Tangier Island

Diana wanted to see Tangier Island, so we drove across the Bay Bridge Tunnel and up the Eastern Shore to Onancock, a tiny little village on the Bay. We took the ferry, which is a converted oyster boat, which makes one round trip a day, to the island. We passed quite a few osprey nests on the channel markers; once we were away from land, there were a few fish, plus passing boats and the occasional small island.
The island is pretty much as described in Wikipedia, There's a house which has been converted to a museum on the history of the island and some of the notable residents (or servicemen who signed up and left the island), The main thing is that in one day, you probably can't see absolutely everything; but you can easily walk around the island and see a representative sample of everything. For instance, you can visit one seafood restaurant rather than all of them--but "seafood" is the only kind of restaurant you'll find, except for Spanky's ice cream parlor. Take bug spray and sunglasses and comfortable walking shoes and spend a day.

Charleston SC

We had decided to take a mid-winter mini-vacation, somewhere warmer than Virginia Beach, but a bit less expensive than Costa Rica. Diana picked Charleston SC. Given that the Lynnhaven River was frozen the morning that we left, we were glad to go.

Outline, which I'll fill in later

Monday:

• drive to Charleston
• Vendue hotel

Tuesday

• Tour the istoric district
• Manigault House, with the most unexpected thing of today. At the top of the main spiral stair, there's a big 4ft wide door which looks as if it ought to lead to the master bedroom or the drawing room, but there's only a little broom closet, 18" deep. But if you squeeze into the closet and look up and right, that's a hidden stairway to the children's room on the third floor.
• Charleston Museum
• King Street boutique district (I suspect "boutique" comes from a combination of "buy" and the "EEK" you emit when you see the price) and the Market, which was mostly empty by the time we got there--after 5pm. 
• Jazz at the High Cotton restaurant

Wednesday

• Went to Fort Sumter, which turns out to have been pretty much completely destroyed by the Union siege during the Civil War, and again during the Martian invasion of 1891. 
• Watched dolphins from the fantail on the ferry ride back. 
• Walked 438 miles around the historic district of Charleston. 
• Had barbecue at Stckyfingers. 
• Waited patiently for 14 hours 47 minutes as Diana shopped at The Trunk, which I would describe as a "secondhand shop" except I suspect it's called something else when a used dress still costs $640 and a scarf $198--neither item came home with us despite being "on sale, 5% off" as the clerk helpfully pointed out.
• Took another stroll through the Market.
• Went to SNOB (Slightly North Of Broad) where Diana had flounder with fennel and gold rice and I had lemon chess pie with diamond dust.
• Set part of the hotel wall on fire but the flickering light makes it hard to sleep so I'll probably douse it shortly.

Thursday

• Drive around the south end of Old Town and see churches--First Scots Presbyterian, St Michaels and others. We'd have done more but it was 25° not counting wind chill--too cold to spend much time walking around
• Patriot's Point, with Yorktown and the Medal of Honor Museum
• Drive home, up Rt41 to Rt501 and 38
• Snow at the Virginia border

Independence Day in Williamsburg

Hurricane Arthur having passed and the sky cleared by late morning, we--Diana, Josh, Gwen, Gwen's brother Chris and I--went to Colonial Williamsburg. At the Courthouse, Josh served as a Justice of the Peace ("Guilty!", he cried); Chris presented a complaint about the Inpector of Roads not doing his job, and ended up as the new Inspector himself. An hour or so later, Josh enlisted as a private soldier in the Continental Army; Chris declined to renounce loyalty to the King or to swear allegiance to the Continental Congress, and was on the verge of being blacklisted until the Major questioning him decided that he must be drunk and from New Jersey. We visited the Magazine and saw the muskets, fowlers, halberds, and a couple of guns; we sat through the court session; and we visited the gunsmith. Listened to the Fife and Drum Corps for an hour. Picnic dinner behind the Visitor's Center. Got out light sticks and then went to the Palace Green, where the orchestra was playing; they started out with the Star Spangled Banner, and just about everyone stood with hand on heart. After that, we went back to the Visitor's Center beside the pedestrian bridge, and watched a spectacular fireworks display; as far as I could figure, we were only about 1000ft from where the rockets were bursting, including altitude.  Diana and I gave our glow sticks to a couple of wide-eyed little girls, then we bundled our crew back into the car and headed back to the Beach.

LibertyCon

My first LibertyCon. I went to panels on neurophysiology (led Tedd Roberts), writing epic fantasy, warfare in science fiction, and how to kill zombies as messily as possible. Saturday included a talk on how independents can increase their sales on Amazon (e.g. have a well designed book cover, where the title can be read at thumbnail size), structured socialization for geeks, a reading by John Ringo, a worldbuilding workshop led by Bill Fawcett and Jody Nye, and an introduction to the Tiny Epic RPG, plus a few minutes in the Con Suite at the end of the evening. Sunday was standing on the front steps where a few guys were around John Ringo, each telling or embellishing tales, and then a two hour game design workshop with Bill Fawcett. And on Saturday evening we had dinner with Jonathan, who was in Chattanooga due to the vagaries of the railroad.
People met include Miriam Ringo, Dorothy and Peter Grant, Todd Lyles, Michaux Dempster, Bill Fawcett,  Toni Weisskopf, plus others I'd met before including John Ringo, Mike Williamson, and Sarah Hoyt, and others. About 600 people at the con, which is a nice size, not too crowded. Quite a drive to get there, but a lot of fun.

U.S. Space and Rocket Center

On the trip from Nashville to Chattanooga, we went by way of Huntsville AL to see the US Space and Rocket Center, with a pause at the Tennessee/Alabama border to pick up some fireworks. We spent about three hours, which wasn't enough time to see everything, but we did get a look at the Wernher von Braun exhibit, the Moon Program hall with the Saturn V in it, the A12 (precursor to the SR71), and the park with a timeline of interceptor missiles. I was tempted to go on the centrifuge--the G Force Accelerator, which subjects the rider to 3g--but, perhaps fortunately, it started raining and there was no one at the machine.
In retropect, we should have allocated a full day to this.