Yes, Virginia, there is a pirate

Before our trip, they took me out for a party

As I mentioned in my post of last week, TG and I went to Charlottesville, Virginia, for my birthday in early March.

Every year I pick a place for my birthday trip that is close enough for a comfortable half-day drive. Even so, Charlottesville was a mite farther away than we usually go.

I found a little stone bearing my initials

But I wanted to see the campus of the University of Virginia, founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson.

It was not at all what I expected. Several years ago we toured the campus of Duke University in Raleigh, North Carolina. It is a campus of breathtaking beauty, set apart from everything around it.

Thomas Jefferson's Rotunda

I pictured the University of Virginia a lot like that.

UVA is interesting, but it is one of those campuses that sprawls throughout a downtown area, its few historic buildings lumped together in a relatively small area.

Sometimes it is polite to point

Or at least that's how it seemed to me.

Thomas Jefferson's Rotunda is without a doubt the most notable structure on campus, and for good reason because it is a stunning example of Neoclassical architecture.

Corinthian columns overlook The Lawn

It was designed by Jefferson himself, modeled after the Pantheon in Rome.

The building stands at the center of what Jefferson named the Academical Village and its famous lawn, which at its time was the core area for scholars attracted to the university.

Lambs symbolize the graves of children

Anyway, TG and I spent ample time at the Rotunda to marvel at the abundant beauty both inside and out.

We walked on the surrounding streets and visited a souvenir shop because I'm always looking for a t-shirt, and a little something affordable to take home to the kids and grandkids.

Check out the eagle motif

It was a warm day and we were tired by the afternoon, so we returned to our hotel to freshen up before dinner.

I wanted to walk the part of Charlottesville called the Downtown Mall, for more shopping and supper. We love a fancy burger joint and I'd drawn a bead on one in that location, named the Citizen Burger Bar.

The rings once held chains

They claim to serve the best burger in Charlottesville, and I can attest that if there is a better burger to be had in that city, I would like to go there on my next visit.

But I don't believe that place exists because this burger was exquisite and heavenly and memorable, and for twenty bucks it had better have been.

This display twinkled with tiny lights as dusk fell

The fries were stellar too, and plentiful, and we sat outside and watched people stroll by as we ate, and the weather was glorious.

The UVA campus bookstore was closed on the first day we were there, but we returned the next day and I must say that of all the campus bookstores I have ever stepped inside, this one is far and away the largest.

Time is undefeated

It's like the Buc-ee's of college bookstores, but without the 150 fuel pumps.

Massive amounts of square footage are dedicated to the display and sale of clothing and souvenirs, and honestly I would not have been surprised to find appliances and furniture in there, and perhaps even a petting zoo.

They kept the Diet Coke flowing

We picked out a few things to purchase and were on our way, since it was my birthday and I had chosen a special place to have lunch.

That place was named Michie Tavern -- and we learned that you pronounce that first word Mickey. And when at Michie Tavern, one dines at a place called The Ordinary.

He was a substitute for his brother Tip

Harking back to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century days when weary travelers stumbled off a stagecoach needing an ordinary meal -- you know, the meat-and-three vibe.

There is also a general store on the property, which we wandered for quite a while and where we made a few new friends and found several nice gifts.

Me on my birthday

The midday meal (as they call it) offered up at The Ordinary is an all-you-can-eat buffet. However, as the building is a few hundred years old and therefore somewhat cramped, once you go through the line and fill your plate the first time, all you have to do is ask your server and you will be brought seconds (or even thirds or fourths) of any given dish.

I always look for these and I always find them

I can hardly ever manage to get past the first plateful of any buffet, and this was no exception because once I'd consumed a huge piece of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, black-eyed peas, stewed tomatoes, green beans, and a biscuit, I could not eat anything else.

But I watched TG devour seconds on several things, and then we had dessert, which included some of the best vanilla ice cream I've ever tasted. So I guess I did manage to eat something else.

Enter here for good basic vittles

Michie Tavern: Marvelous and most definitely recommended if you are ever in Charlottesville.

In addition to all of this fine dining and sightseeing, there were cemeteries. After all, it's not a vacation for me if it doesn't include a spot of graving.

There's no arguing with this

A sizable burial ground exists on the university campus itself, named the UVA Cemetery and Columbarium. We visited there twice because on the first day we did not have time to do it justice.

Many university professors are buried there and the place itself has that historic feel that I really go for.

Not Today Heifer ... I did not buy it

We had a singular adventure on my birthday on which I will not elaborate except to say that it involved TG going to get me a cold drink while I was in a cemetery, and locking his fob in the car and my having to summon a Uber to get me to where he was, with my fob.

Which meant that I had to walk out of the cemetery to meet the driver, and ride in a nasty car with a swarthy young male who complained the whole way about the fare I paid not being enough, due to the gas prices.

Lean living

As though the gas prices were my fault. 

Good times.

I think people used to be smaller

On our way home the day after my birthday, we stopped at a historic cemetery in Greensboro, North Carolina: Green Hill Cemetery.

It began to rain before I was really finished taking all of the pictures I wanted to take, but I got a fair number and I hope you don't mind that I rendered many of these photos in black and white.

We can be there in six hours

(The pictures in this post are from all three cemeteries we visited on the trip.)

There's something about black and white photography that renders graving pictures with the amount of poignancy that I think they deserve.

Missing a toe or two ... but I'm lichen it

Before we ever left on our trip, however, the family took me out to supper at Mellow Mushroom. We had scrumptious pizzas and Erica had made a cake, and there were the obligatory balloons and presents.

I would a hundred times rather celebrate before the actual birthdate, than after, when for me a party feels a combination of obligatory and anticlimactic. So I always push for the before-the-date party.

This is in Greensboro, North Carolina

I realize that sometimes it's unavoidable for any number of reasons, to have a birthday party after the actual birthday, and certainly better late than never, but I'm just saying.

When I arrived back home from my birthday trip on Sunday evening and settled in, the next day, at the start of a new week, Andrew sent me flowers. I don't know how he managed that from the Middle East but I guess if you have the internet and an American Express card, you can do just about anything.

This marker is made of metal

(And it was so thoughtful of him not to have them delivered while I was gone. I appreciate details like that, even though we have kind neighbors who would have been glad to babysit my birthday bouquet.)

At any rate the flowers were truly beautiful and I enjoyed them for more than a week.

The shadows know

On my next birthday I will be seventy and I think that will have to involve a more elaborate trip than previous birthday trips.

I'll be thinking about that diligently in the coming months. There are a few places on my radar.

There were so many lambs

One place that Erica has suggested we all go together is St. Simons Island in Georgia, familiar to me because I read Eugenia Price's historical trilogy as a teenager. So maybe we will do that next spring.

I would also like to visit St. Augustine, a doable drive from here, and the month of March not being too hot.

It was a timely and joyous floral offering

We shall see. There is so much more to do.

So be strong and of good courage, until the day break, and the shadows flee away!

And that is all for now.

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Happy Tuesday