Our Recent Visit Home
La Bear and the Baby Boomer recently headed from The Compound for a weekend in Northern Virginia–our recent visit home.
The trip up North started well on this Saturday morning, that is, until we entered Stafford County on I-95. I’ve certainly made more than my fair share of runs up and down I-95 for the twenty years I was in the transportation industry and as bad as the traffic was in all those years, nothing compares to the traffic which travels I-95 today. Having learned all the “ins and outs” of getting around traffic up in Northern Virginia, on this Saturday, beginning in Stafford County, I couldn’t seem to pull the right “rabbit out of the hat”, although I tried, it taking us nearly three hours to get to Arlington–a trip which should be no longer than an hour forty!
We did get off of I-95 at Occoquan and headed up Route 123 to Fairfax City where we visited La Bear’s mother’s grave at the City of Fairfax Cemetary before heading into Vienna to gobble a couple of those delicious Chili Dogs washed down with a couple of cold drafts at the Vienna Inn which hasn’t changed one iota in fifty years. We then began to think things were looking up until we found more traffic on I-66 heading into Crystal City.
La Bear looked at the Baby Boomer giving me that look, you all know, that look that asks if we were making a big mistake in attempting our recent visit home. I assured her we had made a wise decision and everything was going to be just fine although deep down I wasn’t so sure. La Bear loves seeing planes land and take-off from the airport, so I had made reservations at the Hyatt in Crystal City which boasted having an up-close view of Reagan National Airport (DCA). Our check-in was uneventful and I was able to get complimentary valet parking being a senior citizen which saved us $50 (sounds like a lot for valet parking)–one of the very few perks of getting old. We got to our room with a view of the airport, but since the hotel had been built, additional office buildings have been constructed blocking much of the view of the airport. What was boasted as an up-close view was actually just a partial view. La Bear did her best to enjoy what landings and take-offs she was able to partially see, but I got another one of those looks.
Before dinner, we went downstairs to the cocktail lounge to enjoy a drink to surprisingly find very few patrons as the lounge covered a very large space. The hotel was crowded and there was a lot of “hustle and bustle”. Looking around at all the people there we felt we were in the world’s “melting pot” on our recent trip home. The young lady who we were able to flag down to take our drink order was new, very young, and had a difficult time taking our order not really having a grasp of the English language. We did enjoy our drink and La Bear took in all the sights and sounds from the “hustle and bustle” experiencing the world’s “melting pot”. I asked our waitress for the bill also handing her my valet parking stub for her to call the valet in order to bring our vehicle up. The look I got from the young lady would’ve made you think I’d asked her to cut off her right arm. I said never mind, but did catch another one of those looks from La Bear and a head shake or two–not good.
I took my valet parking stub to the front desk for them to handle, but they were backed-up, so I just walked out front and handed the stub off to a valet who eventually brought our vehicle up. He, too, was foreign and didn’t speak English all that well.
Once we got into our vehicle, we decided to take a ride along Route 1 toward Alexandria to see some of the changes. All the old railroad tracks that paralleled Route 1 “back in the day” are gone and have been replaced with retail shopping centers and large clumps of apartments/condos. It was somewhat remarkable to see how much the area has been built-up and I can only imagine the congestion during the work week. I already knew how much of Arlington had been so built-up over the years especially around the Metro corridor, but to see this area along Route 1 was really quite disturbing.
Still a touch early for our dinner reservations at RT’s in Arlandria, one of our all-time favorite dining spots, we cruised down from Monroe Street (where Eugene Simpson baseball field is located and where Giant #82 once stood) taking a right onto Mt. Vernon Avenue into the neighborhood of Del Ray. Lots and lots of changes over the years with a number of very busy restaurants where the patrons appeared to be very diverse. This is the area where La Bear grew up and I could see out of the corner of my eye her with that look, shaking her head on our recent trip home.
Maybe I ordered the wrong entree, or perhaps I didn’t feel welcome, certainly a bit rushed, and the service didn’t “wow” me as it was difficult to understand our waitress with the restaurant being very busy, but in any case, our normally wonderful experience at RT’s, was a bit disappointing. We happened to be celebrating our 45th Wedding Anniversary and were pleasantly surprised that our daughter, Baby Bear, and our son-n-law, Big Red, were kind enough to have called in advance and taken care of our dinner. Once we got into our vehicle to return to our hotel, I just knew I was getting another of those looks from La Bear.
Our plan for Sunday was to head over to The Lost Dog in Westover, a neighborhood in Arlington, after visiting the graves of my parents at Columbia Gardens Cemetary, then start to head back home after a stop at the Heidelberg Pastry Shoppe to pick-up some baked goodies to take home.
From our room, I attempted to contact valet parking so our vehicle could be pulled up to the front as I was checking out. Of course, no answer forcing us to head downstairs to request the car, check out, and wait an additional ten minutes for our vehicle. You already know I was getting another one of those looks from La Bear. Please understand when La Bear speaks, you should listen as she told the Baby Boomer, she was ready to go home immediately after we visited the graves and the Heidelberg which is of course what we did on our recent trip home.
Expecting a quick trip back to The Compound, we saw traffic on I-95S was beginning to back-up at Springfield and looked to be very heavy through to Fredericksburg. So, we got off of the interstate and headed down old historic Route 1 through Woodbridge which was also bumper-to-bumper traffic earning me another one of those looks. We did veer off of Route 1 for a bit in order to visit a couple of neighborhoods behind Marumsco Plaza where Giant #64 once was and where La Bear lived as a young woman.
Well, at the end of the day, it took us another three hours to get home. Yes, we were finally home. And, yes, we got home safely. We also agreed we wouldn’t be rushing back to what was once our childhood homes since it really wasn’t home anymore. The looks disappeared–we were now at The Compound–we were at home. As Thomas Wolfe said, “He saw now that you can’t go home again–not ever. There was no road back”. Instead, I’ll just continue to reflect and reminisce of what home was like “back in the day” due to our recent trip home.
As a final footnote, I’m hoping to visit Arlington again–not today or tomorrow! Arlington is nothing but a concrete jungle and densely populated–redundantly it’s certainly not home anymore! My elementary school (Wilson) is gone, my junior high school’s name has changed twice (Stratford), and my high school (W-L) has been rebuilt twice and had a disgusting name change. So why do I hope to visit once again? Well, it’s just to visit Colonial Village which still looks the same to me and where I had a wonderful childhood. I think I would even be bold enough to knock on #380 at 1707 N Troy Street and #276 at 1701 N Troy Street to see if I could actually revisit the apartments where I grew up–on my next trip home!