What with everything else going on since the start of the New Year, we have continued to be hermits trying not to be distracted by the pandemic and its associated restrictions. Following the guidelines, yes; but distracted, no. Starting with Cindy’s birthday on June 3rd, we decided we needed to get out and about, but in a safe, very safe, fashion.
We celebrated Cindy’s 70th in grand style. There is a lovely hotel/restaurant complex about 20 miles from our house that is perched on a bluff high above the Potomac River called The Bavarian Inn. We have stayed there a few times when there was an evening event we were attending and didn’t want to drive late at night. The food is truly Bavarian and drinking the beer is like taking a cheap trip to Munich. We had an al fresco luncheon, our first lunch out in 18 months, and then a short walk to our room overlooking the river for a nap. They had provided Cindy with a chilled bottle of sparking wine and note of congratulations on her birthday. After a brisk post-nap walk, we returned to dress for dinner and then ambled up to the restaurant.
Since it was a special occasion and we had not been out to dinner in eighteen months, we pulled out all the stops and had a delightful meal, with Champagne, Chablis and Beaujolais Villages to accompany our scallops and lamb chops. I’m sure there was dessert but I’ll be damned if I can remember it! The next morning after a long walk we headed back to our hermitage where we have been holed up for so very long. Soon after this experience we decided that we needed to get out and do things so we established our "anything can happen day," which means that once a week we do something we haven’t done or go somewhere we haven’t been.
Which brings us to Paw Paw. For years I’ve wanted to go there: It is a little village right on the Potomac that is celebrated for the Paw Paw Tunnel, which was built in the middle 1800’s as a way of speeding up transit for C&O canal boats. You can read all about it here. It was a truly remarkable feat of engineering and even today it is a bit awe-inspiring knowing what tools and science they had available for the big dig. We parked at the camping site and had to walk in, about half a mile to get to the tunnel. Normally the canal would be filled with water but they are doing construction to clean it up so it was just a dry canal bed filled with wild grasses and seedlings. The tunnel is dark, I mean really dark and even at noon the middle is so dark that you need to have a flashlight so as to not trip and either hit the tunnel side or spill over into the canal. They have diverted water from the river right at the tunnel entrance so that it is filled with frogs, turtles, small fish and other aquatic animals.
As for the name, Paw Paw was named for the abundance of Paw Paw trees in the area. We kept looking for the fruit but didn't see a single one!
The ride from our house to Paw Paw was absolutely lovely. We went through lots of itsy-bitsy towns and past large farms filled with tall corn, alfalfa and other grains waving in the dappled sunlight. We passed a real Castle in the town of Berkeley Springs, which is noted for having therapeutic waters that George Washington used to take to relieve his aches and pains. Even today it is a very popular spot for those wishing to take the waters and has an old classy hotel for that purpose.
We took a less scenic route home since we wanted to head to Winchester, VA to our closest Costco (about 40 minutes from our house). Having read that the Champagne area of France was walloped with evil weather I guessed that Champagne prices would be jumping sometime soon, so we stopped for a case of Kirkland Champagne. If you belong to Costco and you enjoy Champagne, do yourself a favor and try a bottle. At $20 a pop, get it, POP, you will not be disappointed. While there we of course got one of their rotisserie chickens and a variety of fruit that is always fresher than it is in the supermarkets.
All and all we declared it a marvelous "anything can happen day," and yes we stole that name from the Micky Mouse Club!
