One weekend in Virginia

Dad had grumbled that his post-operative non-driving spell coincided with the height of the leaf season in upstate New York, so he wasn't able to make his annual trek to the Letchworth State Park with his camera. (I count on such trips to produce pictures to decorate the apartment.........) So his children reminded him that he was welcome to take advantage of the fact that his children live further south, where the leaf-peeping season is later.

So Dad drove down to my brother Ted's last week, and Seth and I drove down for the weekend.

We wenrt out to Shenandoah National Park and drove along Skyline Drive. Very crowded but the views were amazing! We then went to a party that friends of Ted's were having. The friends run various dog facilities, including the Ragged Mountain Dog Rescue, so the tour we got of that was really interesting. My problem with things like that is I want to cuddle them all - and bring a few home -- depsite the fact that I'm basically a cat person!

On Sunday, we went to the Smithsonian's Sackler Museum to see the In the Beginning exhibit about early Christian Bibles. Fascinating, to see the development of the various styles. One thing I thought was very interesting, having mostly read Protestant-oriented histories of the church which claim that use of common languages was a Protestant innovation, was the extent to which the different editions from all over Europe were written in local languages and not just the Latin of the Catholic church. I'm also always interested in all the museums/collections an exhibit like this gets borrowings from -- not only the Smithsonian and the Bodleian at Oxford but a museum in St. Petersburg (Russia) and St. Catherine's monastery at the bottom of Mt. Sinai. Dad really enjoyed it - especially after he got the hang of using the little iPod-type gadget that was the optional audio tour.

We then proceeded to the National Portrait Gallery, where Dad wanted to see the refurbished building. Very nicely redone. I did have to check my purse -- as usual, I had a small knitting project in it and that's not allowed in the NPG (despite the fact that I've been in and out of multiple museums in three countries with simialr projects over the last couple years). The pens and pocketknives I saw people with are ok, though, evidently.......Since the knitting is a standard item for me, I didn't even think about it, but a quick search after we got home didn't bring up any info at the NPG's website about needles not being allowed, so even if them being an issue had occured to me, I wouldn't have found anything easily.

Ted did the driving for the time we were down there, so I got a bit of knitting done, including starting a shawl from lace-weight Shetland wool in colors that match what we saw at Shenandoah.

When we got home, Jezebel let us know that she didn't appreciate her favorite lap (aka Seth) left her for the weekend - but I was glad for his company!