Being in the Army has allowed us to travel around and live in many places.
Our very first journey, as short as it was, landed us in Columbus, Georgia (Fort Benning). We then moved to Fort Knox, Kentucky and from there we moved back to Fort Benning living right over
the Georgia line in Phenix City, Al. Now we are stationed at Fort Rucker in L.A.- lower Alabama. We still have more places left to live but of all the pretty places we have been, no place is as wonderful or as beautiful as the state of Virginia.
The culture, history, mountains, people.
Everything about it is breathtaking.
It's a place you just fall in love with, and I don't care what anyone here in the deep south says, Virginia is a southern state.
Our accents might not be quite as thick and our winter's might have a few snowfalls, but our tea is sweet and our hospitality is genuine...we are as southern as southern can be.
Let me just tell you a few of my favorite things about Virginia.
I grew up on a 147 acre tree farm in Concord, Virginia.
A teeny town nestled in between Lynchburg and Appomattox.
I spent my summers roaming the creek's, riding four wheelers, swimming in the pond, and visiting the old farm house in the back field that housed the original owners of the land, back in the 1800's.
My family built a house on a hill, right in the middle of two huge fields.
I slept with my window's open in the Spring and was awakened many mornings, way too early, by the whippoorwill (that I honestly wanted to find and kill by the time Spring was over!) that lived in one of the trees near our home.
In fact, on our visit last month, I heard that whippoorwill again, except he was probably the great grandson of the whippoorwill I knew so well, and my thoughts raced back to all those chilly, Spring mornings growing up.
The falls were perfect.
I've never appreciated a Virginia fall until I lived in the deep south.
As anyone living south of the South Carolina border knows, there is no fall in the deep south.
It simply goes from the unbearable heat of summer to a super mild winter, lacking of snow.
Since our house was heated by the wood stove behind our house, I remember going out in the woods with my dad and my sister and loading the back of the pickup truck with firewood.
I also remember putting on boots and warm sweaters and heading up to football games.
In the winter, we spent hours sledding down the huge hill behind our house.
You knew you had a good sled track going when someone ended up in the creek all the way at the bottom of the hill.
One winter it snowed so much that we started having sledding parties.
Our friends would come over and my mom would make hot chocolate while we went sledding in the dark.
We even hooked our sleds to the four wheeler and my dad would drag us through the fields.
I went to college at
Liberty University.
A great school nestled right beside the Blue Ridge Mountains and James River.
I loved going to school at LU.
I remember Seth and I getting away by driving up the Blue Ridge Parkway after class.
There is truly nothing as beautiful as the Blue Ridge Parkway in the middle of fall.
Virginia has leaves of every color in the fall. It truly is breath taking.
I love that in Virginia, you are surrounded by history, of all kinds.
The gardens at Monticello
Jamestown- the first settlement of the Virginia Colony.
Appomattox- where Lee surrendered to Grant, ending the Civil war.
Natural Bridge- one of the seven wonders of the world, and so many more!
For me, it's where I grew up, where my family lives.
It's where I made so many memories and made so many friends that I still keep in touch with. It's where I fell in love with Seth, where I married him, and where I hope to be again one day.
My heart is in Virginia and always will be.
There's no other place like it!
Posts
