Greetings From Winchester, Virginia - In The Shenandoah Valley Between the Blue Ridge & Appalachian Mountains
May 8th, 2007 at 8:12 am by Dee O'Neil Andrews
I was going to post an interview today, but have too much going on not to talk about it.
I just missed the big Apple Blossom Parade and Festival here in Winchester on Saturday and have missed the apple blossoms themselves entirely, but maybe I can come back this fall sometime to visti and eat some fresh ripe apples off the trees from the orchards lining the road between here and town.
For those of you who were fellow travelers on American Airlines last week my two flights went fine this time, unlike my last two flights I've taken. I nearly always travel American because they seem to be the main ones (or only ones sin the case of going from Dallas to Abilene and back) I need to take me where I want to go. They fly in and out of Gulfport, Mississippi, which is where we travel from any more, having pretty much given up on trying to fly out of New Orleans for a lot of reasons.
I arrived at Dulles in beautiful Virginia west of Washington, D. C. about 7 p.m. yesterday evening and was lucky enough to get to see my daughter-in-law, Karen, and two granddaughters, Katrina Grace, 7, and Victoria Rose, 5, before they left on their flight for London to go visit some of Karen's family for the week. I'm going to be here spending the week with my son David and the two boys, Tiarnan, 4, and Brendan, 2, while the girls are gone. David had planned to drive down to Mississippi to vist with us at our place this week, but then we decided it would be much easier and better if I came up here and I think that was the right choice to make. Poor David is trying to pass kidney stones and doesn't feel too well and would have been miserable on the long road trip. Much less with lookng after the boys.
By the time we got something to eat and drove home last night, it was late when we arrived here and I was very tired. David & Karen just moved out to Winchester last August into a brand new house on 11 acres of beautiful rolling hills and woods nestled up next to the first low ridge of the Appalachians to the west side. There is a big pond down in front of the house a ways and a couple of creeks cross the land, too, through the woods.
Their hosue is two story, as typical of Virginia and the East Coast, and there is no need for screened in porches here, unlike where we are building. Since we are so far into the process of building our house, I can't help but compare everything we are doing to what their house looks like. Theirs costs a whole lot more than ours, of course, but I have to say that everything we are putting in our home and everything that we have done really looks great and is comparable, or better, to what I see here. Our kitchen cabinets are going to be very similar to their maple ones, but ours will have a coffee glaze on them, which will add a lot, I think. I'm getting excited!
We are going to get out today to walk around David's land and then drive around Winchester to see what all there is to see. Winchester is about 80 miles west of Washington, D. C., I guess, and from the area of Northern Virgnia along the Chesapeake Bay where Colonoial America began, but Winchester was a thriving community at that time, too, and George Washington lived here for several years as young man while he was a surveyor. He worked for Lord Fairfax, who owned a massive area of land in Northern Virgniia from the East Coast to what is now West Virginia.
A lot of Civil War battles took place in this area, as well, and Stonewall Jackson (a distant ancestor of mine, I'm happy to say) had his winter quarters here in Winchester for two winters during the Civil War. There are several museums in town and a lot of old historical homes and buildings to see. It is a beautiful area.
I brought my camera, so will try to take some interesting pictures for you. I would have done so on my last trip out to New Mexico (and in fact we did get some good shots at the cabin we were in for a couple of days), but the ICU out there wasn't that scenic!
That's it for this morning. Thanks for dropping by and visiting with me a bit and learning a bit about this area of the country. It's quite different from south Mississippi!
Cheers & Blessings to you all today! Wish me Godspeed and good health while I am here, and for poor David, too. Dee
A family visit that includes history, that’s my kind of vacation. Enjoy your visit and stay safe.
a relative of Stonewall, cool!
I visited Chancellorsville last fall, where he was shot by friendly fire, i didn’t get to visit the place where he died, though.
not a rebel, but a big Civil War buff, and there is lot of good stuff around there.
have fun
Hope you are having a great visit. Don’t envy David a bit, having had some experience with kidney stones! I miss the beauty of that area, as we lived there about 7 years ago, it was always so beautiful in the Springtime!
I’ve been in that area twice, but was unable to do much sight-seeing. Glad you’re there w/ your children and grandchildren. That coffee glaze on your cabinets (or was it countertops?) … is it decaf or regular glaze?
It will be fun to travel with you. Keep us posted.
You’re just down the road. Sorry you flew into Dulles, though. Reagan National’s the way to go for us. Of course, it’s three miles from our house (and the President’s).