The Opera

The Opera….   Dreaded words on the ears of man.  I heard these words back in the fall of 2008 when I bought tickets for Puccini’s Turandot.  I was told it was an Italian Opera (sung in Italian) about an Asian princess and her ill fated suiters.   Natalie was very excited because she was familiar with the music and enjoyed it very much.

I like to keep an open mind and enjoy most any live performance.  This was no exception.  The stage was well designed and the performance was excellent.   I really do enjoy the Kennedy Center.  The whole story was thankfully written in english in the program.  This made it a whole lot easier to understand what was going on once the performance got started.  They had a small projector screen at the top of the stage with subtitles which gave some assistance as well.  I found myself not even looking at the subtitles by the end of the show.  It’s true what they say about the Opera.  You don’t really need to understand the words.  The music and actions on stage are universally understood.

Gulf Shores

A few days later we traveled to the sunny shores of the Gulf of Mexico.  Some call it the “redneck riviera” but we called it Gulf Shores AL.  We flew in to Pensacola grabbed our rental car and drove the hour to our beach house.  We met up with a few friends from college for a week of relaxation.   The house we had was literally right on the beach.  From the back porch you could listen to the waves roll in and see dolphins jumping in the distance.

Not being a huge beach person I went with the other guys out fishing.  I’m not an outdoorsman but I’ve fished before.  Never in salt water and never wading out into the water.  We were fishing off of a point where two water ways converged.  The current was fast and strong but you could easily stand on the sandbar.   Redfish was what we were after but didn’t have much luck the first day.  We had seen sting rays, and catfish but none of the native redfish.  I started the good luck on the second day by pulling in a 24″ redfish. This was easily the largest fish I’d ever pulled in.  Even though the other guys pulled in much larger fish over the next few days I was still happy with my catch.  Jacob and Jordan played the part of fish monger and did the prep work for an exceptional feast of grilled fish.

It was a really great time.  The location was great and the company was better.  It’s always great to see old friends.  Especially since we live so far away, having so many people in one place at one time is rare.

Art and Baseball

In DC there is an art show called Artomatic.  Ever year an unfinished building/office etc is donated for a month to host a large open Art show.  Artists are given a section of a temporary wall or corner to display or create what ever art they wish.  This year Artomatic was across the street from the new Nationals stadium. We figured it would be a good use of a day to take in some art and go to a game.

I was expecting the art show to be a floor of a building but this was 9 floors packed with all manor of things.  It was really pretty interesting to see what people produce.  I saw a few things I liked along with the ever popular Peeps diorama exhibit.  They used the popular marshmallow easter candy to create small scenes that were often very amusing.  It was interesting indeed.

We were pretty tired from walking through the giant art exhibit so it was nice to sit at the ball game and relax.  It may seem somewhat disturbing but ball park food is delicious.

The 4th

A day later we decided to celebrate the birth of our nation with a random excursion into the heart of Virginia.  With our friends Kerry and Cedric we traveled to Lexington VA.  Each year Lexington hosts a hot air balloon rally along with fireworks and various food vendors on the parade grounds of the Virginia Military Institute.

We got into town and ate at a quaint restaurant in the small down town.  Lexington is maybe 7,000 people so it reminded me a lot of my home town.  Still full of ball game food we welcomed the sight of more bbq fried foods and cotton candy.  VMI really has a beautiful campus.  We even saw the grave of Robert E Lee’s horse Traveler.  This is some good stuff I tell you!

As the light faded everyone gathered into the field to watch the balloons take off.  There was probably 20 or so that took off.  I’d never been up that close to a hot air balloon before.  Fortunately for Natalie and unfortunately for me all of the rides were already sold out.  So we had to settle for watching the fireworks instead.

The next day we ventured off to see the Natural Bridge.  Billed as one of the 7 natural wonders (of the world?  The US?  or maybe just Virginia.  How could we resist a 219′ tall 90′ wide naturally occurring archway that happens to be crossed by US HWY 11?  It was pretty cool.  Along the way we toured through the Natural Bridge Caverns.  The deepest commercially accessible caverns on the east coast. Quite the adventure.

And Stuff

While all this was going on we’ve been house hunting and preparing for more fun to come.