Roanoke-Blacksburg

Skipping DC until Keaton gets around to it, I'll tell you how Virginia went.

I thought I'd seen Virginia because I'd seen the DC Area and the Shenandoah Valley.  There is much more to Virginia than that.  While the Shenandoah does have a beauty all its own (worthy of the song), I must admit that Blacksburg, VA and the surrounding area (home to the Virginia Tech Hoagies) blew me away.  The road wound unpredictably through the valley between Roanoke and Blacksburg until we came to a driveway about a quarter mile long ending in the house of Keaton's aunt and uncle.  They graciously invited us in and we began to chat about all sorts of things.  Theology came up a lot, but being Hillsdale students, we were somewhat used to it.  :)  We learned a lot and it gave us a lot of food for thought and conversation in the car.  After relaxing a bit and having a great dinner that wouldn't weigh us down at our concert, we drove off to the venue at New Mount Zion Lutheran Church.  It was a tiny church nestled against the hills with a community of many Slovaks.  After the concert we met the congregation and were blown away by the generosity pouring out from a less than affluent area.  After the concert, the pastor invited us over to her house for snacks and such.  Her son was ridiculously cute and spoke English and Slovak fluently.  He seemed to enjoy getting into mischief, but he enjoyed shouting the most.  :)  After a few beers and snacks, we headed home to some delicious dessert that we had to save until after our concert.  From there, we packed ourselves into the bed of a pickup truck and followed the trail up the hill about a mile into their property.  Up about a mile removed from the valley floor they had built a small cabin which Keaton's uncle would use when he hunted on his own land (80 acres of beautiful Virginia woods).  We gathered enough wood in five minutes to last for several hours of fire and then just chilled with Keaton's cousin and cousin-in-law until we bedded down in the cabin.  It was a warm, southern night and pleasant in the cabin which fit the four of us perfectly.  We awoke the next morning early because we wanted to meet a fellow Hillsdale student, Sean McDermott, for breakfast.  We saw Marieke as well and heard tell that Alison was recovering.  After meeting Sean's parents briefly, we headed out for some Southern breakfast comfort food and I had biscuits and gravy with some grits on the side.  The one nice thing about the south is the food.  The terrible things include kudzu (it'll grow on you if you stand still too long!) and humidity.  After breakfast, we trekked out for North Carolina--Raleigh to be exact.  And there we found another adventure, the adventure of a big family!