Rest day in Springfield, Virginia

We woke at 8:30 am and met Eric Decker, Amy's brother, and his boyfriend Max Sutherland, who are also visiting for a couple days. We had breakfast and talked about our trip with them. Lorraine played with their friendly kitty, Copper - he is very even-tempered and a good cat for three young boys. He is also the only cat that we had ever met that like to play "fetch" with his toy mice! We went for a ride in the car to see an alternate route that Pete thought we could take to get to the Mount Vernon Bike Path. Lenny stopped at the post office, we had lunch at McDonald's, and then bought some groceries for tomorrow. Eric and Max were following us in their jeep. They both had their shirts off so the kids started calling them "the nudie boys"! 

We came back to the house and spoke to Ed Passarelli, Pete's neighbor. Ed is a biker, and Pete thought that Ed might know of a way to get to the bike path that was not as heavily travelled. He came over later on to tell us about a way to get to the bike path, and offered to accompany us tomorrow with his son Eddie. He also left some trail information that was quite useful. It showed that the Rock Creek Trail, which we would be using, continued much further than we thought, and would keep us off the congested roads for an additional 23+ miles. 

Lorraine called her parents and her friend Kara. Eric and Max made dinner for us, a delicious meal of ribs, burgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob, salad, and baked beans. Max entertained us with stories about his mother's tiara, his closet full of shoes (including 6 pairs of cowboy boots), growing up in Indiana and Germany, and proper etiquette at the opera. We said goodbye to them, and to the kids, since we would be leaving early tomorrow. We had such a wonderful time with the Henrys and company. Being in their household with its fun-filled environment made us think about having some kids of our own!