With a steady drizzle on the windows and a muted morning light, I was able to sleep until almost 0630. While I was reading and working on puzzles/games, Mollie visited and brought Maple to spend time with me. We've all been really surprised at how much the dog seems to enjoy my presence in the apartment... Mollie and I had been trying make plans for all of us to do on the last full day of my visit to Fredericksburg but the best she could accomplish was to convince Alex to go with us to breakfast at the Metro Diner. We arrived there at 0830 and enjoyed some delicious food: I actually had the Thanksgiving Platter (turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy and green beans) but Mollie and Alex had more traditional "morning food." We were finished at about 0930 and returned to the apartment. After getting quickly ready for our excursion, Mollie and I departed for a walking tour of Fredericksburg. We arrived in the downtown area by about 1000 and, despite rain threatening throughout the rest of the morning, explored several blocks of historic old homes and businesses. The cooler temps (50s) required longer shirts for both of us. As she usually does, Mollie gravitated towards book stores and candle/scent shops. We also found a few dog themed business, including a book store called "Tales and Tails". One highlight for me was when we visited Old Mill Park, which was on a bluff above the Rappahannock River. At one point, we had a chance to walk across the river itself (on the Falmouth Bridge, into Stafford County) and we saw several birds in the water below. Signs indicated that we were following recreational/historical trails (with markers) - later, we figured out that we'd been walking on the Potomac Heritage Trail, which I've hiked in many other places over the years, and the Rappahannock River Heritage Trail. We followed the latter route on the south side of the river until we found a beautiful overlook and more history (the location where the Union soldiers built a pontoon bridge across the river to start the December 1862 Battle). During our walk, there had been a bit of sprinkling but no outright rain - we felt very lucky. Another bonus: we had brought my binoculars and they came in handy a few times while we were watching birds. By 1200, the town really began to wake up, with most business opening their doors to customers. Mollie checked out an antique shop she'd long been waiting to visit and then (1215) we stopped in at Cool Cat Cupcakes (an egg free, gluten free, dairy free confectioners shop) and I got a cupcake (Mollie told me she was still full from breakfast). While I was eating, we sat in some pink chairs (surrounded by pink on the walls) and had a nice conversation. We actually might have stayed there for the rest of the afternoon but, suddenly, Mollie reacted with surprise as one of her students arrived with her family! This was more of a shock, I think, because of the fact she doesn't teach in Fredericksburg and has only been at her school for a month. Everyone was friendly but Mollie appeared to want to depart as soon as we could. From the cupcake shop, we walked back to Mollie's car and departed Fredericksburg. We'd not really talked about what to do next but Mollie suddenly remembered a recommendation for a natural area with hiking trails: Crow's Nest (Stafford County). Like yesterday, she insisted I drive her car and acted as our navigator while we drove north and east towards the Accokeek Creek. Without a map, we didn't choose the "correct" parking lot initially and only found limited trails in the northern area of the park (1320). We did enjoy the boat launch and dock area and, when Mollie downloaded the Merlin app, we discovered many more birds in the trees than we'd actually been able to see with our eyes and binoculars. One sign prompted a funny exchange - Mollie told me she was getting tired of "seeing Captain John Smith references everywhere we go." Returning to Mollie's car, we drove a short distance on the blacktop and then a longer distance on gravel until we found the main parking area for the extensive trail system. Unlike the more isolated area we'd already seen, the peninsula we located at 1445 was nestled between a bend in the Potomac River and boasted many, many miles in the woods. Since we'd already had a good bit of outdoor time and walking, we only followed the Potomac Overlook Trail (shortest in the system). However, this route ended up having the most birds of anywhere we'd been all day - the Merlin app really came in handy! We wrapped up our day outside by 1530 and drove back to Mollie & Alex's apartment (arrived at 1600). Maple was very glad to see us and we played with her for a while. Alex was busy studying his Grad School assignments and Mollie wanted to get some dinner going - as a result, I ended up watching some of the rebooted "King of the Hill" episodes (on Hulu). Mollie brought out the first course of dinner (delicious Caesar salad) at about 1730 but then paused (for effect?) until around 90 minutes later before serving the rest of the food. We had gyro meat (on pitas) while we watched "La Dolce Villa" (a movie we'd seen before) on Netflix. Alex hung around with us for a bit but seemed kind of bored for a lot of the evening. As a result, I tried to retire to my room a few times. However, both he and Mollie seemed to want me to stay with them so we finished the evening watching some of Anthony Bourdain's shows ("No Reservations"). By 2130, everyone was quite tired but I stayed up to finish watching one more episode. Before falling asleep, I did some more reading and Duolingo - bedtime wasn't "official" until 2315. Another great day with Mollie!
