Vacation highlights: side stops on the way there...

On the way to the Outer Banks, we caravanned with one of my brothers and his wife, and mom took turns riding in each of our cars. Our route took us through Somerset, PA and so we stopped there to have a picnic lunch. We also went to nearby Shanksville, the location of the crash of Flight 93 on 9/11/01.

A permanent memorial is in the process of being built.  The wall that can be seen in this photo (click to enlarge) follows the trajectory of the flight.  The grassy area beyond the wall is the hallowed ground and resting place of those who lost their lives there that day.  Read more about the memorial here.

Since it was a two day trip to the beach, we stopped the first night in Fredericksburg, Va. After checking into our hotel, we found a nearby Italian place to eat and the food was excellent!

It was nice not to have to rush the next morning to finish our second travel day and so we took the morning to look around the town...

Definitely my kind of place, and I can't wait to come back and spend a few days seeing the historical sites.  We stumbled into a classic car show on the main street...

and I did cross the street to get one of these:

We came upon this museum, which was an apothecary...

We enjoyed the interesting presentations...

but they can keep these leeches!

I love this picture of my brother and his wife, who recently celebrated 40 years of marriage.

We found a great coffee shop...

and finally we got back on the road.  I was so excited when I saw this on our GPS: