Black Friday Well Spent

Instead of lining up outside with hundreds of shoppers for Black Friday a few friends and I decided to skip the deals and go strait for the jack pot by sneaking away for the weekend to a privately owned 35-acre farm in South Eastern Virginia.  This area in Virginia has an amazing landscape and some rich history with battle fields located all around.  The property was perfect.  The land has barely been touched, unoccupied for many years and sits on the water.  The old house on the property was my friends grandmothers house that she grew up in.  It dates back to the 1800's and it still had knick nacks and old remnents from those glory days where sharing a bathroom with 8 siblings puts a whole new perspective on the meaning of patience. It certainly felt strange staying in an abandoned house, kind of delinquent in a way but I enjoyed the outdoorsy pursuit.  I slept on a couch that was definitely from the 1800's and I could not help thinking that at some point in this couches life a soldier from the Civil War had probably crashed here as well. 

I was able to obtain some good photo's of the property and of my experience on the land.  There was wonderful lighting that reached into the house.  The paint that barely clung to the walls in the bedrooms was incredible. The house made me nostalgic for still paintings, something I thought I would never say after doing about 20 during any given school week. 

We roamed the beautiful landscape basked in the sun (it was 45 degrees) and shot guns.  Happy that we live in a free country and that we have the right to shoot off as many rounds of ammunition as we wanted, we spent a good portion of the trip shooting at targets (which actually improves your hand-eye coordination). And to warm up on the cold November night, we made a roaring fire, ate some delicious meats with squash soup, drank beers and star gazed until 1 in the morning. The sky was crystal clear and being that we were in the middle of no where, stars were plentiful.   This was the best Black Friday ever spent and I'm looking forward to topping it next year.

Tug-o-War 2010

Earlier this month, the town of Eastport put on their annual Tug-o-War contest against downtown Annapolis and it was a fascinating display from both sides of the line. Instead of tugging this year, I decided to enter the T-shirt contest (logo above) for best design.  I didn't end up winning but I did have a great time watching the battles and drinking hot Irish coffee on the sidelines. Also, I was able to capture some of the battles on film, video footage below...  

The tuggers used 1, 280 feet of customized rope designed by Nasa Scientists and manufactured by Yale Cordage, and yes the production of this rope was expensive.  $25,000 to be exact. The rope extended across the water from Eastport to historic downtown Annapolis.  All boat traffic is stopped because of the presence of the line floating in the water.  I'm pretty sure this is one of (if not) the largest tug-of -war tournaments in the country and probably the world. There were 7 different teams lined up for the tug. Seeing the 7 minute slaughter of Police department vs. the Fire department was probably the best tug-o-war action ever witnessed.