Virginia

Richmond turned out to be the city that would break our streak of beautiful weather. However the overcast and rainy skies would not hinder our adventures in the historical city. We took a cab from the airport to our host, Matt Austin’s house in what is apparently known as the “Fan” area. Given that we had just taken a red eye flight directly from the Great American Beer Festival, we immediately crashed for several hours. After recharging our batteries we decided to explore the area on foot while we waited for Matt Austin to get home from work, or the “slave cage” as he calls it. Luckily we were able to stumble upon the Science Museum of Virginia and because there was a very nice lady working and it was closing within the hour, we were allowed in for free. After our speedy educational experience we met up with our host and drove to neighboring Charlottesville to spend the evening with Austin’s brother Stuart “Red light” Smith. Stuart has an apartment with a great rooftop lounge area that we spent the beginning of the night meeting friends and enjoying some delicious Pabst Blue Ribbon. After an entertaining night and fully absorbing the Charlottesville nightlife we spent the next day touring the Monticello estate of Thomas Jefferson. Here Stuart sponsored us allowing us to take a guided tour of Thomas Jefferson’s house and grounds surrounding. Once we had acquired the wisdom of Thomas Jefferson, Stuart drove us back to Matt Austin’s house in Richmond where we met up with Matt Hancock who was in town on business, adding yet another Bay View comrade to the group. Matt, Matt, Stuart, and several local friends then guided us through the rainy streets to a local bar where we were able to rub shoulders with the Virginia Tech community and have a great time with good friends. Although we weren’t able to try any local micro-brew beers we were able to try some locally made hot apple cider in the Monticello area. As I write this we are back in JFK terminal 5 awaiting our connecting flight to Chicago where our eager co-host Ben Neithercut is waiting with a calculated plan of exciting things to do during our stay.

Total Flying Time: 40 Hours 15 minutes.

If you donate more than $20, we will do anything that you want us to do in any city, and take a picture of it for you (within reason). More updates and photos to come!