We’re currently headed towards Asheville, NC. We’ve got some friends in that area who want to go ahead and get themselves married to each other – and we’re not about to miss that.
Williamsburg, VA is a short detour on a direct path from our last stop (DC) and Asheville. Plus, I don’t love to drive long hauls, so Williamsburg is a nice place to break up the drive. And Jake spent some of his youth in the area. Plus, he has family there. It’s good to visit family.
We got a bit of a late start to our driving day from DC to Williamsburg. After stopping to fill up our fuel tank – and pay guys to shine our rims – we rolled into Chickahominy Riverfront Park after dark on a Sunday. I was super down with having someone else shine our rims. I freaking hate that job. But I do not like driving after dark. I especially don’t like parking the big beast after dark. By the time we pulled off of a curve laden two lane road into Chickahominy Riverfront Park it was full on night time. I was regretting taking the time to have our rims shined. And I was anxious. I guess we’ve come a ways in our parking abilities, however. We pulled off shimmying Dyna into a decently awkward site in the dark – on our first attempt. Jake pointed, I guided her in. And while I may have had a flashback or two of our first attempt at parking in the dark – back in Tucson, AZ, two and a half years ago – we did it. Without getting stuck. Woohoo us!
Chickahominy Riverfront Park was fine. The spaces were a bit tight, but we didn’t end up having any neighbors anyways. It was a bit tricky to get ourselves leveled. But, it was quiet. And the showers were usable. Which is good, because our hot water is acting a fool right now. I don’t take cold showers. It’s hot shower, or deal with the fallout in the form of my emanating stench. I advise you choose hot shower.
The Capital Bike Trail runs right past Chickahominy Riverfront Park, which was convenient for my running purposes. It was flat, and paved, and if you run on it long enough you end up at a horse farm with some lovely horses grazing in a lovely field. Those horses motivated me to get in some decent miles on more than one morning.
We spent most of our time in Williamsburg catching up on work. Or in my case, dealing with breaking mobile internet news. Because that’s my job currently. And during our stay in Williamsburg, Verizon decided to drop a sweet little prepaid cellular plan that is worthy of supporting nomadic internet needs.
I guess I haven’t talked too much about what I have been doing to keep busy, contribute a bit to our financial stability, and feel like I am a contributing member of society since we hit the road. In short – I support the work of Chris and Cherie, who started the Mobile Internet Resource Center (MIRC), which provides information for fellow nomads on how they can maintain an internet connection to meet their personal needs. Its fun work, and Chris and Cherie are awesome to work with. I currently research, write news stories and guides, roam the MIRC website as an editor, and attempt to guide folks who are seeking mobile internet in the right direction in online forums. Sometimes the ‘guidance’ part of the job feels like working with toddlers as an SLP. But that’s about it in terms of parallels of my former work life, and my current work life.
It’s Chris and Cherie guys! 
Just two girls power napping.
Anyways, it was a very busy week over at MIRC, and as such, there was very little exploring of Williamsburg. Sadly, with an ultra marathon on the horizon, I had to prioritize getting runs in when I had free time. And also, naps. I had to prioritize those. Because working late nights, and running long miles, and answering the same questions over and over and over make me sleepy.
We spent some time with Jacob’s mother, Heidi, also. She currently lives in the area. She invited us over for dinner one evening, and it was delicious. We also had the opportunity to meet her boyfriend Charlie during dinner, which was cool. Jacob also joined her and Charlie for dinner out one evening. I ended up needing to help triage some stuff with MIRC that evening, but did get to join Jake, Heidi and Charlie for dinner at a place Heidi recommended called Food For Thought. It was pretty delicious – and I’d recommend eating there if you’re ever in the area.
And that’s about it. We came. We worked. Jake lost his passport (here. We later found out he lost his passport here. Don’t worry – he ended up getting it back). We left.