Oh My Gawd!

Last week, my friend Aida from sunny CA came for a vizzie. She had flown to Boston where she met her friend Chairdain, and together they were traveling down the east coast. I'd not met Chairdain before, and we were all off for a whirlwind of activity! We met in the parking lot of  Luray Caverns and from there, went in for the grand tour. Chairdain is larger than life, and a fun character. She had me laughing thru the caverns tour. She has the exuberance and curiosity of a child, that I really appreciate when I see it in adults. OH MY GAWD! she exclaimed, throughout the entire tour. IS THIS REAL? she would ask with each new rock formation. As we approached each new stopping point, she would ask a series of questions to the guide. Her delivery comes rat-a-tat-a-tat, like a machine gun. Who-discovered-the-caverns-and how-did-they-get-down-here-and-OH-MY-GAWD-is-this-real? 

Our guide leads the way.

Chairdain takes a pic of a REAL rock formation.

After the tour.

Really cool sculpture on the way into Luray.

 We ate at a local restaurant which I call the Remember Restaurant because I can never remember its name. The irony is that it has Remember in its name. A Place to Remember? A Time to Remember? Moments in Time? Oh, right. A Moment to Remember. Chairdain walked in and said, (you guessed it), OH MY GAWD! And started snapping pictures right away. How-long-has-this-been-a-restarant? What-did-it-used-to-be?  Oh-look-at-that. Was-this-a-pharmacy?

See? There's the "-ment" part of the name on the window.

 Then we did some sightseeing along Main St.and went into the shops. I don't usually do that, but they're sweet to go browsing in. More OH MY GAWDing ensued, along with a few Is this real?

Chairdain wanted to see the rest of the town. I said, "This is it." She looked at me, dumbfounded. What-do-you-mean-this-is-it? Where's-the-downtown? Where-do-you-go-shopping?  I told her we could cross the railroad tracks and head up to the plaza where the Radio Shack was. So we decided it was time to do a provisions shop before heading home. I told her that we needed to get whatever she wanted, because once we got home, we weren't coming back out. Why-aren't-we-coming-back-out? Is-it-that-far-out? How-far-do-you-live-from-here? So we did a shop in Walmart and then Aida & I decided this would be a fine night for Margaritas, so we headed to the liquor store. [Click HERE for John's AWESOME Margarita recipe, scroll down to the end]  

Love the name of this!

OH MY GAWD? This-is-the-liquor-store? But-it's-so-small! What-do-they-sell-here? Why-is-it-so-small?  The three clerks are giving her the "You're-not-from-around-here" stare. Chairdain, meanwhile is OH-MY-GAWDing around the store, and gets a few mini-bottles of something.

Armed with provisions, I lead the way to my house. Aida & I together, and Chairdain following behind. Even tho I can't actually hear her, I can feel her OH-MY-GAWDing down my road. No matter what I say, or how descriptive I am about my road, until you experience it, you just don't have a clue! So we got to my house. As we're walking to the house, Aida says with a big smile, "Oh my God, look at this! It's so beautiful! Look at all the trees! We're in the mountains!"  Chairdain says, "Oh my Gawd! We're so far out! We're in the mountains!" But she is not smiling.

So we went for a labyrinth walk:

Me & Aida in the center of the labyrinth.

And here's Chairdain:

Sometimes a picture really is worth 1000 words!

She looked at my labyrinth. OH MY GAWD. Is this rock real? And here's the short list of other things she didn't think were real, besides various rocks & rock formations:

• ground hogs
• flying squirrels
• wild pear trees

Except. Except for bears. Those were real to her and she kept insisting that bears would come up on my porch at night. Oh, you city slickers.  ;-)

M&M say hello to Chairdain. She was really sweet to them, and they loved the extra attention!

The girls are just a tad bigger than Aida's dog (a chi-wow-woo)

We drove up behind my house  . . .

. . . to the overlook:

And thru the woods, back home again. A quiet evening where Chairdain took a long soak in the tub, and Aida & I had a coupla margaritas, and we were all in bed by 9 p.m. The next a.m. they were up & out by 8:15 on their way back up the east coast. Whew! What a fast 20 hours!