I Left my Heart in Olde Virginny.

I spent a wonderful evening and afternoon last weekend in Williamsburg, VA, with Natalie of Moose Munch and husband Dan, the most gracious hosts a blogger could ever wander across. One wonders how people so personable and thorougly engaging are not famous worldwide, when reprobates like Scott Petersen are ubiquitously present in the news. But we will leave human society and journalistic priorities as topics for an altogether differrent post.

This all began as a strange adventure with Priceline. Natalie sent me an e-mail inviting me to her party saying she thought Williamsburg was only a four or five hour drive from Wilmington, which, as it turns out, is perfectly correct. There is, however, the small caveat that your distinguished author is the last person in the industrial world, 21st century scheme o' things essaying to get by sans automobile. So I checked out Greyhound, idiot that I am (I have nothing against Greyhound, besides the fact that they are a slow, ill-serviced, overpriced, corrupt monopoly--like Amtrack, without the novelty of being on a train) to find out that a bus trip from Southern North Carolina to Southern Virginia (a whopping one state away, for the geographically challenged) costs $148 and a shade short of infinity in the time department. So no go on that. Then, just for kicks, I check out what a short-notice, one-day, weekend airfare might be: $695 on Priceline, and that only gets me to Richmond, about a 30 mile cab ride from Williamsburg. Natalie and Dan are great people, but $800 dollars is a bit much to shell out in cover charges to go to a party, no matter how good. Before giving up all hope, I check out what rental cars are going for: Hertz clocks in cheapest at $30 a day for a sub-compact. (As an aside, and general travel tip, always ask for a sub-compact when renting a car. They probably won't have one available, and will be obliged to upgrade you to a better class of car at no additional cost. If there does happen to be a Geo Metro available, you can always upgrade yourself out-of-pocket; it's a win-win situation.) I go to the "name your price" option, which is a bidding service by which your credit card is automatically charged if your bid is accepted--a kind of "don't bid unless you really mean it" system. My bid for $20 a day, is, to my great surprise, accepted. We're off to Williamsburg, for the third regional sub-meeting of the famed Atlantic Bloggers Alliance (may the celestial light of the heavens be forever upon it). There exists a certain irony here: since the founding of this storied coalition, I have met with three of the other original members, involving interstate travel on the part of one of us, and not the fourth, who works two doors down from my apartment. It is observed that I'll have to fix that.

I had come to believe, over a number of previous years, that I don't actually like driving long distances. Truth of the matter is, I simply didn't like driving long distances in foul Ohio Winter weather in old, poorly maintained automobiles that are liable to strand me in bleak farm country when it's eleven freakin' degrees at any given time. Driving four-plus hours through the woods of the South in a regularly serviced rental Cavalier (which, true to prediction, is a bigger car than I paid for) on a sunny early Spring afternnon is in fact remarkably pleasant. I take note that I'll have to make a habit of this.

Upon arrival, I am reintroduced to Natalie and Dan, whom I haven't seen since my sister's wedding two years ago, along with their adorable and enthused canine children Bailey and Luna. Luna likes to bark to hear herself, not unlike a lot of people I know, but both are friendly and well-behaved. We talk dogs for a moment or two, which is always good fun; we love dogs here at LiteraryLiberal (and may end up adopting one soon), and these are some awesome ones. I am plied with drink as we catch up, and I am promised the following things from the party: some people from Colonial Williamsburg, where Dan works as a guide, will show up in eighteenth-century period costume; some people will undoubtedly seduce me into an Irish Car Bomb (Guinness with a shot of Irish cream/Irish whiskey, for the unversed) or two; some wine geeks will show up with the remnants of a tasting that they're giving at their shop (Burgundy/Pinot Noir theme). To my great delight, all of these things are true, although the following day effects of beer-wine-liquor drinking are best left undescribed. I bestow upon Natalie and Dan my cheapskate housewarming gift: a pair of jalepeno necklaces procured from my recently expounded-upon trip to New Mexico, which, like champs, they wear for the balance of the evening. My hosts and their friends and neighbors are lively and interesting, the party is a rousing hit, and I go to bed properly drunk.

The following day brings breakfast at The Gazebo, this wonderful, if a bit hurried, Greek family breakfast joint in which presidential candidates apparently feel compelled to eat, based upon the wall photos at the enterance. Then we're off Colonial Williamsburg, or CW as it's known to the locals, inexplicably my first-ever trip there. CW and the College of William and Mary make up one contiguous space, and since W&M wears its eighteenth-century aspect on its sleeve, we have an awful lot of well-preserved history going on. W&M would be the oldest school in the country, if those pesky Indians hadn't raided and burnt the first incarnation of it, forcing everyone to start over from scratch. Ah well. We seem to have taken care of that problem, anyway. (Hey, what's a post without some light-hearted genocide humor?)

Walking Duke of Gloucester (which I think is what the evil Richard III was, as well as Duke of York) Street, or Dog Street colloquially, with a guy that knows the place inside and out is tremendous. We see the weapons magazine, stop in a few shops, pass by the period houses where Dan's co-workers reside, all while I get an entertaining and informative running commentary from Dan. I settle on purchasing a March 17, 1774 reprint of The Virginia Gazette, a tavern license, and a tin whistle, which I grandly imagine myself playing alongside the flautist and drum corps at the head of a puissant Colonial army. Then I give it a try, and hear the most abhorrently shrill, scratchy, broken musical note perhaps ever to eminate from a wind instrument. I revise the fantasy scenario, including that I'd be quickly shot, both for being at the fore and to knock off the infernal racket. Dan wisely observes that 99.7% of all tin whistles purchased at CW can be easily reclaimed and resold from the side of the interstate, where they are hurled by irritated parents halfway through the trip home. I realize I may need to practice a bit.

There are, it seems, two requisite photo ops on Dog street: the pillory, and sitting beside Thomas Jefferson. I happily comply with both, the latter of which appears as follows:

The hung-over and unwashed author chumming with TJ's bronzed corpse. 

It's a lovely Spring day of wandering through history, and stepping around horse droppings. We head back to the ranch, where I thank my friends for their incredible hospitatlity, snap a few pics on the disposable, say goodbye to the dogs, and head back to the great state of North Carolina. There is a threatened rumor about all this happening again in May. Y'all should come along.