thanksgiving 2006

we went to duck, NC for thanksgiving at pam's beach house. there was a n'oreaster the day before and the walkway down to the beach was wiped out and wrecked. it wasn't the only one. the beach was littered with future driftwood. one look up and down the beach confirmed that everyone as far as i could see was going to be doing repair work. not only that, but the dunes were pounded pretty hard and i would say a good 5 yards of it just disappeared.i didn't get on the beach at all, but that was ok. we had good food and the boys all stayed glued to the tv all day on thanksgiving. on friday we came home and i went up to pam's friday night. we left there and went to roanoke and spent the night at tom and cindy mohr's house ("mohr mannor"). this morning we got up too late and got started too late and ended up in lots of traffic trying to get into blackburg for the tech-uva game. the new bypass i have decided is a joke when it comes to traffic. better to go down another exit and take the old way in on old business 460. we parked at the german club, where pam's son matt is a member. walked to the stadium and i was on sensory overload from then on.


first, i haven't been to a tech football game since before austin was born. secondly, i haven't been in blacksburg in about 6 or 7 years. much has changed. i don't think i would have been able to get around there now. it seems that every patch of grass or free space on campus has a building on it now. things have been changed around a whole lot! pam and i parked in the parking lot in front of slusher tower where we used to live and we went out in the back and had our pictures taken on the rock where we sat more than 30 years ago. all that was missing was linda!

we drove around blacksburg and out to the AGR house and around town. i just didn't recognize anything! certainly blacksburg is more cosmopolitan than when we were there! we headed out out town after 5:30 and about TWO HOURS LATER we were getting gas and coffee at the sheetz on orange avenue in roanoke. it took almost 2 hours in snail paced traffic to get there. at least an hour alone or more was spent trying to get out of blacksburg. some bypass...we didn't bypass anything, period! definitely learned a lesson there...skip the bypass, go the old way.


there was just so much to take in that i just pretty well shut down while there. i was struck by the amazing amounts of tech colors displayed everywhere. everyone had on something tech colored. i also was amazed that i saw no drunk people. as a matter of fact, i don't think i saw but one person drinking at all, and we were on the student side of the stadium! football is now serious business up there, and i guess when you pay $40 for a ticket, you don't want to miss it. people stand up every time the defense is on the field, and they all do this bow down thing to the defense, which deserves it. the defense has kept tech on the map, as the offense this year has been pretty mediocre.


after the game we found old friend karen togersen's tail gate spot and visited with her and her family for awhile. i hadn't seen here since before austin was born! she lived on the hall across from pam and linda in slusher and now, after being director of admissions at tech for a number of years, has remarried and is living in charlottesville working for UVA...:)