Adventures of BigFoot in the Big City

Baltimore, MD -The View from our room.

I am home from a Big City-BigFoot adventure and happy to be alive and well.

Baltimore is a beautiful old Maryland city, with more than enough to do if you are young, agile, and don’t mind horrific traffic in the inner city.

Strike “young.”

Strike “agile.”

As for the traffic?

A nightmare!

But we somehow got where we were going in spite of white knuckle rides and hysterical screaming at our GPS lady and maybe one or two jabs at each other (to say nothing of unacceptable language).

For solace, we turned to food.

Have you ever had Maryland crab cakes?  They are the best and of course I had to have crab at Phillips’ famous seafood restaurant.  It was just around the block from the hotel, but may as well have been on Mars.

I am back to driving challenges again!  Sigh.

 

But of course, the original purpose of our visit to Baltimore was for an appointment with an expert orthopedic doctor at The Institute for Foot and Ankle Reconstruction at Mercy.

And a wonderful doctor did spend a whole hour with us, discussing, analyzing, offering advice and answering many questions.

In a nutshell, this Gimpy Gal (me, Big Foot) simply (or maybe not) has an injured “talus” bone that may take a long time to heal.

So it was back to frolicking in Baltimore!

We frolicked over to the Whole Foods place and actually started to get lost in the garage.  But we somehow frolickedstumbled into the place and found the six loaves of decadent bread I wanted so badly!

We would surely not starve with all that in the car right?

At breakfast next morning we managed some exciting sight seeing by looking out the window next to our table (no driving required).

There was a mysterious tent-covered barge-like THING with a giant water wheel and it was parked and floating in the harbor basin, and the big water wheel seemed to turn of its own accord when and if it wanted to.

We took turns guessing what the mysterious barge might be.

And I wondered why technology wouldn’t let me take a picture and ask Google to please identify the unidentified object.  Why couldn’t I just say, “Hey Google, What is this?”

Whatever it was though,  it made for great conversation over pancakes!

Can YOU guess what it really is?

This is the unidentified floating object.

To be continued….

 

 

 

 

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Windows

View from the Sheridan Livery Inn, Lexington, Virginia

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The Magic of Three

Three Thoughts

My Three Grandgirls When They were Little

My Three Grandgirls Now

A special thank you to my blogging friend, Cindy, at Mama’s Empty Nest,  who tagged me to play along with this meme.

Please share three thoughts for each question

Three names I answer to:

1. Dor
2. Dorf
3. Dork

Three places I’ve called home:

1. Oxon Hill, MD
2. Phoenix, AZ
3. Hayfork, CA

Three places I’ve worked:

1. National Printing Association
2. Real Estate Appraisers
3. A Travel Agency

Three things I love to watch:

1. Dogs
2. The changing sky
3. Ice skating

Three things I love to eat:

1. Chocolate
2.  Chocolate
3. Anything Chocolate

Three things I’m looking forward to:

1. Seeing family and friends for Christmas and the New Year
2. Getting rid of the big boot on my left foot and walking normally
3. Reading the next great book

Three fond Christmas memories:

1. When our grandgirls were little for Xmas candle light caroling downtown. Passing each store,  the holiday lights came on and the girls were entranced. The group ended at a little park in midtown Lexington where Santa lit a big Christmas tree.  I will never forget all those glowing happy faces.
2. When I was a little girl and Santa left a real portable phonograph machine that played records!
3. The Christmases past when we had dogs and there were wrapped chew bones and squeaky toys under the tree just for them.  How we loved Peaches and Carrie – (the Golden Girls) and Rudy – (our inherited tough guy pitbull who never harmed a soul) and then Rozie – sweet Rozie, the rescue girl who rescued us all with her  love.

Three bloggers who might play along too:

1. Cindy at Photos from the Loony Bin
2. Eunice at Nuts for Treasure
3. Lisa at Life with the Top Down

But, like the other Cindy at Mama’s Empty Nest, I’m opening up this meme for anyone else who wants to participate. If you want to join the fun, copy & paste, replacing my answers with yours.

Or just choose one prompt from the list and share your answers in the comments.  I would really love to hear about your three fond Christmas memories!

“When we recall Christmas past, we usually find that the simplest things give off the greatest glow of happiness.” ~ Bob Hope

 

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Are You Sleeping Yet?

 

From: http://www.cliparthut.com

I keep blogging about our trip to Germany and now beginning to envision

blank faces,

yawns

and vacant stares.

Constant reviews of recently returning tourists can even be sleep inducing.

This will therefore be the last post on my visit to “the old country.”

That is, unless there is something special that must be shared – like a castle built by Mad Ludwig II.

Swan Lake below Neuchwanstein Castle

 

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What in the World is That?

This week my friend Norma and I were privileged to be taken on a private tour of Ridgely Historic Gardens, an amazing walk backward in time through a mountainside property in the Alleghany Highlands of Virginia.

There was a slightly ominous, ghostly apparation hanging in the garden that prompted my first question.  “What is THAT?” I asked and was surprised and delighted at the answer.

Can YOU guess what that is?

Answer to come in my next post about Ridgely Gardens and the fascinating little town of Clifton Forge.

 

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Jumping for Joy

From Style Weekly

Picture this:  The entire floor you are standing on is a trampoline!

And the urge to jump is compelling.

And Oh My! Bouncing is downright fun.

Trampoline jumping isn’t new of course, but extreme trampoline jumping is growing ever more popular across the country.

Somehow this kind of bouncing around is considered healthy exercise and it certainly looks like a whole lot of fun.

Since this blog is called “Virginia Views”, I thought you might like another eye view of Virginia.

There is this place in Richmond called Jumpology.  And it’s a happy place for kids or grownups (depending upon just how grown up) to leap around and play on over 8,000 square feet of connected world class trampolines.  Who knew?

Now if I could only get a group of seniors together who think they are still juniors, I might even give Jumpology a try (no cameras allowed of course).  

The whole idea of doing weightless somersaults like the astronauts is rather appealing.

Maybe with a defibrillator on hand they would sponsor a Senior Jump-In that’s done sitting down and where participants are urged to crawl onto the trampoline floor.

From Richmond.com

But if you are legitimately young-enough-to-make-a-fool-of-yourself, here is what is featured at Jumpology:

• OpenJump.  That means you can hop up and down on over 50 trampolines through a pit of multicolored foam blocks, and play basketball and dodge ball in basketball and dodge ball  areas in the arena.  Whoa!
• JumpJam is when the lights go out and the lasers come on!  I suppose the whole thing is repeated in a kind of dizzying lightworks display accompanied by very loud music.
• Could there be more?  Of course.
• There’s a school jump, family jumps, theme nights, special needs nights, fund raisers, corporate team events, and of course, birthday parties. 
• But “woe is me,” there is no Senior Jump-in!

Can exercise really be this much fun?

The answer is obvious from the popularity of such extreme trampoline jumping parks.

If you get the chance to stand upon a floor that isn’t really solid, let me know how that feels, o.k.?

Some things it is true, are better left untried for those with no balance and creaky bones – that is, unless we can round up enough of us to book the park for a Senior Blogger Jump-In!

 

 

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