Our good fortune with the Virginia weather continues. With a day to ourselves, I came up with a cunning plan. In the middle-ish of Richmond is the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Just south of that, on the southern side…

[The second of our planned scary days on this trip to the States.] This one really was scary, much more so than Halloween, and a lot less fun. Today was the day of the American presidential election. Before the shit…

A few miles away from where we are staying on the west side of Richmond, Virginia, lies Tuckahoe Creek Park. Francine spotted it on a map. Tuckahoe Creek flows around the property we are lodged in but it is inaccessible,…

On our trip to Skyline Drive we had driven through a quaint looking town called Gordonsville. So, for a day out alone, Francine and I thought we’d go and investigate. Our return route could take us by Lake Anna which,…

[The first of our two scheduled scary days in the US. The second is likely to be even scarier. Watch this space.] One potential benefit that I saw about making a trip to Richmond, Virginia, at this time of year…

After a traditionally leisurely start, we were driven out west about 90 minutes away to visit Skyline Drive. Skyline Drive is a picturesque road at very nearly 3000 feet altitude] running north-south for 105 miles along a ridge in the…

The Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden was another potentially interesting habitat that I spotted on Google maps. I saw that it had a couple of lakes/ponds and popped into iNaturalist to find that it had a number of dragonfly records. Botanic…

A first attempt at a brush with nature and a solo excursion. Our hostess had appointment with her doc mid afternoon so I had rooted around on iNaturalist looking for potential dragonfly sites in the vicinity.I found a park and…

This was also a jetlag reunion. There’s a 5-hour time difference (normally) between the east coast of the States and the UK. I say “normally” because we had cleverly arranged to arrive in Washington DC on the night that the…

For the first time in countless years, we’re off to the States for a couple of weeks. We are going to get reacquainted with the wife of an old, late lamented friend and colleague from my software development days. He…