Today was a day that Gabby had to work all day -- imagine that! Once I finally got myself in gear and dressed (missed breakfast AGAIN!) we looked out the window and saw that rain was the story of the day so we sat around and looked up things on the internet that we could do indoors. My choice was to go to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and see the Elvis at 21 exhibit. Micah's choice was to go to the Museum of the Confederacy and the White House of the Confederacy. Neither Mike nor Reed really cared much one way or the other so we decided to go to the Confederacy exhibits in the morning and hit the Elvis exhibit in the afternoon.
We got to the car and once again, I let Micah navigate (much less stressful for me!) The actual museum was rather hard to find as hospitals are all built up around it and we tended to look for a much bigger building than it actually was. Once we located it, the next trick was to locate a parking place. We found one about a block away, safely located next to the "Virginia Treatment Center". I was a little leary about that one -- just exactly who and what were they treating there?!? We got to the museum and decided to take the guided tour through the White House of the Confederacy along with the museum admission. The white house tour was pretty good and really quite interesting. As for the museum, being a Yankee I could really care less about the history of the Confederacy. We won, they lost; we were right and they were wrong; it's done. All it was was a bunch of confederate uniforms and weapons (guns stolen from the Yankees) and other cultural memorabilia from that era. I did buy a couple things from the gift shop...just had to have that southern belle hat and fan! On the way out, I said, "Do you think they make African Americans PAY to come into this museum?" He said he felt like it was kind of a slap in the face to even have the museum in the first place. I agreed -- do they have a museum somewhere for Adolph Hitler's birthplace?
We drove around looking for a locally owned restaurant for lunch and found Gibson's Grill. After a satisfying lunch, we headed to the Elvis exhibit. These were photographs taken of him just after he signed his first recording contract. Alfred Wertheimer was the photographer the studio hired to follow him and photograph him as he went to do some stage shows and TV performances in 1956. It was really quite interesting to see bits of Elvis' life before the fame. It had pictures of his high school sweetheart, him recording "Hound Dog" and "Don't Be Cruel" and the photograph of "The Kiss" with a women he "picked up" at a luncheonette. The timetable was from March of 1956 through July 4, 1956. I'm glad we went and I thought of Aiden, my great-nephew, the whole time! After viewing the Elvis exhibit we walked around the museum and looked at artwork from different time periods.
Once we were thoroughly exhausted, we piled into the car and headed to Gabby's. It was raining cats and dogs on the way and one SUV went off the road and drove straight into the trees. Didn't look too sweet. There were fire trucks and ambulances -- the whole shbang. While it was still daylight, we drove through the big town of Milford. I can't believe they actually call it a town. There were houses of all varieties, a rundown gas station, a Presbyterian church and that's about it. From there we went to Gabby's house and watched some tv while she finished up with chores and showered. Once that was accomplished, we headed to Roma's for pizza. We had a rather entertaining ride back to the hotel. It started off with Micah, a.k.a. "the navigator", telling Dad to "use some common sense" when Dad asked for directions out of the parking lot and back to the hotel. That was just toooo funny! A little further down the road, Mike and Micah started singing along to the radio -- "Whiskey Lullaby". The whole family joined in and it was quite the performance! When the next song came on the radio, we didn't know it soooo I started singing "I Love to Laugh" from Mary Poppins. ALL my kids know that song! I think Mike was pretty glad to get back to the hotel!
Now we have to figure out what and how we are going to see in Washington tomorrow -- I think I might just ride in the trunk, the thought of the traffic makes me nervous! Tune in tomorrow for more tales from the Hejlik clan.
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