Wow!  I will try not to run on too long but it has been an amazing weekend!!  Saturday morning we headed south for the Virginia Scottish Games.  This is held on a huge field area where you can tell they train horses.  But there were tents for animal groups, clans, merchandise and of course food!!  Some traditional, some not so traditional.  There was also areas set aside for Highland games and dancing.  It had rained just enough to make it muggy, where sweat just rolled down you – yuck!!

After the festival, we left Virginia for New York.  Our route takes us Virginia – Maryland – Pennsylvania – New Jersey – New York.  We have our Google Maps printed out and our Sat Nav, we should be good to go.  And we were.  We had no problems getting to Nanuet, New York where we had found a pet friendly motel.  We get in at about 5 or 5:30 and order in food, since we are not allowed to leave Sammy in the room by himself.  We eat, watch Hop on HBO and hit the sack a little before 10, knowing we were heading out again early.

Now here is where it starts to get interesting.  We had planned on hitting Sleepy Hollow on our way up to the Catskills to see the ceramic cats they have displayed.  However, the Sat Nav from hell decided to rear its ugly head.  Instead of having us take 87 across the Tappan Zee, it sent us on 9W up and around and way out of our way!  So instead of getting to Sleepy Hollow in about 20 minutes, as expected, we found ourselves already close to the Catskills!!  So we decide to swap our plans around and see the cats first.

“XLC IRONCAT” by Stephen Flach

The cats were amazing!! I wish I could post all the photos I took.  The “litter” had 43, we saw 40 and one was M.I.A.  But it was great to see the whole street lined with ceramic cats every so many feet.  I really hope to see them in future years!!

Ok, cats were seen, now we start the journey back south again and finally hit Sleep Hollow, which we missed on the way up.  OMG!!!  What a stunningly beautiful area.  I would love to be able to live here.  Sadly, tourist wise, we didn’t have the best of luck.  We didn’t make it into town until about 3 PM, and everything closes at 4:30!

So we hit the gift shop at the Philipsburg Manor, got some information on the cemetery, and headed in that direction.  Sleepy Hollow has the graves of Washington Irving, William and John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and Walter Chrysler.

After we finished, it was time to head back for home.  We reprogram the Sat Nav so it would include toll roads (the reason it screwed us on the way to Sleepy Hollow!!).  Next thing I know . . . I WAS IN NYC!!!!  Yeah, baby!!  For about 20 minutes anyway.  It was hysterical, I was like a little kid, excited trying to crane my head to look at everything.  My mom, on the other hand, said in a resigned voice, “I hate you, Sat Nav.”

But we made it – there and back – all in one piece.  It was a blast!  We didn’t get back to the house in Virginia until 10 PM.  We pretty much collapsed into bed.  Monday morning came around and we were both still pooped, so we decided to stay close to the house and rest.  We had breakfast and then stopped at a few of the Manassas Battlefield sites.  We even got a nap!!  God, I miss nap time.

Before dinner we go back into Manassas, so I can pick up something at Best Buy and hit my favorite store up here – World Market.  I love this store and I have to stop by every time I get up here.  On our way home from dinner, we pass the Manassas campus of NVCC and what do we see?  Deer – lots of deer!  And Canada geese – lots of them too!  So we pull over and try to get some pictures.  However, I have bad luck.  Being dusk, it was getting difficult to get a good photo.  Also, for some reason, I could not stabilize the camera – so just about every photo came out blurry.

It was stunning though.  Even a couple young deer were playing together.  Then dad comes along to help keep an eye on the kids.  And everywhere we looked there were more deer!  We must have seen close to 2 dozen by the time we made it home.  How lovely to see them in the wild – and healthy – unlike the one we saw at the beginning of my trip.  It is nice to see they have found some salvation near the historic battlefields.

In closing, I would like to apologize if this post has been a bit incoherent, but I am tired and am having difficulty concentrating.  So, until next time – kissy, kissy, snog, snog!!!