to some viewpoints of the Susquehanna river and took a short hike out to Chickie’s Rock.

We went to pick up Ed again after that, and did a driving tour through Amish farm country while Ed told us all about what was being done to preserve the farming way of life in Lancaster County while development was coming in all around…

Ed only had a few hours to spend with us, so after we did some auto touring, we had to leave him again and head back to E-town. We had an early dinner at T. J. Rockwell’s, said our goodbyes, and then caught our train to Philadelphia, right on time. It was really great to see everybody and spend time together, and I’m so glad we made the trip!

Our train to Philly was uneventful, and then Louie’s dad picked us up at the train station and drove us to the hotel we were staying at, the Cambria. It was very nice and we had a corner room with windows on two sides. (His dad didn’t have room for us but treated us to a hotel nearby his apartment.) We checked in and dropped off our things and then went over to visit with his dad and his wife Kiyoko, who had made some delicious fish soup and dessert. We were a little hungry since dinner was so early, so it was nice to eat a little bit and chat. We finally got to bed closer to midnight, probably (very late for this early riser, but I’m getting used to being less of an early riser and enjoying that.)

Okay, I’ll leave it there and write one more post to finish up our trip. I will try to do that in the next few days rather than wait an entire week! Upcoming highlights: the Eastern State Penitentiary and seeing my brother Jesse.

New York, Travel

Brooklyn to Elizabethtown

I’ll continue telling you about our recent trip to New York and other parts of the East.

St Louis to Manhattan to Brooklyn

Carrie had some appointments and rehearsals the second day we were visiting her, and it was storming that morning as well. Louie and I slept in a bit (we were both still recovering from the school year at that point, and it was frankly, glorious. I was and still am amazed every morning I don’t have to wake up before 6 am!)

We had mentioned to Carrie that we had not had “New York Bagels” so after she had her morning appointment and the rain let up, we headed to her favorite closest place called Bagel Pub. I had a pumpernickel everything bagel with smoked salmon cream cheese, and it was tasty! We learned how much Brooklyn is like a small town as well by Carrie running into someone she knew (this was a common occurrence). I am always struck by this sort of thing–I grew up in a small town and assumed that big cities were more anonymous and you would walk around and wouldn’t know anyone, and truthfully, you will run into people you know all over the place. Cities are more pockets of various communities, like a small town on every few blocks.

After our bagels, Louie and I headed to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens for the afternoon. We weren’t sure if it would rain, but overall we did get lucky and it only rained a little bit for a short time.

The gardens were smaller overall than we realized, but they were well laid out and really enjoyable. It wasn’t too busy either, which was nice amidst the hustle and bustle outside.

We saw this turtle, just hanging out.

After we finished at the Botanical Gardens, we walked to get coffee nearby, and then walked all the way back to Carrie’s (probably about an hour at that point!). We took a little break, and then caught the train to meet our friend Lauren for dinner in Greenpoint. We went to a Polish restaurant called Karczma and ate entirely too much delicious food (pierogies and stuffed cabbage, but somehow no photos), and then headed to a concert Carrie and her quartet, The Rhythm Method, were putting on.

It was in a super cool venue, sort of in an industrial area, and you wouldn’t even expect a concert there. It felt very “New York”, haha.

It was a great concert, super interesting and thought provoking, and I really enjoyed watching Carrie and her group perform, along with the other guest performers on the concert. Louie and Lauren didn’t stay the whole time and instead went out somewhere in the area, but I stayed till the end, and then Carrie and I took a Lyft (what, no walking?) and hung out at her place until we were exhausted, and Louie came home later.

The next day we did laundry at the apartment and ate leftover Polish food for breakfast, then headed back into Manhattan to meet up with another aunt and uncle of Louie’s. We had lunch first at a place called Simply Noodles (can you guess what we ate?) and then met up with Ralph and Susie at their apartment.

We went to the Met Museum with them, walking through Central Park to get there. New Yorkers get “pay what you want” admission so it isn’t too big of a deal just to go for a short time. Susie wanted to check out the rooftop art, so that was the plan.

We wandered around the museum for a short while, but then headed back to their apartment and enjoyed wine and cheese up on the rooftop until we needed to catch a train back to Brooklyn for our next event.

Carrie had asked awhile back if Louie and I wanted to do a “float”, which was a silent disco: we would all wear headphones and hear the same music, and follow a prescribed route with the group while dancing. It was not at all the sort of thing we do in our normal lives, but Louie and I wanted to experience what Carrie does and also push our own boundaries, so we agreed. We met up with the float people at a brewery, where we ate dinner first (impossible smash burgers, quite tasty).

It was a fun evening, especially as we had no idea what to expect. We were surrounded by many Juilliard musicians (ha!) but also random people, and would go down streets dancing, stop in random parking lots to dance, and it was a lot of fun. We were probably some of the oldest people there, but somebody has to be, right?

We were exhausted after a few hours (they do take breaks) and decided to skip the last segment since we were all traveling the next day. We did stop at a German bar near Carrie’s house to unwind before bed though. And it is worth noting that when I turned in our headphones to the float person, apparently I said that it was fun but it was “really late”. It was like 10:45 pm and Louie said that definitely cemented our status as “old” within the group. Haha!

The next morning Louie and I had a train to catch so we were up early. Our train would leave Penn Station at 9:09 am and we were in Brooklyn, which meant about 30-40 minutes of train rides away, so we left by 7:45 am in order to have time to grab a coffee and breakfast at the station. We had no trouble getting there, and got some nice pastries and coffee and relaxed in the lounge for a bit.

We were disappointed to learn that our train didn’t have a cafe car though, so the coffee we had was all the coffee we would have! We were en route to Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, usually just called E-town, to visit some relatives of mine and stay with my aunt Connie that night.

The train ride. Once we got to Philadelphia, we were told we actually had to switch trains to continue our trip. This was actually a good thing as we had been seated moving backwards, and then we chose seats moving forward, win! We also got to pick our new seats before they allowed the general boarding from Philadelphia to board, so it was no big deal.

The train ride was just over 3 hours, and uneventful. However, that seems like a good time to end this blog post, haha. Next time: E-town, Lititz, and then the train back to Philadelphia.

New York, Travel

St Louis to Manhattan to Brooklyn

Louie and I wanted to have two trips this summer, one at the beginning and one at the end of the summer. The first trip we focused on visiting family, so we planned a trip to New York and Philadelphia (with a little side trip as well.) We planned to fly into NYC, visit his uncle Paul, go to Brooklyn to visit my sister Carrie, take the train to Elizabethtown, PA to visit my aunt Connie, and then finally to Philadelphia to visit his dad, and fly home from there. All of the travel arrangements worked out just as planned, and we had a great time.

Our first stop was New York City, so that’s what I’ll tell you about today. We flew direct to La Guardia and the flight was uneventful.

We landed in La Guardia and were amazed by the airport: both of us recalled LGA being a dump, and instead it was a beautiful modern looking building. Evidently the terminal was new and LGA had had a large renovation over the past few years. We obviously don’t fly to New York much. Anyway, we took a cab to get into the city, and the cab driver was classic “New York”. At several points the driver yelled at other drivers out the window things like, “I’m going to teach you how to drive!” It was like in the old Jerry Seinfeld bit about NY cabbies and how it doesn’t feel real, it’s like it’s all happening on TV.

In any case, we made it to Louie’s uncle’s apartment without major incident, and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon catching up with him.

My sister Carrie came over for dinner that night, and Louie’s aunt Phyllis and uncle Paul made pasta, salad, and we had strawberries with ice cream.

The next day Louie and I hit the ground running for sightseeing. We had coffee and croissants for breakfast, and then starting walking up 5th avenue. If you are familiar with Manhattan, we started near Union Square (well, we did that regardless if you are familiar with Manhattan or not, but it will mean more to you.) We walked all the way to Central Park, had lunch at a place called DIG, walked around Central Park, and then back down 7th, past Carnegie Hall, through Times Square, had gelato, and finally back to Paul’s place. It was a 10 mile walking day, and it was invigorating and exhausting.

We met up with Paul and Phyllis after they finished work and went to Fowl Witch for dinner. It was delicious!

The next morning we had breakfast at Newsbar Cafe, and then in the late morning took the train down to Brooklyn to Carrie’s place. Riding public transportation is super easy now for NYC, just tap your credit card to buy a ticket upon entry. Make sure to use the same card each time, because if you take enough rides to spend the same as a weekly pass you’ll be charged for that instead, and also any transfers will be tracked automatically. We did have a little trouble with our trains and ended up getting off what would have actually been the correct train but got convinced by a stranger it was wrong. No big deal though, it just took a little longer. Lesson: always trust google first for directions rather than people, haha.

My feet hurt from the walking the day before, so ostensibly it was going to be a lighter day, but no, we still walked over 10 miles! We had lunch at a Thai place called Sukh.

We walked down to Brooklyn Bridge Park after that, and along the water. We could see a bunch of bridges, and the Statue of Liberty in the distance, and of course Manhattan.

We had an ice cream stop at one point, and then finally back at Carrie’s for a bit in the late afternoon. We rested before deciding where to go for dinner: we ended up going to Zaytoon’s, a middle eastern place that Carrie really wanted to show us. We ate a delicious dinner there.

Maybe that’s a good place to stop for today. I’ll finish up our days in Brooklyn and the rest of the trip another day: I’m sure you can’t wait!

Travel

Quick Trip to Chattanooga and Nashville

Since we didn’t get to see my parents on Thanksgiving (thanks COVID!) we wanted to try to get together over Spring Break. We met in the middle in Chattanooga.

We rented a lovely Airbnb. I didn’t get any pictures but it was this one and it was very nice, just like you would expect from the pictures. It was easy to find and easy to get around from it.

The first night after we arrived we went to walk around downtown. This wasn’t actually the best idea, but it wasn’t the worst either. We may have picked a less interesting area to walk through, and we got to say hello to a variety of homeless people. We worked up an appetite but nothing we saw appealed, so Louie found a place to drive to, and we enjoyed it. It was called Sluggo’s and served all vegan food. We ate on the balcony and it was a lovely night.

We all sat on the couch and started watching Killers of the Flower Moon after that. It is the world’s longest movie, so we watched a little more than half before turning in for the night.

The next day the weather was nice and sunny so we opted for more outdoor activities. We got tickets for the Incline Railway and headed out. One thing to note about Chattanooga is that all the places you go require you to pay for parking. I used the Parkmobile app since I use it here and it was already set up for our car and everything. It was a little annoying to get to a large parking lot where we paid for tickets and to have to pay again for parking, but thankfully it was only a few dollars. But I digress.

The Incline Railroad goes up the mountain about a mile. It is at an incline, some places more than others. When you get on you are leaning back a little bit but at the top it is much steeper.

We enjoyed the ride up and there is a lot to see at the top: there are two different viewing platforms, a place to see the machinery and some museum like signs, and of course a gift shop. You can’t leave the little station though, even though you can see some nice grassy areas, you can’t get to them.

After we rode back down we were hungry, so we looked on google and there was a restaurant right nearby with high ratings, so we headed out. The Purple Daisy Picnic Cafe was a hit with us, and we would recommend it. I ordered the Rainbow Sandwich because it seemed unique, and it was! I enjoyed it, though I’m not sure that putting chicken salad, cucumber salad, and pimento cheese salad today is better than eating either one of those things separately.

It may look large here in the picture, but it was just slightly smaller than a normal slice of bread, since they cut the crusts off. It was perfect though.

After lunch we had considered going to Ruby Falls, another tourist place, but we decided to just drive around instead. We drove up Lookout Mountain and stopped a few places to walk around and take looks: one place was a college with a lovely grounds and some nice views, and another just on the side of the road. We also stopped at a NPS site called Craven’s House which was part of a Civil War battle at one time.

We stopped by the old Chattanooga Choo Choo building where Louie and I had stayed some time ago –it had been completely changed and was now restaurants and a boutique hotel out back.

Still had the train though!

After a few hours of sightseeing, we were all ready to go back to relax at home for a bit.

We refreshed and then headed out to dinner. My dad loves german food so he found a place called the Brew Haus. It was a nice place to have dinner and had a terrific soft pretzel! We shared that and then each had our individual meals as well. We ended up participating in a little bit of trivia at the place as well, which was a new experience for my parents. After dinner we realized we were right by the Walnut Street Pedestrian bridge, so we walked up over the river a bit and enjoyed the start of the sunset.

After dinner we went back and finished the movie (Killers of the Flower Moon) from the night before. It was good, though it definitely could had been shorter.

The next morning after breakfast my parents headed home. It was raining and they were worried about the drive. It was great to see them and very enjoyable to spend a few days together! Louie and I had decided to stop in Nashville on our way home, so we didn’t head out yet as we didn’t have our hotel there until later. We visited the Museum of Towing and Recovery.

The museum covered the history of the tow truck, which was invented in Chattanooga. It was really interesting–both from an engineering standpoint for Louie and for me: I enjoy seeing old cars and such. One of the tow trucks you were allowed to get into, so we did. I am unsure why it is so small!

After that it was lunchtime, so we got some tacos at Taqueria Jalisco Ania and then coffee at nearby Velo Roasters. We headed to Nashville after that.

We made a quick stop at Stones River National Battlefield en route, but didn’t stay long: we saw the movie and museum, but their bathrooms weren’t functioning and you had to use porta potties and this made me grumpy. We decided just to go to the hotel at this point, so we checked in and relaxed a bit. We stayed at the Millennium Maxwell House Hotel, which we stayed at before: nice location not too far from downtown (an easy lyft) but it was a little run down and in need of some updating. It was fine though, and I don’t regret it. We had dinner at Husk: we’d eaten at the two other Husk restaurants (in Savannah and Charleston) and figured to go for the trifecta. It was delicious.

Trout with grits–not a super photogenic picture, but my mouth is still watering.

After dinner we walked down to Broadway to check out the scene. It was a mass of humanity! We walked a bit, and then popped into a bar and got beers and listened to a bar play some music, including Freebird, which one guy tipped them $100 to play.

We decided we’d had enough of crowds then and headed a few blocks away, where the streets completely empty out (like, where does everybody even come from?) and enjoyed more music at a bar called “Loser’s” before calling it a night. I get tired early due to years of teaching early morning classes, so we didn’t make it much past 11.

The view of downtown from the hotel window, very nice!

The next morning we packed up and headed out for brunch at Audrey’s. We ate, took a short walk around to move a bit before getting in the car, and then we hit the road for home. It was a lovely but short trip, and I’m so glad we did it!

A mural near the restaurant.