Virginia

Dec

2022

Mount Vernon Photos

While in the DC Metro area visiting my cousin, we took a side trip to Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington. They were having a “Colonial Market and Fair” which meant there was more going on there than usual. After browsing the market vendors and walking all over the grounds, we took a guided tour of the mansion. Despite being from Philadelphia and having been in many of the buildings where our country was founded, walking through Washington’s home was fascinating and a bit awe inspiring. It portrayed him as a person, not just the mythical history book character who led our country. It also meant walking the same halls he did and seeing his work and living spaces up close. It was easy to imagine what it was like in the 1700’s when George lived there.

Check out all of the photos here.

Nov

2020

Northern Virginia Photos

A few times a year, we visit my cousin, Theresa (Buy her book! It’s on Amazon here.) in Northern Virginia. In April 2018 beside our usual sitting around, catching up on family news and talking politics as one does while hanging out in the DC metro area with a former ambassador, we also did a little sightseeing. We visited Middleburg, toured the Manassas Battlefield and went to the incredibly impressive Museum of the Marine Corps at Quantico. I highly recommend a visit if you ever get the chance! We also had a few really good meals ranging a cool little diner to our favorite Greek restaurant to a historic inn.

Click here to view the photos.

May

2018

Review: Bob and Edith’s Diner – Springfield VA

Bob & Edith’s Diner takes everything good about a traditional diner and distills down it into one small package. They’re in a shopping center that’s within easy walking distance of the Hilton Homewood Suites hotel that I usually stay at when I’m in the area. They’re open 24 hours a day (a requirement for all diners, in my opinion) which makes it a perfect late night stop. When you walk in, you’re greeted by a bright and cheery atmosphere of white tile, chrome and neon. No matter what hour you go, business seems to be booming, yet both times I’ve been there, there were still some free tables for us plus some seats at the counter. The music from the jukebox keeps the place lively. I was last there on a dark rainy night and I can think of no place more warm and inviting.

Of course, they serve breakfast 24 hours a day as all respectable diners should. The menu is not as expansive as some diners back home in New Jersey, but they have all of the standards plus some. Their burgers are delicious but the best menu item I’ve had is the pancakes. They’re some of the lightest, fluffiest pancakes I’ve ever tasted. I haven’t tried their dinner entrees yet, but maybe next time.

I’m a fan of diners in general and Bob & Edith’s formula of doing everything that a good diner should do without all of the excess stuff that some diners try to tack onto their restaurants is a winning formula!

Mar

2017

Review: Eleni’s Greek Taverna – Springfield VA

Eleni’s is an authentic Greek restaurant with some Greek Diner mixed in. I could probably end this review right here because who could pass up that winning combination? As soon as you walk in, the atmosphere and décor are unmistakably Greek. Then you notice the counter and realize that they serve breakfast all day long along with a big selection of classic diner sandwiches, etc. I’m sure the breakfast and sandwiches are good, but we were there for the Greek food so that’s what we ordered.

We started out with a trio of appetizers. The saganaki was flambéed tableside, just as it should be and it was delicious. The spanakopita and tiropita we equally as good. The portion sizes of all three dishes were much larger than we expected! After eating my salad (which was also surprisingly large), I had one of my favorite Greek dishes, pastitsio,. It too was delicious. It was baked just right. The bechemel on top was properly browned without being dried out and the meat/pasta was properly spiced. All of our dishes came with a side of fasolakia (string beans in tomato sauce with oil and herbs).

Add a very friendly staff to the incredible food and my only complaint is that Eleni’s is so far away from home. Although it’s probably good for my waistline that they’re 150 miles away!

Speaking of location, one note on getting to this place… It’s tucked in the far back corner of the shopping center facing the back of another building, so it’s not easily visible from the street. Just turn into the Concord Shopping Center and you’ll eventually find it.

Jun

2016

Photos from Alexandria, Virginia

While visiting my cousin in the Northern Virginia suburbs of DC, we made an excursion to Alexandria. Besides walking the historic streets of the city, we took a tour of Christ Church. The significance of this building is that George Washington was a member of it as was Robert E Lee. You can sit in President Washington’s seat which has also supported the butts of the last 20 US presidents (except President Obama as of yet) plus Winston Churchill. Talk about sitting on history!

Check out the photos right here!

Jan

2014

Review: Positively 4th Street – Charlottesville VA

There are a ton of great restaurants at Historic Downtown Pedestrian Mall in Charlottesville. We walked past Positively 4th Street a few times without noticing it until we found it on Yelp. While most of the places were busy, this one was fairly empty. At first we worried that maybe other people knew something we didn’t, but then we figured that maybe everyone was thinking that way and walking past. We were so happy that we decided to eat there! It has a bar and there at least one guy there who sounded like he had a little too much to drink (or was just obnoxious in general) but the overall atmosphere was nice. We sat right by the front windows so we could people watch while eating without sitting outdoors in the sweltering heat.

The food was fantastic. Since we were in the south, I decided to try shrimp and grits. I’ve never been a big fan of grits but these were the creamiest, tastiest grits I’ve ever had. The shrimp were cooked perfectly and the tomato ragu, made with grape tomatoes, was delicious. The crab cakes were also very good and served with a unique side of crispy fried kale. Frying kale probably makes it slightly less nutritious but who’s complaining when it tastes that good?

Oct

2013

What I did on my summer vacation… in photos

I just posted four new albums of photos. They are all a result of my summer trip to North Carolina. Our trip was slightly disjointed with stops independent and unrelated stops in more than a half dozen cities spanning three states. As a result, the photos are broken out into separate albums.

Our vacation was primarily based around visiting cousins on both of sides of my dad’s family (the Torettas and the Gattis) who live in North Carolina. Photos from the Raleigh-Durham and Pinehurst areas are right here.

After leaving North Carolina, we stopped in Charlottesville, Virginia and visited Thomas Jefferson’s home, Monticello and James Madison’s Montpelier. Photos from that part of our trip can be found in their own album here.

Continuing north, we stopped in Maryland to visit The Maryland State Barbecue Championship and Festival in Bel Air and the Havre de Grace Seafood festival. Between sampling the amazing food at each festival I took photos that you can view here.

Our final stop was in Rising Sun, Maryland to visit the Plumpton Park Zoo. Besides visiting this cool little country zoo, we also stopped and visited the dairy that makes the amazing ice cream that we found at the seafood festival. The Rising Sun photo are here.

Dec

2006

Huge Photo Update

I just arranged the Photos section of the website. I tried to better organize it by breaking my photo collection up by years.

At the same time, I also added quite a few new photos. The Winterthur album contains photos from my recent trip with Beth to Yuletide at Winterthur. The Hofbrauhaus album is from my grandfather’s 85th birthday celebration. There are also photos from the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, NJ as well as a ton of photos taken during a business trip to Hampton Roads.

Enjoy!