The Jamestowne anniversary seemed like the perfect time to walk the ground some of my ancestors did in the 1600's in VA, so we planned a trip. As we were doing that, we discovered that a 1st cousin once removed of Trout's on his mother's side lived near Roanoke. Her name is Pam & her husband, John, is also a racing nut. There really are no coincidences.
Western Virginia
So we flew to Richmond and drove to the Roanoke area to spend the first few days of our Virigina adventure with cousins. We stayed at Pam and John's house right off the Blue Ridge Parkway and had a great time meeting and visiting them. She called her brother and told him that Trout looked just like another family member.
The Blue Ridge is hilly and green. John can see the mountains where he hunts from his chair in his great room. This is the land next door to them which currently houses cows.
Similar to Trout and me, Pam and John built the big house after they retired.
This is Trout, John and Pam on their porch.
They tour guided us all around the area. We got our first glimpses of the James River.
We saw some of Roanoke.
And we visited the D-Day Memorial, accidentally on D-Day, June 6th.
D-Day Memorial
Bedford is the community in the United States that lost the most men during the D-Day invasion. This memorial is located there and was built without any government funds.
This is a representation of the soldiers hitting the beach.
This sculpture represents the Rangers who scaled the cliffs.
We had a wonderful time with Pam and John. It was way too short, but we had to move on to go to our lodging reservations in Williamsburg.
