Below the Mason Dixon

This weekend was awesome and much needed, although I didn't really know I needed it at the time. It was one of those things though, once we were finished, where we were like, "Gee, we really needed that!"

On Friday night I left work in horrendous, horrendous, horrendous traffic (SEPTA was still on strike, they're not anymore thank god) and headed to Central PA to B's house. When I finally got there she whisked me away to a little local tavern where I had apple cinnamon martinis (omg yum) and a portabella burger with goat cheese which was fucking fantastic. It was an awesome, relaxing night.

On Saturday B made her mom and I breakfast sandwiches on bagels (she is an amazing cook). We still weren't sure if we were going to take the drive to anywhere that we had previously discussed but once we saw how beautiful it was outside it was too tempting to resist. We packed an overnight bag just in case and headed south with no map.

We drove through lots of farmland which was beautiful. Most of the leaves were fallen off of the trees already and I kept talking about how I wish we had had time in October to drive around and look at them, but we couldn't ... obviously. I was packing up a whole house and dealing with my dog dying and trying not to have a breakdown. Such is life. So the drive was still beautiful and it was sunny and wonderful and we had lots of good conversation.

We reached Maryland and found a little pizza shop where we had lunch. We kind of chatted about where we wanted to go because we were seriously in the middle of nowhere and didn't come across any towns or anything. I got out my phone and saw that if we kept traveling south we'd hit Baltimore and neither of us wanted to do anything city, so we decided to head Southwest instead. The landscape started changing a bit and you could see much bigger hills/mountains, which super excited me. We landed in Leesburg, VA, one of the cutest little towns ever. We arrived when it was almost dark so we started looking for places to stay, and guess what? Most places were all booked up or almost all booked up because there was a church convention thing. Ha. Nice. We ended up at the Best Western which was decent enough, took a nap, and then headed out to the grocery store. We picked up these four cute little wine bottles, cheese, crackers, and grapes. It was super cute and romantic. We came back to the room where B fed me these things - slowly, lovingly, intimately. It was a wonderfully connecting night.

Once we ate breakfast and headed out of the hotel on Sunday morning we headed over to the historic downtown district of Leesburg. Most of the shops didn't open until noon so we walked around instead and I was able to take tons of pictures. And can I say, the weather was fucking perfect!!! It was like 75 degrees. In November. Nuts. I made B stand against the wall (actually more than one ha) and pose for me.
I love historic and old buildings, which I get a lot of, being from and living near and working in Philly. So this was cool because it was different but similar - a lot of the architecture is the same.




























Once we were done downtown we headed over to Morven Park, a historic mansion. The grounds were simply beautiful. They had gardens like out of a movie.
B explained a lot to me about what type of plants things were which is always nice because I have no clue. The mansion itself was beautiful and was around for things during the civil war. Super cool. B took a picture of me next to the pillars so you could gauge the size of the place. When you stood on the "porch" of the mansion and looked forward you could see far away, the landscape stretching, beautiful hills and green and trees. It was so quiet and serene and beautiful. We sat under a tree for some shade (because it was so beautifully super sunny) and B let me sit on her sweater (I don't like the bugs!!) and I leaned back against her and she just held me and we talked and looked at the scenery and we just WERE. It was awesome. That's when she asked for the camera to take a picture, the one I posted yesterday, of my leg and her boot and our hands (and inevitably, my boob. Oops). I love that picture. Good eye. After a while a bug managed to get into my bra. I freaked out way less than I thought I would and told her it was time to get away from the tree :) There were benches there so ended up finishing up the cheese, crackers, grapes, and wine from the night before for lunch. It was super romantic and beautiful. (Hmm seems to be the theme of the weekend).

When we left this place we went in the opposite direction of how we got there so we could just explore and see what was around. We ended up traveling for miles and miles and miles along gravel roads looking at multi million dollar mansions and estates. Holy shit. Also, this area is apparently known for being equestrian fanatics and you could definitely see that. We came upon a sign for a winery so we immediately followed the arrows, as it was something we had wanted to do that day anyway. We ended up going to three wineries, purchasing about 5 bottles all together. It was a great time. The most exciting part was that at the third winery there was a sign up saying that if you bought one bottle of wine you would receive a free ride on a hot air balloon! And we just happened to be there at the time this was going on. Well, I about shit my pants. I had never done that but I sure did want to! So once it was our turn we "climbed" in. And yes, they did have a little crate there for you to step up on but my short ass still had to hold onto B and basically bring my knee up to my ear to swing my leg in. Then the people that were in there before had to get out (they stayed in while we got in for weight purposes, so the thing wouldn't fly away). B took a picture of me right before we lifted up - look at that cheese! I was so fucking excited and happy. As if you couldn't tell.





After this we headed back into town and was able to get to one antique shop before they all closed. That was pretty cool. I'm not (or at least I didn't used to be) very interested in antiques but I think my taste buds are changing a little :) After that we went to a fancy place for dinner - it was written up in the Washington Post and all of these other magazines - and it was nice, definitely, but it wasn't blow-your-socks-off kind of food. Especially for the price. Then, unfortunately, we had to head back home :( We could have easily stayed another day or two to see more things and taste more wine. We were pleasantly surprised about our little trip below the Mason Dixon line, for sure.