Country Come To Town

This past week, we took our 14 year-old grandson on a vacation trip to Washington, D.C. and other points of interest that related to WWII. He is interested in that time frame at the moment. We started off with a stop at Wilmington, NC at the battleship North Carolina. If you're ever there and have the time, it really is a great opportunity to see that type of ship--in great detail. I thought the Tour Arrows would NEVER stop and I really did enjoy most of it except when we were in the lower reaches of the ship and were walking on open grates looking DOWN into the further depths--that was definitely not for me.

The remainder of our trip centered around the D.C. area--the Air & Space Museum at Dulles, Mount Vernon, The National Archives, the Smithsonian and the WWII Memorial--all of it greatly interesting and well worth the visit.

One other thing I wanted to show my grandson was the town where I grew up--Herndon, VA--and the house(s) that I lived in. Thomas Wolfe was oh-so-right when he said you can't go home again. I, of course, knew that having gone back before both to Herndon and then to Mt. Pleasant, SC, after a twelve year absence. But I REALLY wanted to give my grandson something to hold on to as far as the roots of a part of his family. Those of you who have been in Northern Virginia know that it was mostly a fruitless task but I WAS able to show him both houses that I grew up in and where things USED to be. I had to decide that it was better than no mental picture at all, I guess.

After Herndon, I decided to try to rescue another memory and in this one I was not disappointed. As a child, we would go to Great Falls Park where we would picnic, ride the merry-go-round and watch the Potomac River rush (and sometimes rage) over the rocks on its way to the Chesapeake Bay. Of course, the merry-go-round is gone and it is now a National Park, but it was beautiful and mostly an improvement. There are now well-built overlooks that discourage adventurers from climbing on the rocks and, thereby, falling into the waters (as happened one time when I was there as a child). And, for me, this was the highlight of the trip--with the WWII Memorial coming in at a close second.

And lest you think that I have completely forgotten about quilting, here is a quilt top that I finished just before we left. It is paper-pieced (HIGHLY unusual for me to do) and is from the February 2004 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting. I had had it cut out for quite a while and decided to go ahead and work on it while I'm waiting for inspiration to strike (and I think it's getting close!) I finished quilting it last night and will get the binding on soon. I think it's bright and cheery and it it will definitely be going on to a teenager that I know.