Well you might have noticed, Im back.
Left out Wednesday after finishing my CDL test and got home yesterday afternoon.
Overall a good trip, but...different.
Family dynamic has changed, he's got a kid now (7 mo) and that just changes everything.
Anyway
Got there about 6pm Wednesday and enjoyed relaxing and talking with my friend who I only get to see once a year.
Thursday we went into the city because he had to do a fitness exam for his job - he works for the parks service/usda.
So this was the day that I was most excited about: go to the city, take bikes, and explore. His stepson was coming with, he's 11 and a half.
Well they dont have bikes, but there are tons of rental bikes there and it's 8 bucks for a 24 hour rental, with one caveat that they have to be 'checked in' every half hour...still not bad because there are a lot of stations.
Well his stepson cant ride a bike.
I want to repeat that - HIS BOY CANT RIDE A BIKE.
I mean, he can get moving and all, and by the end of the day it wasnt bad, but he fell over so many times. Into bushes, into curbs, just hitting inanimate objects, and even hitting one guy in the back of the leg. He cried, stated this was too hard.
Also, those rentals are treated/can be treated pretty rough (hell,I saw his boy on them and it was bad) and my buddy had a flat one time about 5 blocks from another station.
So little snags and big snags with that and it just didnt go well.
We just didnt cover all that much space, which was a reason for taking them.
BUT
ate some good food in the city, had some good coffee at Peets, and checked out some cool record shops and picked up a West German album of a punk band I'd never heard of, just the cover caught my attention and I noticed all the type was in German so I picked it up for 8 bucks.
Friday we went into historic Fredricksburg for a while, neat little city/town!
Had breakfast at the Mason Dixon Cafe - very good, but not cheap.
Ice cream at Carl's that night, an establishment since the 40s
Saturday we went down to the river there, I cant recall the name. We swam and ended up renting paddle boards, I tried that, I liked it pretty good.
Sunday we had a show to see that night, bands we liked.
We headed that way towards downtown DC early, stopping at the Marine Museum - WOW! That was awesome!
I didnt know what to expect. I didnt serve and didnt know what it'd be like, but i was blown away. A great war history museum!
Before leaving to come back I stopped at a local (Fredricksburg) diner, Titos. Eggs Benedict and some scrapple - a great end to the trip.
Good trip overall, but we just didnt get to hang that much because of his parental duties.
The 11 year old is fine, he can be home alone for a while and no worries. But having a baby is different. Kid is getting fussy by 730ish and asleep around then, so we were in early, unfortunately.
It was just different.