Having now spent two straight nights at a Comfort Inn, I will say that I am not going to rush back soon. Not that there was anything particularly bad, but I just wouldn’t rush back. Well, a few things. In the hall, you could hear the conversations in every room. The breakfast had a large variety of things you don’t want to eat. On the other hand, very comfortable beds and today, an excellent shower.

Our driving day was to be only three hours, forty eight minutes. But I took care of that by stopping first at a McDonalds to get a coke because my mouth was dry. The very astute server in the sleekest, most modern McDonalds in the world told me that I was very lucky, that today he was allowed to sell a $1 senior coke to me, even though he could see how young I was.

And then I pulled off the road in Staunton (pronounced Stanton) to show her Woodrow Wilson’s birthplace.

Staunton is a beautiful town of about 25,000. It has extensive neighborhoods of beautiful, mostly older, homes, Wilson’s birthplace and presidential library, a well respected theater, and many trendy and (today) busy shops. Here is the Wilson library.

Staunton is also home to the Cabell Log House, built by a former enslaved man in 1869, and the center of a preservation effort. It is apparently one of the only existing log homes built by a freed slave in existence.

Throughout the trip, I have pointed out universities which I suggested Joam should consider, including of course Washington University in St. Louis. With each suggestion, Joan would tell me there was no chance. So when we got to Mary Baldwin University in Staunton, I told her I didn’t expect she would go there. Her response? ” I don’t know. I might want to go to college in Staunton.”

Her interest increased when we located a synagogue in Staunton.

It is a small synogogue with services only once or twice a month, but it has been operating for 150 years. We will see what effect Joan will have on it.

We had lunch at the Route 11 Diner in Woostock. What kind of a diner doesn’t serve breakfast after 11 a.m.? You guessed it. This kind! I reacted by eating my only meat of the trip. A Reuben. My reaction? Top quality. How do I judge a Reuben’s quality? By the ratio of sauerkraut to corned beef.

We continued up I-81 and then I-66. No problem until we got close to DC and the traffic picked up. But we were home by 3:30 and greeted by an important neighborhood resident, the Forest Hills fox.