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Arapaima Travelogue

ArapaimaRoute

Operation Arapaima, continued.

Here is the day by day travelogue. Some days are omitted because nothing really big happened. Hey, some days you need to just kick back and relax.

Day 1: December 20, 2014
The first phase of this trip was to Durham, North Carolina. I have an uncle and aunt who live there, and I haven’t seen them in several years. We used this opportunity for a quick visit. As a bonus, one of their two sons was home this Christmas. This was the first time any of them met Caitlin or Michael in person. We spent the night in a rather nice hotel a short drive from their house.

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Tyrannosaurus Rex statue, Doswell, Virginia.

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Thomas, Michael, Joshua, Caitlin (being a goofball), Muri, and Lisa

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Thomas, Michael, Joshua, Muri, me, and Caitlin (still being a goofball)

Day 2: December 21, 2014
We left Durham around 9:00am, for our next stop of Evans, Georgia. Lisa has an aunt, uncle, and cousins who live there that she hasn’t seen for many years. This was another case of opportunity knocking, so we paid them a visit. We spent a few hours with them, and had dinner at a local restaurant, and generally had a good time. Caitlin was especially happy to have people close to her own age that she could hang with for a while. After this visit, we traveled an additional two hours to a suburb of Atlanta, where we had hotel reservations for the night. This particular piece of travel was very difficult, because it was pitch dark and raining most of the way. Still, we made it to our hotel just after midnight, and quickly crashed. This hotel was quite a contrast to the one we had in Durham, but we were too tired to care.

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Uncle Conrad, Caitlin, Chloe, Michael, Aubry, Aaron, and Aunt Pat.

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Aunt Pat, Uncle Conrad, Aubry (being a goofball), Donald, Connie, Chloe, and Aaron.

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Aunt Pat, Precious, Uncle Conrad, Lisa, Michael, Connie, Aubry, Caitlin, Chloe, Aaron, and me.

Day 3: December 22, 2014
We got a later start than we had planned, because after the previous night we decided that the extra sleep was a necessity. We left the Atlanta area around 10:00am (Eastern Time), and made a bee-line toward Louisiana. Fortunately, traffic was light and the weather was co-operative. We opted to spend the night in Atlanta so that the Atlanta rush hour traffic would all be behind us when we continued. Given the congestion on the other runner, this was a smart move on our part. The trip through Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana was smooth and without incident. Well, it was without incident if you discount Michael’s little adventure in the restaurant where we stopped for lunch. Catching a toddler that doesn’t want to be caught can be quite a challenge! We reached Hammond, Louisiana, around 6:00pm (Central Time). The three day outbound drive was now complete.

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The Vedeckis Christmas Tree, 2014

Day 5: December 24, 2014
Christmas Eve included a traditional Lithuanian Christmas Eve dinner at the Vedeckis home. Sadly, it also included the loss of one of Michael’s special shoes during a last minute gift acquisition run, which was itself a complete and total failure.

Day 6: December 25, 2014, Christmas Day
A large gathering of Lisa’s extended family filled the Vedeckis house for several hours. Presents were opened, photographs and news were shared, and lots of food was consumed. It was one heck of a party!

Day 7: December 26, 2015
This was another low key day, though we were able to replace Michael’s missing shoes.

Day 8: December 27, 2015
The plan was to visit one of Lisa’s sisters, and allow our various children to play. However, this did not happen. In mid-afternoon I learned that I had to return to Northern Virginia.

We hastily packed and disembarked. None of the additional visits to family in Hammond took place, not did any intended visits to New Orleans or the surrounding area. Unfortunately, this is how life goes sometimes. No matter how well plans are laid or preparations made, if Fate and/or the Almighty has something else in mind, then the gig is up.

We drove straight through the night, and through one of the worst rainstorms I have ever experienced. We had originally planned to stop for the night at some point, but I wasn’t willing to wait. In this particular case, time was far too precious.

Day 9: December 28, 2015
We arrived home on the afternoon of December 28. We were able to make a quick stop at Mrs. Rowe’s restaurant in Stanuton, Virginia. However, we didn’t have a meal, which was the original plan. We picked up some frozen take-home food, and moved on. Still, the restaurant was busy, and the smell of Americana food was strong and enticing. I was pleased to see that this local restaurant was still going strong.

It was an overcast and dreary day in North Central Virginia. This brought Operation Arapaima to an abrupt, premature, and sombre conclusion.

The next major family trip will be next summer, to the Chicago area. Caitlin and I have already code named this trip “Operation Bullfrog.” Hopefully it will be more successful.

Final route:

Total distance: 2359.6 miles.

Operation Arapaima

December 20, 2014 – January 3, 2015

Arapaima

This Christmas, the Pugh’s of Culpeper did something different: we took a 15-day road trip that I jokingly named Operation Arapaima. I chose that silly name because (a) Caitlin really likes those big fish, and we expect to visit an aquariums along the way, so we’ll probably see one. Also (b), I’m poking fun at military and government operations that have strange names which make little or no sense. In hindsight it might have made more sense to call this Operation Mud-skipper, given how the trip has been broken into a series of short jumps. At any rate, the ultimate destination is the home of Lisa’s parents in Hammond, Louisiana. Her two sisters and their families live in that same general area. We’re doing this trip for three reasons.

First, we were unable to visit with Lisa’s family during the summer. Most summers, my in-laws rent a beach house somewhere on the Gulf coast, usually Gulf Shores, Alabama, and we visit them there. We were all set to go again this past summer, until someone slammed their S.U.V into the side of our house! That sent just about every summer plan we had straight to the compost heap, so we arranged to do this instead. Actually, even this trip came close to being scrubbed, just a few days before we were set to start. I’ll talk about that somewhere else.

Second, back in the spring we bought a Prius-V, which gets amazing gas mileage for a car its size. Normally we would fly a distance like this, but airplane tickets are prohibitively expensive these days, especially around the holidays. But with this nice new car, driving is actually a viable option.

Third, it’s an adventure! Need I say more?

Dr. Watson will be spending the holiday at a pet spa in Rapidan, Virginia. That’s not a bad deal for him, actually.

ArapaimaRoute

Mind you, I started to feel differently on the third day of travel. When I was younger, family trips were always done by car. Using a plane or train was never seriously considered. So in some ways I’m accustomed to long car trips like this. But I didn’t always like them. I really don’t like to fly, but I’m pragmatic enough to know that for some destinations, and when time is a pressing issue, flying is the only real option. But if another method if available, I’ll look into it. Truth be told, my favored means of long distance travel is rail. But this time, the train timetables just didn’t co-operate with our travel windows.

Lisa wasn’t very taken with the idea, but seems OK with it as a one-time thing. She generally prefers to fly, and whenever we plan a long trip, flying is her go-to method. We’ll see how this driving thing goes. At first the kids were fine with the long car ride. But after two days of almost non-stop driving, the third day of driving (from Atlanta to Hammond) couldn’t end soon enough.

If there is one advantage to driving, it’s the ability to have a flexible timetable. That has allowed us to include some stops along the way, to places and people we normally wouldn’t get a chance to see. At present, the itinerary looks something like this:

  • Durham, North Carolina, to visit some of my family that I haven’t seen in several years.
  • Augusta, Georgia, to visit some members of Lisa’s family that she hasn’t seen in a long while, either.
  • Hammond, Louisiana. This is where we will spend Christmas and New Year’s, with members of Lisa’s family.
  • New Orleans, Louisiana. Hopefully, while in Hammond, we’ll get a chance to take in some fun in the Crescent City.
  • A favorite restaurant in the Shenandoah valley, on the final leg of the return trip.

Day by day travelogue.

This was the original itinerary, but this isn’t how it turned out. A few days before we left I was informed that my mother was very sick, and that it was the kind of sick you don’t recover from. The trip was almost cancelled, but we went anyway, with the proviso that if I needed to return home before the scheduled end of the trip I would. Sadly, that is exactly what happened.

Gallery

Christmas Present

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The Vedeckis family Christmas tree, 2014

Christmas of 2014 was a break from tradition, in that we chose to travel. The reasons for this massive road trip are described in another article, but Christmas of 2014 will be spent in Hammond, Louisiana.

Typically we spend Christmas day partly at home, and partly in Maryland, where my brother lives. In recent years we have spent time with Lisa’s family during the summer months, but this particular year that didn’t happen. So this time around, we spent Christmas with Lisa’s family. Her parents live in Hammond, while her two sisters and their families live in the surrounding area. The Vedeckis home in Hammond will be hosting a large family gathering worthy of Norman Rockwell.

My father-in-law is largely Lithuanian in extraction, and for many Christmases he sets up a traditional Lithuanian-style Christmas Eve dinner. I’ve been to two of these in the past, and they were both great. I suspect this one will be no exception. For my part, I brought some Virginia red wine to go with this dinner. I hope it goes with the entree.

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My father-in-law and son at the Christmas tree.

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Vedeckis Clan portrait, Christmas 2014
Front Row: Caitlin Pugh, Nicholas Farley.
Middle Row: Lisa Pugh, Kathy Farley, Mary Vedeckis, Michelle Bardwell, Zoe Bardwell, Mya Bardwell, Fox Bardwell.
Back Row: Richard Pugh, Michael Pugh, Wayne Vedeckis, Ian Bardwell, Gabriel Farley, Gregg Farley, Darren Bardwell.

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Photo credit: Trevor Dunaway

Christmas of 2015 may be a totally different story.

Related:

Kūčios

Christmas Eve dinner, Lithuanian style!

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My father-in-law is of Lithuanian extraction, so most years he prepares a traditional Kūčios dinner on Christmas Eve. The dinner is steeped in tradition. For example, almost all of the foods are common in Lithuanian cuisine. There is a lot of fish, onions, and mushrooms. In fact, onions and mushrooms dominate the entire meal. In the days before refrigeration and food preservation, fish, onions and mushrooms were often the only foods available during the deepest part of winter. The running joke in the Vedeckis family is that after the annual Kūčios, you will smell like mushrooms and onions for several days.

Typically there is no land meat in a Kūčios; the only meat is fish. In addition to being a traditional Lithuanian fare, the fish echoes back to the original apostles. And speaking of the apostles, a true Kūčios has twelve courses, one for each. On this point my wife’s family has strayed from tradition, and gone with only eight courses. Apparently the remaining courses were far too, shall we say, exotic for most tastes.

This year, the menu was:

  • Oplatek bread
  • Slizikai cereal with sweetened poppy seed milk
  • Marinated mushrooms
  • Mushrooms and onions in sour cream, over pumpernickel bread
  • Sauerkraut
  • Stuffed fish (mushrooms and onions were in the stuffing)
  • Herring, both in wine sauce and sour cream
  • Fruit compote

This was the third Kūčios I’ve attended with my in-laws, and in past years the menu has been very similar. Some things, like the Oplatek and Slizikai, are a standard. In truth most of the food is quite good, though I wouldn’t want to eat it every day. There are some things I won’t go near, like the sauerkraut and the herring, and I would have tried the compote if it didn’t have apricot in it (I’m allergic). But no matter! It’s good stuff!

Linksmų Kalėdų!

Related:

  • Christmas Past
  • Christmas Present