hey friends!
so we hit the road to hit up two eagerly anticipated destinations:
min cha's alma mater UVA (the university of virginia)
and polyface farm (joel salatin's progressive farm featured in documentaries like Food Inc and Fresh and Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma).
more after the jump.
we picked a great time to go because the shenandoah valley in the fall is pretty spectacular. we took our time driving through shenandoah national park and made sure to stop a lot to take pics and take in the scenery.
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| panoramic shot using our new nex-5 |
once we arrived at uva, our first stop was lunch at the famous bodo's bagels. funny thing about this place, apparently the on-campus location was in a constant state of "coming soon" for over ten years! min cha never got to eat there while a student, but the long-awaited moment had finally come. but honestly, how can a bagel possibly live up to ten years of hype?
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| the rotunda and a statue of uva founder, thomas jefferson, who famously brought the classical architectural style to america |
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| standing on the "lawn" - housing units on either side are reserved for particularly high achieving students |
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| the cool "whispering bench" where if you sit on one end of the bench you can clearly hear someone sitting on the other end whispering |
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| you can't see it in this picture, but the house on the top of this hill is rumored to be where dr. suess lived and looked down on uva which rejected his admission three times - this is most likely an urban legend |
after visiting one of the campus ministries, "GCF" and staying with the faithful couple who oversee the ministry, Pastor IJ and his wife Aileen, we took off in the morning for our trip to polyface. we needed breakfast though, and where better to eat in the south than at cracker barrel!
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| a cool game at each of the tables - you leave one hole empty and try to jump each of the pegs until you only have one left. i could only get it down to three, which according to the game makes me "just average" |
we finally made it to polyface farms (which, is no easy feat since it's pretty out of the way). i won't go into too much detail, but you can check out the website here.
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| the famous "egg-mobile" - cows are moved to graze in different locations and chickens are moved to the now vacated spot to "clean up the mess" - apparently it leads to some delicious chickens and eggs |
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| pigs and rabbits and roosters co-existing |
after our farm tour, we went back to uva to take in their football game verses NC State. what began well unfortunately ended in defeat for the beloved cavaliers. i think min cha was far more excited about the marching band, however, which again didn't exist when she was a student. it was fun for me though as i've never taken in a collegiate football game before.
we didn't think it'd make for a good picture, but the family in front of us had a pretty rough time as most of the ladies were pretty wasted and eventually got kicked out as one of them puked in the stands. my college football experience is now complete!
today we take off for a pretty cool trip to the Homestead, a historic resort visited by many of america's presidents. stay tuned!
