Thursday, July 07, 2011

Vacation Day 1: No Rain Yet

Fortunately the thunderstorms stopped yesterday around 5:30, so it was smooth sailing for the evening festivities. Saw The Importance of Being Earnest at the ASC and it was excellent. They do entertainment during the interludes there, and they were definitely working on tying the interludes into the show -- the first break had the cast doing the B-52's Love Shack (I was definitely amused by seeing the actor playing Lady Bracknell, still dressed as Lady Bracknell obviously, doing the Fred whats-his-name spoken parts of the song), and the second had the cast doing I Got You, Babe in pairs. The stage left on-stage seating was taken by a group of scenic females, who were alternately amused and horrified by the cast's attempts to use them in the story. It was a bit of a small house, but it was a Wednesday night in the beginning of July so that's probably expected.

This morning was some more wandering -- a lot of churches today, and a music studio (or at least something labeled a music studio; last night coming back from the play walking past what had appeared to be an abandoned garage next to the hotel, there was definitely a band playing there. Perhaps it's just a very exclusive club). It was pushing 90 I think, then cooled off rather suddenly and given yesterday I decided I should probably get while I was just sweating and not drenched. The rain hasn't showed up yet though, so it may have been just a false alarm. I'll probably go back out tonight and see if there's anything going on north of here.

Update: It never did rain. North of here are a few houses and then the actual library. I also walked out the road I believe I need to take to get out of here tomorrow (the directions I had, while correct in every detail, did not actually help much in getting me here).

Wednesday, July 06, 2011

Vacation Day 0: Rain

I am on vacation, which is easy to spot because I have internet access. (It's only been 37 days since I had internet at home, and I've only got 5 more to go!) The theme for today has definitely been rain: I woke up this morning to somebody spraying water at my window with a hose (which turned out to be Mother Nature), left in the rain, drove in the rain to Richmond where there was 10 minutes of sun (I even put on my sunglasses!) followed by clouds and intermittent rain until five miles from Staunton when the sun started shining again.

I did the rest and relax thing for a bit when I got here, then wandered off for a walk. We're at the edge of downtown here, it looks like, so I headed that way. Definitely a lot of old buildings that have "Valley Bank" and "Library" and "YMCA" etched into them but are now things like a BB&T and an apartment house and a hotel. Downtown had the usual: some shops, lots of trendy coffee stores and restaurants (including the Zynodoa of Matt Gaffney fame, which didn't look like it would appreciate me in a T-shirt and jeans even if the T-shirt had a parody of "The Scream" on it (which it does)). A zillion lawyers' offices, although since one of the streets (just shy of the courthouse) said Barristers' Row I guess we'll allow it. I'm not much of a picture taker, but there were a couple shots I might have liked to get, but the camera is in NN so never mind. I was out for about 45 minutes and was just getting back when the thunderstorm let loose. We'll see how long this one lasts.

The stated goal of the expedition was to find the ASC since I have tickets for tonight, which didn't actually happen. I suppose if I had looked it up on the map before I left I might have had better luck -- I was thrown off by the fact that, at least according to the map, it is not on the same street as its street address (the street address is Beverley St while the building appears to be on Market St).

We'll see what tomorrow holds -- I might go exploring the other way, depending on the how the weather shapes up (supposed to be hot, which is unfortunate, and not raining, which is fortunate). If worse comes to worst, there's always the Woodrow Wilson birthplace. (Never been a fan of such: even if you grant greatness to Wilson, and I don't know why you would, none of it would really attach to the building where he was born. I walked past it, and it is definitely a building (red brick); more than that I need not know.)