Kentucky Adventures

“We’re on E! And the light is on!”

Yesterday saw my boss and I on a field trip to Lexington, KY to speak to their DREs and principals before launching our program there in the Fall. It’s a beautiful part of the country, and although it’s long day to go there and back, it’s not a bad drive.

On our way up, we were running tight on time, so we decided we would stop for gas on the way home.  We had half a tank, after all.

Somewhere between Elizabethtown and home, Sister noticed that we were on “E”.  Whoops.

“How long has the light been on?!” I asked, whipping out my phone to pull up iExit to see where the closest gas station was.

“I don’t know!  I think it just came on?!”

An exit appeared: Bonnieville.  ”There aren’t any gas stations off the highway here,” I protested as she pulled off, looking at my handy iExit app.

But we decided there had to be a gas station nearby, right?  Where was Bonnieville, after all?

We drove down a country road, nothing but trees and fields on either side of us.  But very soon we came to a T with signs of life.  ”Bonnieville is on the right,” I instructed, checking my map.

Sure enough, there was a big sign: “Gas and Food – 1/4 mile” with an arrow to the right.

We pulled up to the gas station, which seemed bustling with cars and a couple of motorcycles.  The two pumps at the station were the kind with the rolling numbers, so no credit card machines here.  Sister headed inside.  The woman inside asked her how much she wanted. “I don’t know, however much it takes!”  Sister responded, leaving her card with the lady and coming back out to pump.

She looked around to find the nozzle, but couldn’t find it.  The man on the other side of the pump took it out of his car and handed it to her.  ”Here, ma’m.  I was using it.”  Sister joked that she wondered how she was going to get the gas in her car.

“It’s magic.  That’s the way things work here in Bonnieville,” the guy joked. Clearly these people knew we weren’t from around these parts.  He drove off without capping his tank, but realized it before pulling out of the parking lot.  He got out to cap it.  ”I was distracted!” he joked to us.

Yeah, I bet you were.  So you’ve never seen a Sister in a full habit before?

Sister finished pumping and came to the car, reporting that they had soft serve ice cream.  We had been in search of ice cream earlier, and this seemed as good of an opportunity as any.  We headed into the market.

There was a man sitting on a stool at the food counter, next to a sign that advertised hamburgers, hot dogs, bologna, and other delicacies.  The prices were dirt cheap.

“Do you work the ice cream machine?” Sister asked.

“No, m’am.  She does,” he responded, gesturing to the woman working the cash register.  As soon as she was finished ringing up a few customers, she came over to get us our ice cream.

A man walked in the door and greeted the man on the stool by name.  It seems that the residents of Bonnieville all knew each other.  And we were clearly not residents of Bonnieville.

Maybe my red blazer and pencil skirt gave us away. Or maybe it would have, if the fully-habited “nun” hadn’t already given us away.

We got our ice cream and paid for our gas. Sister commented to the woman that she was busy, and asked if it had been a busy day today.

“Well, ma’m, we are the only store in town.”

Ah.

As we left The Store, a man walking into The Store stopped dead in his tracks.  He watched us as we walked away, his eyes large as saucers.

“They’re probably looking out their windows at us,” Sister joked as we drove down the street.

It was a nice place.  Maybe we’ll go back sometime and visit the Bacon Creek Cafe next door.  If they don’t kick me out for being a yuppie.

Saving Civilization

I hope this is a new tradition in my sister’s household.

I’m not sure when George got the idea – and whether it was his or his dad’s – but on Friday he decided he wanted to make the Stations of the Cross on their trail.  Patrick has cleared out an awesome trail through the woods around their house — it starts in the front of the house and weaves around to the back, where it makes a nice big loop.  It’s wide enough for walks and flat enough for bike rides.

And it was the perfect setting for the Stations of the Cross.

At school, George colored the 12th Station of the Cross.  On Friday at home, he colored the other 13. (well, 12.  I colored the 8th Station.) Patrick spent the afternoon constructing wooden crosses and affixing them to the trees along the trail, and rigged them up so that he could put George’s pictures in plastic sheets and slide them into the crosses. He even scratched the Roman numerals into the little wooden crosses.  It was quite a little project for the day.

By dinner time, they were ready for us.  George put on his school blazer and a crucifix was handed to Andrew, our impromptu server, and we had two books of St. Alphonus Ligouri’s Way of the Cross.

It was such a perfect way to finish up Good Friday as family.  Jill and I (and John Paul) had gone to the Good Friday service in their parish, but this was something that we could do as a family.  I hope it becomes a tradition for them.

Andrew was a great crucifier, leading us to each Station while as we sang the Stabat Mater.  It wasn’t long until Sammy stole it away from him, though, as two year-olds are wont to do.  In the spirit of the day, Andrew let Sammy take over as server — and as soon as Sammy did, he began marching ahead of us, humming a little tune — mimicking our chant of the Stabat Mater.  Talk about a heart-melting moment.

He soon abandoned the group – come on, he is two, after all -  but he returned every once and awhile.

George and Patrick took turns leading the Stations, and I was really impressed with George’s reading ability.  I could also tell that he had prayed the Stations frequently with his school during Lent.

All of these things are part of our identity as Catholics. Sadly, few people take our customs seriously anymore.  Fridays in Lent should seem empty without Stations of the Cross.  But I was shocked after entering the real world that it’s not even on the radar for many Catholics.

We can’t lose our Catholic culture.  It’s our key to survival.  John Paul II knew it during World War II, and he knew it during the Communism rule of his homeland.

It’s time to save civilization, folks.  See that above?  That’s what it looks like.

My Storeybook Easter

I had the chance to spend the Triduum and Easter with my sister and her house full of boys.  I was pretty excited to meet John Paul for the first time, and the little munchkin didn’t disappoint.  It’s amazing what a little boy can do to your heart!

I was pretty content to just sit and hold him all day.

But his brothers would hear none of that. They wanted their John Paul time, too.

oh, and their Aunt Joannie time, too.

Actually, if anyone needs an ego boost, I would highly recommend becoming the fun single aunt to eight nieces and nephews.  The four older boys kept me on my toes, but I definitely felt loved all weekend.  Especially while playing a new game called “Squish,” which essentially involved me laying on the couch and the four boys laying/sitting/crawling on me.

And this guy was a pretty big flirt all weekend.

We had an Easter egg hunt, we ran around the trail in the woods (well, let’s be honest – I timed them and they ran), we played Mousetrap, and we put together puzzles.

We played until we were all tuckered out.

(true story.  Jill walked into Sammy’s room on Friday night to find that he had fallen asleep mid-play.)

Boy, do I miss them.

Next up- George’s Good Friday masterpiece.

 

Lookout Mountain and Stress Relief

Every fall and spring, my work takes me around the state of Tennessee.  I teach parish volunteers on Saturdays and travel to them — which means 7 weeks of the fall (8 this fall) and 7 weeks of the spring, my Saturday is spent inside working.  Luckily I love teaching, I love what I teach, and it’s all worth it in the end.  I did have a moment of crisis last Saturday when I reflected on the fact that I haven’t had a free Saturday in October or November for the last four years and won’t have a free one for the foreseeable future.   But I try not to think about it.

This past weekend, in addition to teaching on Saturday, we also were sticking around to teach school teachers on Monday.  Luckily, we were teaching in a city where I have a friend who lives on a mountain nearby.  (My cousin also lives there, but I heard through the grapevine that she wasn’t in the city — so next time, T!)  So the weekend turned into a nice little getaway — Friday night was spent hanging out with Barbara and her husband Steve and a local priest, eating good food and drinking homemade brew.  Saturday was spent teaching, but the evening was filled with more eating good food, drinking wine, and sitting on their beautiful back porch around a fire pit, eating s’mores.  (That’s their front yard, above– so you can see I wasn’t suffering much)

On Sunday, after Mass, RCIA class, and brunch, Steve took me on a tour of Lookout Mountain.  We went on a little walk to their church (where we had left his car to go to brunch) then tooled around Lookout Mountain in his Lexus convertible with the top down.  It was a gorgeous day and Lookout Mountain is filled with stunning views and beautiful houses.  Not all the houses are huge (although there are those), but all of them are unique and well-loved.  Around every corner, there was yet another house with some great feature, whether it was big bay windows, an arch, or even a bell tower– that made me gasp and say, “I want to live THERE!”

Steve does some Civil War reenacting, so he took me to Point Park to show me around.  It was a great personal tour — and he didn’t even know how much of a Civil War buff I am!

They always take pictures of their friends by this cannon — so I had to pose for the obligatory photo.  When we got to the cannon, a young couple was taking turns taking pictures of each other, so Steve kindly asked if they wanted him to take a picture of both of them.  Now, Steve is a bit of a Renaissance man — he’s a photographer on the side, and a darn good one.  So I almost lost it laughing when the girl showed him how to take a picture with her iPhone.  But he was very kind and listened to her lesson.  And then proceeded to take the best photo that’s probably ever been taken with her phone.

Over the course of the weekend, he taught me lots of cool tricks — like how to use the HDR feature on my iPhone so that the city showed up in the picture above.  Pretty cool.

He also showed me the best photo editing apps to purchase.  In the picture below, there used to be a big white warehouse building in the valley below.  Not anymore!  Poof! 

The rocks up at Point Park were so cool.  We saw them in real life, and then we went to the museum and saw the photos of the Union soldiers posing on the rocks after the battle.  A photographer took their pictures up on the mountain, on this awesome rock outcropping, and then he developed the pictures right there!  Steve has been out on the outcropping while reenacting and said you can still see where he mounted his tripod.  Pretty awesome.

Sunday night we … guess what?  Ate good food and drank wine.  And another priest came for dinner!  We watched the sunset from the back porch.
I could get used to this life.  Did I mention that Barbara made me breakfast every morning?  Even when I had to leave at 6:30 am to go teach.

That’s love.

Speaking of love, this guy can’t get enough of it.  Meet Huck:

So all in all… a great weekend.  It was definitely what I needed during this stressful time at work.  In addition to the busyness of work, I’m also teaching twice a week in the evenings… which means a lot of lesson prep the evenings I’m not teaching.  And guess what?  Starting next week, I’m teaching a study on the Vatican II documents on Monday nights.  All of this translates into: Until Thanksgiving, I’m teaching every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.  Each day/night something different.

 After Thanksgiving, it will just be Tuesday and Thursdays.  And I’ll feel like I have tons of time on my hands.

I really wanted to teach more.  And God answered that prayer!

Last week, despite the stress — or maybe because of it? — I went to a Carbon Leaf concert with my friend Manda.  (Don’t tell my Mom. Maybe she won’t read this far down? Haha.)

Manda was a good sport, because it was a late night.  And we both had to work the next day.  We skipped the opening bands and went over there at 9:30 (after I taught.  Hey, you only live once!) and walked into a basically-empty concert venue.  We counted 30 people there!  Eeek!

More people came, but it was still pretty sparse.  It was a week night, after all, and they had scheduled the concert at the last minute.  But it ended up being a great concert — the guys didn’t hold back, despite the small crowd, and it was practically a private show.  We were in the “front row” since no one was standing in front of us, and at one point the lead singer (Barry) and Manda were having a conversation back and forth with eye contact and body language.  The whole thing was really hilarious.  In between songs, Barry would just talk to us.  And we would talk back.  It was great.

After they played their last song, Barry came down off the stage and motioned for the other guys to bring instruments and join him — and they stood right there and sang another song — no microphones, a foot away from us. And when they were done, they just started mingling and we hung out for awhile.  It was so laid back and awesome.

And guess what?  The next day I didn’t regret it for a minute.  Yeah, I was tired.  But I wasn’t stressed and I wasn’t moody.  Because good music, good friends, and an evening where you can let go of the fifty things that are usually occupying your mind is exactly what you need when you’re burning the candle at both ends.

The end.

Let’s go racin’, boys!

Sunscreen: check

Lunches and plenty of bottled water: check

Earplugs: check

Sunglasses: check

Tickets: check

This time tomorrow, I’ll be on my way back from Talladega, AL.  2.66 miles of asphalt in the middle of the Alabama wilderness.

Perhaps I’ll have witnessed Rick Hendrick’s 200th cup win.  Or Dale Jr break his 134 race losing streak.  Or Carl Edward’s victory back flip.  Hopefully I won’t witness this.

Regardless, I think it will be a good day.  Well, unless Brad Keselowski or Kyle Busch wins, that is.

St. Frances of Rome, patroness of motorists… pray for us!

Pittsburgh

My apologies ahead of this post — I realize some of you will be reading this on Good Friday, and food posts are never welcome on Good Friday.

But these have been busy days, so I’m just now getting to post about my trip to Steubenville a few weekends ago.

The trip included visits with dear friends, good prayer time, and a talk on womanhood to fantastic college gals.

The Friday of my trip coincided with the Rally for Religious Freedom that was held across the country.   So Amy and I decided to drive into Pittsburgh, which is about a 45 minute trip from Steubenville.

Just like my sister’s, my rally was in front of a really ugly building, too.

After the rally (I direct you to my sister’s post to read more about the rally.  I second everything she says) Amy asked if wanted to visit the Strip District.  Before you jump to conclusions, I’ll tell you that the Pittsburgh Strip District is a really fun historic market area.  I can’t believe I hadn’t been there before, actually.

Amy was anxious to take me here:

I gladly agreed.

We obeyed.

Again, my apologies if you’re reading this on Good Friday.  This place was incredible.  Biscotti of every kind…

And not only biscotti, but other heavenly-looking things too:

I thought that my day was complete.  But Amy had another surprise up her sleeve- namely, the Pennsylvania Macaroni Company.  It doesn’t sound too impressive, does it?

But stepping in, I felt like I was back in Rome.

Starting with real Easter eggs!

I remember when Alice, my English friend, tried to explain Easter eggs to us.  Not hard-boiled things, not Cadbury/Hersey ones … but giant chocolate eggs as big as your head.  Apparently, they’re a staple in Europe.  So when we studied together in Rome, we had to exchange them with each other:

So the fact that the Pennsylvania Macaroni Company had “real” Easter eggs was good enough for me.  But then they had a bunch of other stuff that I hadn’t seen since Rome — including the same bottles of Fanta and water that we’d have on our table at lunch and dinner.

They had some novelties, like escargot and a Nutella jar bigger than your head.

There was olive oil by the vat (see collage above) and cheese and meat counters, too.

It was a pretty wonderful place.

We also visited a spice store, where I got some extra special dutch cocoa that Amy highly recommended for hot chocolate.  (who says cocoa isn’t a spice?)

A lovely afternoon with a lovely friend!  Then it was back to smelly Steubenville — which has it’s beauty, too:

 And we were blessed that evening to hear Helen Alvare, who is my new role model.  What a woman.

She’s beautiful, smart, and articulate.  And she’s on our side. : )

Have a wonderful Triduum, everyone!  It will be beautiful down here — I have a close friend coming into the Church — baptism, confirmation, Holy Eucharist — the whole nine yards!  It’s truly an honor to be his godmother. : )

And thanks to Penn Mac Co, on Easter Sunday,  we’ll be celebrating Italian-style … not with an Easter egg, but with real columba!!!

It will take me right back to Rome, sitting around all Easter Sunday with my friend Trena and the Christendom in Rome kids-  drinking spumante, eating columba and singing Easter hymns.  Ah, that was the life.

Happy Triduum, all!  Remember — it’s really the most wonderful time of the year.

 

(That was the Old Bridge gelateria after Easter Vigil at St. Peter’s.  So it was easily almost midnight- and check out that line!  You could tell we had been deprived all of Lent.  Well, I hadn’t, but that’s besides the point.)

promised updates

Two updates on things I’ve mentioned but never followed through about:

1) The latest ice cream experiment was a success.  We had a “going away” lunch for one of my friends at work and she requested I make ice cream, so I made her tell me what flavor she wanted.  She decided on chocolate chip.  But I knew I couldn’t just make vanilla ice cream and add chocolate chips.

The only time I added chocolate chips was to my coffee ice cream, and I found that you couldn’t even taste the chocolate because it was so hard and cold.  I wanted to try to replicate the amazing chips you find in Graeter’s ice cream, because they’re soft and really chocolatey and incredible.

I thought that if I could melt the chocolate and then put it in the ice cream while it was freezing, so that the chocolate hardened with the ice cream, that might be part of the solution.  Then I found this recipe for stracciatella gelato, which is like chocolate chip only better– because the chocolate is more distributed through the gelato.

But I was a little weirded out by the recipe calling for gelatin and dry milk.

I went with it.

And I’m glad I did.  It definitely didn’t turn out like Graeter’s, but it was still really delicious.  I loved how the chocolate was in chunks and strips and was sort of all over the ice cream.  You could really taste it.  And while I love vanilla, I really liked that the ice cream base was really milk-y tasting and not as vanilla (which makes sense, since there was tons of cream/milk and barely any vanilla).  It would be a nice base to a lot of other ice creams — peanut butter, any candy mix, etc.

The ice cream wasn’t creamy enough for my liking.  I’m not sure if it’s because it called for more milk and less cream (ala gelato) or what part the gelatin might have played in the consistency.  So I’m looking forward to playing around with it and seeing what happens.

I do think I’ll be using that technique whenever I want to add chocolate chip/chunk/pieces to a recipe, though.  (can we say ‘mint chocolate chip’???)  It was delicious!!

No pictures this time.  I’ll make it again!

2) Awhile back, I asked my readers to pray to St. Frances of Rome for a special intention. And then I told you I’d update you when she answered my prayer.  Well, I wrote that in the evening of June 27 and she had answered my prayer by the morning!

My friend Megan and I are going to Rome!  When I asked for prayers, we were really struggling to find a place to stay within budget.   I was getting lots of “we have no room” emails from religious houses!  Thanks to prayers and the patroness of our trip, we are staying in the house of St Frances of Rome in Trastevere, which is now a religious house and open to pilgrims.  We’re so thrilled to be staying with her, next door to St. Cecilia’s, that we didn’t mind going a bit over our original budget.

I’m so excited about our trip that I try not to think about it too often.  And the crazy thing about our trip is that we don’t have any set plans. We have a night in Assisi and six days in Rome.  Other than that — we’re just eating, praying, and visiting old friends — St Cecilia, St Catherine, St Monica, St Peter…

I love to show people around the city — I love, love, love being a tour guide — but there’s going to be something really fun about just being.  We both studied over there, so we don’t have to rush around and see everything.  We can just be.  Yay!!

Roma, I’ve missed you!

until next time-

Sorry I’ve been so quiet — I’ll be back to blogging soon, hopefully.   I was out of town for a few days, and now I’m just trying to catch my breath.

But I wanted to give everyone a break from looking at me in a hat.  So here’s a new picture for you to enjoy.

retreat back to move forward

Earlier this week, Sister and I headed up to Lake Barkley in Kentucky for a regional meeting/conference/retreat for the catechetical leaders from eight surrounding dioceses.  Although we could only go up for two days, instead of the full four, it was wonderful to escape work for a bit- while still being refreshed in our mission as catechists.

It was a beautiful location.  I hadn’t really known what to expect, so my expectations were automatically exceeded.

There was a lodge with several hundred rooms, with each room having a private balcony overlooking Lake Barkley.  The rooms were very rustic, as you would expect, with vaulted wood ceilings, soft lighting and wood and stone everywhere.

The “Lodge” was actually a covered walkway outside with little bridges to our individual rooms.  Then the walkway led to a large building with a restaurant, game room, etc.

Our first evening, we had a little visitor below our rooms:

The next morning after Mass, I skipped out of the breakout sessions and spent the morning reading and walking by the lake.  We were blessed with beautiful weather.

Here you can sort of see how the Lodge is built as a U:

That afternoon, there was an optional boat ride on a house boat.  There’s something incredibly relaxing about being surrounded by water.

Bishop Steib of Memphis seemed to enjoy the relaxing trip, too:

I don’t know if you can see it in this picture above, but there’s a nest on top of this tall marker — during the flood in May, you could drive past this in a fishing boat (not to mention the double-decker house boat we were in) and look down into the nest.  When I heard that, I got chills– in the middle of a 60,000 acre lake, imagining the water level that high, the water that would be present for that to be possible, the damage that water would do in Nashville… it really hit home.

It was a beautiful, relaxing, rejuvenating few days.  Not only did I have much-needed quiet, personal time, it was also fun to spend time with everyone, like the local DREs.  I knew many of them from our classes or from the DRE meetings, but it was fun to get to know them better over dinner, drinks, or on a boat ride. I was the youngest person there, but that generally doesn’t bother me too much.  We all have the same mission, and when the mission is as hard as it is, it’s important to support each other.

Good times.

paying my respects

Road to Glory by Mort Kunstler

 

I’ve wanted to visit Lexington, VA for a long time — I think I can pinpoint it to this painting by Mort Kunstler.  I love Kunstler’s Civil War paintings, and after seeing this one depicting Jackson leaving the Virginia Military Institute with his cadets to go fight in the War, I’ve wanted to see VMI.  After living in Virginia for four years, it’s hard to believe I didn’t make it down there earlier. It’s a history major’s dream — especially one who loves George Washington, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson.

I finally made the trip earlier this month, although I know I need to go back for a longer proper visit.  I didn’t even stop at VMI!

My main objective was the Lee Chapel on the grounds of Washington & Lee University.  Robert E. Lee is buried in this chapel, which was built with his encouragement while he was president.

(Pictures weren’t allowed anywhere in the Chapel or the museum, so I had to be creative and take pictures of the postcards I purchased.)  The famous statue of recumbent Lee was very impressive in real life — contrary to what one might think, the statue is not a deceased Lee, but a sleeping Lee.  The statue was created to honor the fact that during the War General Lee would often sleep on the battlefield with his men, not in an inn or home.

Below the statue, in the chapel crypt, Robert E. Lee is buried, along with his wife, their 7 children, and Lee’s parents and other family members.

The museum under the chapel was fascinating, and I walked through it wishing I had more time to spend reading everything.  It chronicled not only the history of Washington & Lee University — its early days, the fact that Washington kept it running with his benefaction, and its flourishing under Lee, who steered it towards becoming a modern university– but also the life of Robert E. Lee.

The museum really drove home for me the connection between George Washington and Robert E. Lee.  I had known that Mary Anna Randolph Custis, Lee’s wife, was the great-granddaughter of Martha Washington (I learned that at the Custis-Lee mansion), but I hadn’t known that Lee’s father was one of Washington’s closest friends.  Both of these things meant that Lee had many of Washington’s things in his possession.

I think sometimes 1860 can seem so distant from 1776, it’s easy for us to forget that Robert E. Lee was still living very much in the spirit of Washington.  The museum reminded me that Lee did what he did, not because he loved slavery or because he hated Yankees, but because he was a Virginian in the mold of George Washington.

Next to the museum was Lee’s office, supposedly untouched from when he last walked out of it on September 28, 1870.  He suffered a stroke that night and died on October 12th.   You could walk a few feet into the room, where there was a short railing preventing you from going all the way inside.  On the railing there were descriptions of the various things in the office and quotes from Lee about forming gentlemen at the university.  To this day, Washington & Lee has a honor system that is based on Lee’s statement: “We have but one rule here, and it is that every student must be a gentleman.”   The students are held to a standard of integrity and respect that is upheld and enforced by the students themselves.  (You can read more here.  I was impressed.)

I was really moved in here.   I walked as far as I could into the room and was all alone.  At the risk of sounding ridiculous, all I can say is … I felt Robert E Lee’s presence.

Now I know he’s not a canonized saint or anything. But I can honestly say that I’ve only felt this way in holy places.  And I’m not even going to give examples, because it just seems so crazy.  But it’s true.  As I was standing there in the silence, I had an overwhelming feeling of Robert E. Lee’s presence.

It was very moving. That’s all I’ll say.

Just outside the door is Traveller, Lee’s beloved horse.  There are lots of stories about Traveller around the campus — he lived in the stable connected to Lee’s house in Lexington, which is now the garage– to this day, supposedly the door of the garage of the president’s house is left open, allowing Traveller’s spirit to roam. [Liza, perhaps Paul can verify that? ]  He used to graze on campus, and Lee would take him on late afternoon rides.

In Lee’s funeral procession, Traveller followed the casket, Lee’s boots backwards in the stirrups, black crepe draped over his saddle.  Not long after Lee died, Traveller stepped on a nail, developed tetanus, and was euthanized.

After saying goodbye to Lee Chapel, I headed a few streets over to the cemetery to pay my respects to the other great Confederate general, Stonewall Jackson.  Although his arm is buried closer to where he was shot (we think- it’s sort of a mystery), Jackson is buried in Lexington near his beloved VMI and his friend Lee.  (He wasn’t even Catholic, yet his body parts are scattered about. hm!)

Next time, I definitely have to visit VMI.  I owe it to him.

I definitely recommend a trip to Lexington for anyone remotely interested in history.  Besides visiting VMI, I would have spent much more time in Lee Chapel (I missed checking out Lee’s pew — I didn’t know to look for it until I came home) and the museum, plus exploring the rest of campus (which looked beautiful).

I only realized later that the 140th anniversary of Lee’s death was two days after I stopped in Lexington to pay my respects.