Fifes, Rain, and Yellow Jackets

I love weekend getaways. I love having a weekend somewhere other than the homestead. I love the spur of the moment adventures each minute brings when your itinerary is as empty as my head.

I hate coming home. That is a total drag. You go from carefree and whatever to "sweet mother of all that is holy, we left the milk out of the fridge."

One bummer this past weekend was the weather. Mother Nature did not want to cooperate with us. It rained off and on the whole time. Add rainy weather with high temperatures. What a combo. So it was hot, steamy, and gloomy. At least we did get to do one touristy thing.

Colonial Williamsburg rocks! O.K., it rocks if you are into history which, thankfully, both Geo and I are. I admit it has turned into quite the polished tourist trap. For pete's sake, we had to PAY to get in. Well, not really get on the grounds. Anyone and their dog can walk the grounds of Colonial Williamsburg (there were a lot of those there). No, you pay to see certain attractions. The more you pay, the more you are permitted to see. If we would have known we could walk around and not pay, guess what route we would have taken? The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation claims the fees are to help preserve the area. Yeah, that's great, but we still would have avoided paying. At least the baby was a freebie.

The baby thought the guys playing the drums and fifes were pretty cool. She loves music in all forms. If she could have figured a dance beat, little one would have squirmed out of the stroller to get up and jam.

The food there is adequate. If you're hungry, you can be fed. You'll pay through the nose for something that should cost half the rate. They did have one excellent cup of coffee at the "coffee house". It was "old world" or "new world" blend. I forget. Geo went in to get it. He also bought one of the tartest cups of lemonade I ever had in my life. I could have made five glasses of regular strength lemonade using that one cup. Just thinking about it is making the saliva glands work OT.

The one part of Williamsburg I did not like was the floor show. The star of the show was yours truly. What was the floor show you might ask? That was when a baby yellow jacket decided to land and sting me on the back of my neck. It was the "red hot needle jammed in the skin and left for GP" type of pain. That friggin hurt!!! So what does any rational person do when they feel something stinging an area you can not see? They slap the back of their neck with a force that would have knocked out Mike Tyson circa 1992, and then rake across the back of said neck tearing away all flesh. You mean that isn't what you're supposed to do? Oh crap. Maybe that explains why Geo was yelling at me when he saw the damage I did. I kept yelling, "Do you see a stinger?" His reply was "No, not with all the blood from your gashes, you dope!" Once the swelling from the sting went down, the mark disappeared; however, I'm now stuck with three huge scratches on the back of my neck.

And then there was the French couple who watched me walk around in a huge circle repeating "damn" for over five minutes whilst holding my bloody neck. What a lovely impression I left for them.