Happy Birthday Mom!

My mother turned 80 yesterday, and my youngest daughter Annie and I drove down to Charlottesville, Va., to celebrate with her and some of my sisters, their progeny, et al. A long drive through the mountains, six hours total, even though I suspect that, as the crow flies, C'ville and Pittsburgh are at most three hours apart, if that. Nonetheless a great time was had by all. Here's a photo of some of us (Mom is at the far left) at cousin Carter Speidel's cross-country meet.

Sister Sophie ran her fourth Ultra last weekend. She gets a lot of cool stuff to wear from the race's sponsor if she wins or places at the top, which she frequently does. Here she is in her kitchen that evening after the UVA/Indiana football game whipping up some homemade chicken soup... shirt by SmartWool. You can't really see it in this photo, but I really WANT it.


And here's another photo of Mom's birthday dinner Sunday night at Duner's, a tasty tasty restaurant whose menu boasted lots of good things to eat. There was great people-watching to be had, typical Charlottesville: crunchy/hippie/counterculture people, horsey people, outdoorsy mountain bikers/hikers, good ol' boys, UVA profs and... us! (we defy description). Everyone in the restaurant sang happy birthday to Mom when they brought out a chocolate mousse cake slice with a candle in it!

It's great to have a mom whose birthday is in mid-October because I was able to get my fall foliage fix on the way down. Here's an old Victorian in Bedford, Pa, where my husband lived for two years when he was editor of the Bedford Gazette. Alas, it was getting dark so the photo doesn't quite do justice to the tree's colors... but that HOUSE!







Here's the venerable old Bedford Springs hotel (once the summer White House for James Buchanan, and where the Supreme Court met). When Gary was living there in the late 1980s, the hotel stood vacant, waiting for someone to fix it up. Well, someone finally did:








In some ways, the most beautiful part of the weekend was the trip on Sunday to Carter's Mountain, near Monticello. It was a gorgeous Indian summer day -- and while the view reminded me of the Napa Valley, the vast crowds who came to the mountaintop (not pictured!) reminded me of the battle of Dunkirk.. but never mind. The just-picked apples and cider donuts made it all worthwhile... I just had to take a picture of the donuts, still hot, glittering with sugar... oh my oh my.





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You can't really tell from these photos, but on one side of Carter's mountain, the view is of ridge after ridge of mountains... while on the other side, the view is of coastal plain, flat as a pancake. I have to wonder what the first settlers thought when they ascended this mountain and looked out on the other side....










At day's end, Sophie, me, my daughter Annie and her cousins Grace and Virginia decided to take the trail down Carter's Mountain... it was a gorgeous hike. Here are some pictures of them that I took before we headed down: