Having survived yet another night in a motel, Renzo almost regretted that we didn’t go camping instead, but it really was still a little too cold in the morning. We’d need a proper set up to go camping with the kids when it’s just above freezing in the morning, not to mention that rain had been predicted.
So instead, we left the motel to go to a farm near Richmond VA to watch some sheep shearing – and to freeze there, even in the sun. The sheep was amazingly calm, but after 15 minutes the kids were more interested in going to a nearby playground, so we did.
That was enough of Richmond for us though. We considered the children’s museum there but then decided to go to Fredericksburg VA instead and to visit Mary Washington’s house. This was a very nice little museum with a lot of stories that even managed to catch the boys’ attention for a while.
They particularly liked the playroom in the garden though, which had various games, including stilts and bocce. However, the fun ended rather abruptly when Timofei managed to throw a heavy bocce ball right on Yelisei’s little pinky as Yelisei was reaching for a bocce ball himself.
So we drove screaming Yelisei with a bag of ice on his pinky to the emergency room as it was pretty blue and swollen. Of course the emergency room is the only health care for many people in America, so it was packed. We would have waited at least two or three hours there. Luckily, both Yelisei and Timofei soon fell asleep, so we skipped the emergency room. Renzo stayed in the car with the kids and I went for a walk through the old town of Fredericksburg VA.
Fredericksburg VA is a very cute town and I learned from the museum that this was basically a town of failures. For example, it took them 20 years to build some canal that in the end nobody needed. Even today, it was a nice spring day, but the antique stores were more like junk stores.
When Yelisei woke up, he was all fine again and had just a little pain in his pinky. Our sprits lifted accordingly, we found further salvation in yet another ethnic dive restaurant, this time Latin food from Salvador. Nobody spoke any English and the food was another winner.
Fully back in a good mood now, we next drove to a used car lot to check out a Toyota Tacoma that Renzo been going on about as one of his dream cars if we ever buy another car. When we were looking for this car, some dealer in Staten Island actually refused to let us test drive any cars because we were obviously not going to buy anything. Not in Fredericksburg VA – the sales guys were nicely low key and let us tourists drive his Tacoma, no problem. I was actually quite impressed with it – I liked the substantial tires, the clutch was amazing (this was a stick shift, Renzo still refuses to consider an automatic), and it had a nice front bumper – very useful for parking in Brooklyn. Definitely a car I could be driving to South America in, if it only came with a stove and sink ready for action on demand.
Next stop: Yet another motel, this time of the sketchy sort, close to Washington DC. No further incidents or accidents except that I could not fall asleep at all!
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