Baltimore

So, Abbey and I decided to mosey on down to Baltimore for the weekend of September 4th for a wedding (Brian and Donna Borntrager). We stayed at the beautiful Patapsco State Park and spent a Sunday afternoon at the Inner Harbor. We also enjoyed a Sunday morning stroll to church with Mel and Jake as well as a church service that included the Baltimore Church and Victory Ministries. Jake and Mel went down to the Inner Harbor after church for lunch. After they left we explored...

Among other things, we found an aardvark

And some nice shadows (including the nice woman taking the picture)

We went to an art museum (the Jim Rouse visionary center) - It was a pretty wild collection of art, ranging from the psych ward to Afghanistan

And here we are with our wedding garb at the campground. I must add that we got off a little late on Friday and I ended up getting us lost in the middle of the state park. We finally asked directions from a guy with a sno cone shop (open at 10:30?) and got to the campground only to be met by closed gates. Thankfully we had gotten a reservation and I called the warden on duty and he came and let us in. In turned out to be a cool little spot and the weather was great. The wedding was fun and interesting and the reception was held in this cool old church. Overall a very good weekend.

Dietrich

A time to grow and a time to cut down...

It was just another memorial day...

UNTIL THEY TIED ME DOWN AND SYDNEY GOT THE CLIPPERS!!!!

Don't worry, I didn't try to put it back in

Ahhh, nothing like a clean clipping.

And then Ryan Tice gave me a haircut. It turned out to be a wonderful Memorial day, spending the first half of it with family, getting drenched while playing volleyball and cramming into the camper for lunch, and then spending the evening with some friends from the Young Adults group. We gathered at Sydney, Ryan, Reuben, and Cory's house and had a feast consisting of burgers, skewered shrimp, Shrimp a la butter and PBR, baked spaghetti, sweet tea, and so forth.

And now I'm suffering from beard withdrawal...

In other news, I really miss my gal and I'm getting ready to hike the AT with Meredith from Monday to Saturday. We'll be hiking through Pennsylvania and on Saturday we will meet up with Abbey. We'll be coming home and Meredith will continue on to Maine. And right after I get home I'll be moving into the 3039 house again with Rick B and Nathan Zerkle. It could get interesting! Oh, and I'll also get to spend time with C and J and Co. in the midst of it all. Woohoo!!

And that's all for now

Love,

Dietrich

Gypsy Hill Park/Fishtank Ensemble

So, here we go. Last Saturday Abbey and I both had a free afternoon, so we took advantage of the above average weather and headed over to Staunton. We had a wonderful time meandering around Gypsy Hill Park, watching some little guys play baseball, noticing the beautiful and the ugly among the ducks and fish, and so on and so forth. After moseying around the park for a while, we headed over to downtown Staunton to catch a meal at Baja Bean, a local Tex-Mex restaurant. We also visited the train station and...

I got to be the brakeman!!

There were also some silly people on the train

...and some normal ones.

We then headed down to the Mockingbird to catch a show. The opening act was a duo, a guitar player and a precussionist. They played various bluesy tunes and then turned the show over to the supercharged Fishtank Ensemble. The band was made up of a fiddle player, a guitarist, an upright bassist, and a vocalist/saw/violin player. They did some traditional European dance music as well as flamenco and various other styles. It was a pretty amazing performance. One of our favorite parts was when the vocalist had a sing-off with the saw. If you don't know what a saw sounds like when played with a bow, it pretty much sounds like an opera singer. It was pretty amazing and energetic music. And that was that. It turned out to be quite the wonderful evening, not only because of the music, but also (and more importantly) because I was hanging out with an amazing young woman. If you have any question about my picture choices, you can ask Abbey because she sent them to me.

that's all for now,

Dietrich

I'm still here

I am officially awful at this blogging business...but, hopefully I'll have some more pictures (and stories) as soon as I can steal Abbey's camera!! The latest noteworthy event was a concert date at the Mockingbird in Staunton. We got to see the energetic Fishtank Ensemble. I never knew a saw could be played like that. pictures coming soon!