Road Trip: Day 5 - Uncle Raymond and Aunt Susan's

Today we packed up the car and left my cousin Layla and Jeff's place headed for Ray and Susan's in Virginia, near Harrisonburg - its about 5 miles from the West Virginia border, way out there. It is out there - like no cell service 4 miles from their house out there!

But not before a 5 AM workout....I slept in the car later

I was really excited to visit Ray and Susan. I haven't spent a lot of time with Ray and Susan but they are some of my favorites in Chris' extended family. They never disappoint with entertaining banter, new experiences and just a general good time. I have a soft spot for people who march to the beat of their own drum and they fit the bill. I got to thinking on the drive there about this soft spot of mine and wondering where it comes from, I'm still not sure, but it lead me down a funny internal thought process that I will try to share. I consider myself pretty normal, whatever that means, then I realized I am probably not that normal. After all, I am moving to a country across the world that I have never been to, definitly not normal. Anyway, we knew we wanted to visit Ray and Susan as soon as we started planning the road trip!

Since we had the whole day and only a 3 hour drive we took a detour. We stopped off in Charlottesville to check out UVA. It is a beautiful campus!

The room where Kappa Sigma was founded off the lawn at UVA - they were my sororities neighboors at Arizona

Ian's favorite bar, but sadly it was closed :(

Once we got to Ray and Susan's, we grilled out - can't beat steak and potatoes and then took a tour of the property.

So peaceful and green! 

And then comes the new experience part, Ray is a very talented blacksmith. He just fired up the gas forge and started making something out of a 16 penny horse shoe nail. 

The forge

Uncle Ray hammering the nail into something

Clamping the hot metal and pounding into something cool 

The end result on the anvil, a heart that got turned into a necklace!  

We had a great time! It was great to see Susan and Ray! Now off to Charlotte, NC to fly to Mexico city on Wednesday for Alejo and Marcella's wedding with 6 Kellogg friends!