Roanoke Weekend

On Friday morning, Lee Ann and Danny and I piled into the car and drove to Roanoke for the Family Weekend at the college. We had beautiful weather to drive in, and enjoyed the first tinge of fall colors on the forested hills of Kentucky and West Virginia. And then we were there with Annie.

Family Weekend is a series of organized events and activities designed (I think) to reassure parents that real, college-like things are happening on campus and that their children are in good hands. We went to a few of the programmed activities, including a historical walking tour of the town of Salem and a fun Honors College slide show of the wilderness retreat Annie and the others participated in a few weeks ago. We also just spent time with Annie, whose fondest wish after a month of dorm food was to get off campus and eat in restaurants. We were happy to oblige, since after a month of empty nestedness our fondest wish was to sit and talk to our kid, and restuarants are pretty good for that.

We stayed over in a pet-friendly Howard Johnson's and left Roanoke at noon on Saturday, arriving home at about dark. Now it is Sunday morning and Lee Ann is packing for five days in Lexington to work the Tack Trunk booth at the World Equestrian Games. It's all or nothing with this family - a nice weekend together, and then we scatter to the four winds.