61st Birthday Road Trips, Part 2

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Yesterday morning we drove up to Richmond, VA. I guess it took less time than expected and we arrived around noon. We found a Denny's a block from our motel so that is where we killed an hour or so having lunch. It had been years since we'd been in a Denny's. They have a mostly breakfast menu. There is a small 55+ menu on the back and we both ordered from it. Small portions that served us well. We shared a lava cake with chocolate ice cream because they were out of vanilla. Too bad! We couldn't get our room at Courtyard by Marriott until 1:15pm, so we had a walk through the Burlington Factory store across the street until it was time. The motel was huge and spread out. It was nice enough and quiet. The room was spacious and had a fridge and coffee maker. It was not particularly conveniently located but Clay selected it based on price. It was free with membership points on Marriott. So no complaints. We watched a movie after settling in before leaving for dinner. We drove to Stella's for dinner. We got there between 5 and 5:30 pm without a reservation and barely managed to get a table for 1.5 hours. Service was a little slow as they were filled and we had to skip dessert. The food was good, better than we'd had at the Raleigh Greek Festival.

We were up at 6 am this morning when my pill timer went off. Sometimes Clay lets me go back to sleep for an hour or so but not today. We checked out of the Courtyard around 8 am. We drove a couple of miles to a Bob Evans where I had fried mush for breakfast! Happy birthday to me. We got to the Virginia Fine Art Museum before it opened. We visited both Richmond and this museum previously but today we were here for a special exhibition of Edward Hopper and the American Hotel. Clay had seen this article last week and that was the reason for the last minute trip. It was a well presented exhibit and we were glad we made the effort to see it. It took a tank of gas and dinner was our big splurge. Otherwise, Clay still thinks this might be our cheapest per diem trip ever!

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