We took 5 days to visit Jul & Pat. Thursday we drove to Staunton to see Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor”. I found my seat uncomfortable and ended up standing in the isle part of the time. The play was great fun, we both enjoyed it. We spent the night at a B&B. The breakfast was quite good. The menu was on the cup. (No, I didn’t try to buy the cup.)

We didn’t know this, but Friday night through Sunday was Staunton’s annual Harry Potter Festival. It is extremely popular, and looks something like this. The first two restaurants we tried were both closed, getting ready for the festival. We got out of town just in time.

The drive to Jul’s was tense but uneventful. As everybody must know, there was a 1,000-year rain in western North Carolina. Highway signs were blunt: “Do not travel in western North Carolina. All roads are closed”. We saw buckets of rain. We were fortunate not to encounter a single serious accident. When we got to Roanoke, the GPS routed us on back roads to Greensboro. We decided to follow the GPS on the theory it might know about an accident on the interstate. By the time we got to Jul’s the rain was all over. We had two days of beautiful weather. The only activity that was closed due to rain was a corn maze that had muddy ground.

Saturday we visited a farm. Their highlight attraction was a rope climbing thingy.

Of course, before getting on the rope thing, one has to complete the waiver. Which was 100% online. Which Danita and I had great difficulty filling out on our phones. We decided to let Bryon and Elizabeth do the waivers themselves.

Then the kids can have their fun.

The roller was the most challenging part of the climb.

Sunday we played mini-golf, had ice cream, and watched the movie “The Wild Robot”. Bryon works at the theater. He gets a few movie passes every month. He was able to get passes for all six of us. We got the premium seats for free!

Jul is about a half hour south of the movie theater, so we left directly from the movie. We decided to try a Hilton “Tru” hotel. It was fine, but too expensive for what they offered. I found a highly rated diner for breakfast this morning. It’s the first time Danita and I were the only white people in the diner. The staff couldn’t have been kinder or more welcoming. The food was very good and incredibly cheap. The rest of the ride home was uneventful.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.