My Day Out Alone (7/10)

Jen had to do hair today - she had a full day. So, it meant that I was on my own. Driving in the Washington DC/Virginia area is not too scary when you have a Garmin. I was able to take the time to visit with another Jen, a friend who used to work with me before she got married and moved. Carlyle House in Alexandria. I didn't have time to do the actual tour because of time constraints, but the outside was pretty cool. I know that the owner was a merchant. He was very big on family. There was some kind of convention/conference held here in 1755, which I am sure would be part of the reason why it's been saved.

Jen with her new baby, Manny. I am not a pet person, but will admit the brand new Yorkie was pretty cute. It was also pretty funny to listen to Jen talk about paper training him and all of the research she had done into it. It was so good to see her again and see how happy she is. She has a very cute townhome she and Chris are fixing up, which is going to keep them busy for a while. And she introduced me to a wonderful restaurant, Panera's, where they had one of the best cream tomato soups ever.

When Jen had to go back to work, I traveled down to Fairfax to do the walking tour there. It would have been better if you could have gone into some of the places. A lot of them were now stores or restaurants. The other one that you could have gone into required you calling ahead of time for an appointment. In other words, I just wondered and looked at buildings. But some of the stories were still pretty cool.

This is the Historic Fairfax Elementary school. It's the oldest building in Fairfax, built in 1873. It's been renovated and opened as the Fairfax Museum and Visitor Center. It was a neat little tour.

The back of the Ratcliffe-Allison House. This is the one that I could have toured with an appointment and I really would have liked to. It's a cool history. One of the owners at one time turned it into a kind of home for troubled youth.

The Old Towne Hall. It's available for rental for parties and such. It's also a library.

The Moore House. It belonged to a Confederate Intelligence officer who later became the third president of Virginia Tech University.

The Old Fairfax Jail. Our jails are not this cute today. And the jailer would not live in it with his family now.

Fairfax County Courthouse. Built between 1800 and 1850, it's still used for court today.It was used both by the Confederacy and the Union (as a commissary and stable).

The Ford House. So this is one of my favorite stories of the whole trip. What can I say? I am a romantic at heart. This house is the Ford Building. I'll just quote the travel brochure on it. "On March 9, 1863, Confederate Colonel John S. Mosby and 'Mosby's Rangers' entered the Union Army encampment here and captured General Edwin H. Stoughton while he slept in his headquarters at the Dr. William Gunnell House. Mosby also captured 2 captains, 30 privates, and 58 horses. Hearing of Stoughton's capture, President Abraham Lincoln remarked: 'I don't car so much about the loss of the general, as I can make another with the stroke of a pen . . . but I sure hate to lose those horses.'

"One young Fairfax woman, Antonia Ford, impressed soldiers from North and South with her beauty, charm, and conversation. For her southern loyalties, General J.E.B. Stuart awarded her a written commission as 'honorary aide de-camp.' Following Mosby's raid, Union officials searched the Ford home (now the Ford Building) and found Antonia's commission.

"Antonia, along with her father and other Fairfax Court House residents, were imprisoned as Confederate spies. Fortunately, Miss Ford had stolen the heart of Union Army Major Joseph C. Willard, a co-owner of the famed Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C. after spending six months in the Old Capitol Prison, she took the Oath f Allegiance and Major Willard escorted her home. They were married on March 10, 1864."

So the downside of the story, that the brochures don't want to spend too much to dwell on was that Major Willard was married at the time they met. In letters he basically called her the love of his life, which would pretty much end a marriage to someone else. The divorce is just very briefly mentioned, so I don't know what happened to the first wife or if it was a mess (because that really does diminish the romance of the story).

On my way home, I stopped out the outlet mall in Potomac Mills. They have the most important store, the Lindor Lindt outlet. It's said that I probably spent the most money at this store than anywhere else, but it was so worth it.

As I was really heading home, about five minutes away from my exit and two seconds before Jen texted me to see how things were going, I got to mar the Highlander's windshield. We had just talked about the week before how they hadn't had to fix this windshield and they had some special service done on it where it was protected and not supposed to chip. This is not something that I wanted to prove wrong. It was like someone threw the rock from out of nowhere and when Jen looked at it, she was pretty impressed with the quality of the chip. I'm pretty sure she thought I was trying to do a bad joke on her, but I don't think that quick on my feet. Fortunately, it was under her warranty so that they didn't have to pay to get it fixed, but it was deep enough we were wondering if it could just be repaired or if it would require a whole new windshield.

Website: www.visitFairfax.com