Floyd, VA

Trent and I decided that after eight months of no vacation days that we needed to have a small getaway for our anniversary.  We have wanted to experience the small southern Virginia mountain town of Floyd, VA.  Floyd is known for being on the Bluegrass Trail.  In fact, there is a country store in town that has a Friday Night Jamboree.  The place is packed full for the event.  The first your is gospel music and then the real fun begins.  Everyone gets up and starts to dance.  When I say dance, it is more like a stomp.  Some people even wore clogging shoes.  Of course, we joined in. Yes, there is a video and no it will not be shared. 

Every Friday night there are bands outside playing for everyone on the street.  They were just as good as those in the store.

Trent also had a line of genealogy that ends in Floyd County.  We decided to use some of our time at a local museum and the library.  We felt like detectives as we searched for information.  About five minutes before it closed, I located a book all about the family.  Not too much extra information was found in it but we did find out where he was buried.  The next day we decided to go find the cemetery.  On our way we turned off to a one lane dirt road that ended up washed out by a creek.  We did end up finding the cemetery but could not see the names on the old headstones.

If you go, please be aware that GPS units don't seem to work too well in the mountains of Virginia.  After spending too much time looking for a festival we did not locate, we decided to head back to Floyd.  The GPS told us to take a dirt road.  I was up for this.  Then it said to turn off on a road that had one lane and headed up a mountain side.  The road ended at a man's house.  He came out and said "I bet you have a Tom Tom GPS."  This has happened to him before.  Last summer he was woken in the middle of the night by some Germans traveling in a motor home from Atlanta to NYC.  How they ended up there I will never know.

Along the way we found a covered bridge that was picturesque.

The view from our Bed and Breakfast

The last day we spent in Floyd we went to the Fairystone State Park.  They have stones that look like crosses.  We found a place to dig but had no luck.

Christmas and Winter Festival

Um, yea, I am going to go all the way back to Christmas.  I have no excuse.  Oh, sure, I have been busy but not that busy.  However, I do want to document our fun Christmas/ Winter happenings.

Christmas in Virginia is always wonderful.  There is no rush to/ in the airport or worries about upcoming snow storms.  Plus, I did not even take a day off work and still felt refreshed.  To get us into the Christmas spirit we attended a Washington Chorus Sing Along at the Kennedy Center.  We loved singing our hearts out and then being treated to the best rendition of Oh Holy Night that I have ever heard. 

A few days before Christmas, we decided that the Bowens must have a Christmas fort.  We rummaged through our apartment and found rope and blankets galore.  It was meant to be a one night thing.  We would put it up, sleep in it with the Christmas lights on, and then we would take it down.  However, we found the tent to be so enjoyable that we kept it up for 3 days. 

We also had some other friends stay around Virginia and were able to have Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas Day dinner with some close friend.  On Christmas morning, we Skyped with each family as they opened their gifts and we opened ours.  It was perfect!

Winterfest

In February, we made our way to Western Maryland for the Oakland Winterfest. The Besseys joined in for the weekend trip.  There were ice carving demonstrations, an ice throne, frozen cantaloupe bowling, and a snowman competition.  It was an unusually warm winter in the East.  Therefore, there was not too much snow for the competition.  We were determined to build a snowman so the boys borrowed some sleds and searched all around for any remaining snow.  We found enough to build our skiing snowman.  It won first prize!  Oh, sure, we were the only entry but that is what you get for determination.  We won a gift certificate at Bubba's  Wings.  We already had plans that evening for dinner so we drove to Bubba's Wings and sold it to a man and his family for face value.   

The guys bought some very old baseball/basketball cards.  Then Ryan tried to eat the ancient gum.  Turns out that gum turns to a gross powder after a while.