Making the best of Virginia

The last post indicated that we were in Virginia waiting for our next load assignment and two days later we are still waiting. Yep still in Virginia. We were told to call in at 9a.m. yesterday to see what they have for us and they still had nothing. We called in again around noon and still nothing. We decided we are not going to sit in the truck all day and stare at the back of a truck stop. Thank goodness for the internet. We were scouting out where there were going to be fireworks and we found out that the town we are in Lexington was having a display and plus they put on a HotAir Balloon festival!!! As most of you know Josh and I have tried on two different occassions to ride a hotair balloon but both times were cancelled due to weather. I was so excited to see this plus it was to have other fun things to do there.

We call a taxi and find out it is going to cost us $15 for a ride to the festival grounds. Josh says lets go for it, you only live once. Taxi comes directly to our truck and off we go. We ask him tons of questions, things to do in town, how good is the fireworks display, and points of interest. We told him we were not the type of people that like to go shopping and so he was having trouble coming up with much but we got a few tips. We arrive at the festival grounds which is on the VMI (Virginia Military Institute) grounds and immediately we were quite impressed with the buildings and how extremely well kept the grounds were. We look at the different vendors that are set up there and the food booths. They also have bouncy houses set up. We keep walking down the road and realize that is all they have. We had missed the balloon rides for that morning but they were going to set up again in the evening. So back to the internet we go and called a few places trying to see if they were within walking distance. I stop a guy and ask how far was it to the horse drawn carriage rides and he said about a mile, and proceeded to give us directions and even offered us a ride as he was headiing that direction anyway. We declined the ride but decided to go ahead and walk there as there wasn't much else to do.

We walk toward town and we are in the historic part of town and there are lots of old buildings and we get into town and and the streets are lined with quaint businesses lined up next to each other. We walk to where the guy gave us directions to and it isn't there. We look it up and he gave us the wrong directions. By the way we are trying to use Josh's phone sparingly as he didn't charge it up before we left and I left my phone in the truck thinking it would be one less thing to carry and we still need enough battery to call the taxi back when we are done. So we back track about 4 blocks and we find the horse drawn carriage tours and sign up for it. Luckily we had a short wait of 15 minutes and off we go. We were pulled by two horses named Jake and Jenny and I was allowed to pet them but they didn't seem like they wanted me to touch them. Josh took my pic with them and even though I hate the pic of me I will still post it. (I hate seeing how ugly I am in pics, I prefer my fantasy world where I look much better). I felt sorry for Jenny as she was the one that pulled most of the weight as Jake stayed behind letting her do the work. Our tour guide told us about the history of the town and pointed out some of the places to visit when the tour was done. I didn't get too many pics of the places we saw as we were crammed into the carriage with other people and the shots would of been mostly filled with the other people.

We make it back to where we started the tour and we head to the Visitor Center hoping they had a bathroom. It didn't have a whole lot of items to look at but we did use the bathrooms and headed on down the street. We then stop in at the Stonewall Jackson house where they give tours and I love looking at older homes and their history but this one was lack luster and was only allowed to see four of the rooms and they were very sparce in items. The tour guide was very "different" and made what was a boring tour even worse. After leaving there we decide to head back toward the VMI as it was getting closer to time for the hotair balloon rides and I wanted to see them set up. As we are walking we are looking for any place where we might be able to find a phone charger as Josh's phone is in the red. No luck on that and so we decided to call the taxi now and see if we can make an appointment time for him to pick us up. We decided on 10:30 as the fireworks start at 9:30 and figured that would give us plenty of time and yes they would pick us up then.

We arrive at VMI and by now I am searching for a place to sit down in the shade. I have realized that all this sitting in the truck is making my legs weak already. Plus it doesn't help that there is no flat ground in this town it is all hills and I know that my legs were screaming at times when we were going up hill. I also only brought my sandals with me and would have been a little better off if I had worn more appropriate shoes. I also realize by this point that I am sunburned. We find some steps to sit on and have a pretty good view of where the balloons will be set up and we are shaded. I have to admit that the weather was wonderful this whole time, it got a little warm but nothing unbearable and by evening there was a cool breeze that was wonderful.

They start setting up the balloons and got some great pictures of that but by the time they got it totally blown up the wind was strong enough that they were having trouble controling it and kept pushing in the sides, so no longer did they have it up they took it back down again. The wind never did stop and so there weren't going to be any balloon rides. I told Josh that we must of jinxed them as every time we try to ride one the weather doesn't cooperate.

Now we are getting hungry. Earlier in the day I decided to I wanted a gyro as I LOVE them and one of the vendors had them. It was nasty. I was nothing like what I was wanting or used to but I ate it anyway. So now for supper I told him I wanted the chicken on a stick that one of the chinese vendors had.. surely they couldn't mess that up. It wasn't bad but it wasn't great either but at least edible. Josh also got me a funnel cake too and we shared that. After eating and all the walking I was so ready for a nap as there wasn't anything else to do but wait for the fireworks. Once they started we walked closer to them and sat in the grass (luckily no chigger bites today). I tried taking some pics but most of them didn't turn out too well. The fireworks reminded us a lot of the ones back at home, very sparse in the beginning then with a big finale. It took of all of 15 minutes. We still had to wait for 45 minutes for the taxi. He arrived a little earlier and we headed back to the truck. We were tired and went directly to bed.

We get up this morning and call in and got voice mail and they haven't called us with anything yet so we may be stuck here until Monday. I see a lot of napping and movie watching in the future as I am still tired, just walking up to the truck stop to use the bathroom is tiring. All I can say is that we better get a lot of detention pay for all this sitting. 

This is only one of the many buildings they have at the VMI

Just want to add on how awesome my husband is for doing all of this.  He had no interest in any of these things and he did it all because he knew I would enjoy it.  He has earned some mega brownie points with this gal!