Great Hall Library of Congress
When out-of-town friends visit in the Washington, DC, area we almost always take them sightseeing. You could hardly get friends more out-of-town than Melissa James and her husband. Melissa hails from Australia and has been a good friend of mine for over ten years now. She has visited me before and we have toured the area sites together, but this was her husband’s first time.
The first day I set up a special tour of the Library of Congress. My friend Virginia volunteers as a tour guide there and she gave us a special tour. There is no building more beautiful than the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress and I love to show it off to visitors, especially visitors like Melissa and her dh, who have traveled the world.
L to R Mia, Melissa, me, Melissa's dh, Virginia
Joining us was Mia Zachary and her son. Mia is also a good friend of Melissa’s, but she lives on the Maryland side of DC and I live on the Virginia side (those who live in this area will understand the divide), so this was her only chance to get together with us.
Then we met my husband and our friend Helen who also works at the Library of Congress. (Helen and Virginia are in a writing group with me, along with my friend Julie, and have been from the beginning of my writing – they were also friends even before that!). We all had lunch and afterwards a tour of the Air and Space Museum, which, luckily, was not as crowded as it usually is.
Melissa’s husband’s other request was to see the Virginia countryside and to shop at an Outlet Center. Luckily we could easily accomodate. My dh drove us to the Virginia horse country and we wound up in Middleburg, a quaint and historic little town dating back to before the Revolutionary War. We ate lunch at The Red Fox Inn where Confederate John Mosby, The Gray Ghost, met with his Rangers.
We then stopped at the Leesburg Corner Premium Outlets. Melissa and her dh managed to get exactly what they were looking for and then some, and I found a skirt and T-shirt.
And then the next day I had to take Melissa and her husband back to the airport. Melissa was on to New York City to see her agent and discuss her exciting new project, which I will speak more about when the time comes. After that they were bound for Scotland and Europe to see more friends.
The visit was much too short and I miss them terribly, but we were so lucky that we had two days of beautiful Virginia weather for their visit and that they missed our terrible freak storm that still leaves some residents without electricity.
Have you had any special visitors this summer? Or made any special trips? If not, where would you like to go and who would you like to see?
What a wonderful visit!
Only thing planned this summer was the Arizona Dreamin’ Reader Event, the beginning of June. It was fun. The rest of the summer is packed with writing and editing.
Take care!
Judy, there is nothing like a Book event to spark one’s pleasure in writing!
My only summer treat is RWA’s National Conference each year. For one week I get to be a writer 24/7 and the best part is I get to visit with my wonderful writing friends like you, O Divine One!
I envy Melissa and her hubby their visit to the Library of Congress!
The DC area is a great place to live if you have visitors. There is so much to see and much of it is free. We didn’t manage to see all we wanted even though we lived in Northern Virginia for 5 years. Being stationed at Andrews AFB and having two in high school, one in elementary school, plus all the extra activities took a lot of time. We certainly took advantage of a lot of it.
We just got back from almost three weeks on the road. We visited my sister who lives near JAmestown, VA and my brother who lives in South Lyme, CN. We spent a week on Cape Cod and I went on a whale watch. Great fun. We had a mother and calf humpback stay near the boat for a long time swimming from side to side and around it giving everyone a good view. Then the baby started breaching and the mother joined it. This went on for about 25 minutes before we had to head back in. They were still doing it as we sailed off. We then visited my husband’s relatives in Derry, NH and Metheun, Mass. Then it was on to Northern NY on the shores of Lake Champlain to visit my family. Got to visit friends and family and attend church and a parish picnic at the outdoor shrine where we were married. Picked up a book on my mother’s side of the family. One of my brothers is deep into genealogy and has been working on tracing both sides of the family. He is good at it and has put out several books on the family as well as county cemeteries. I can’t wait to sit down and read my copy. Now we are home and trying to catch up with all we missed.