We just returned from our daughter’s graduation from Basic Training at Fort Jackson.  She has been gone since May 12 and has spent a total of three days in our new house.  It was good to see her – we’re very proud of all she endured and learned.  My husband and oldest daughter had to return home the next morning for work on Monday but my parents and I headed for Virginia to take our National Guard girl to Little Creek Naval Base in Norfolk for four weeks of additional training at the Army School of Music.  

My husband drove from South Carolina to northern Illinois in 12 hours… but it took my parents and I three days to get home from Virginia.  My parents subscribe to the ”get off the Interstate and see something once in a while” school of travel.  Ah… the travel of my childhood!

So – this has little or nothing to do with librarianship – but we enjoyed one of our unplanned stops so much that I wanted to recommend it to you.

If you are on I-64 crossing the border between Kentucky and West Virginia, make sure you pull off the road at Kenova, West Virginia.  (Kenova – Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia)  Right downtown is the Griffith & Feil Drugstore and soda fountain.  It was just like the soda fountain of my childhood (and my father’s) at Day’s Drugstore in my hometown.  You can see some lovely photos at:  http://rickleephoto.blogspot.com/2007/07/griffith-feil.html  And you can read more about it at http://www.huntingtonquarterly.com/articles/issue65/ceredo_kenova.php and

http://www.herald-dispatch.com/business/x1103456912/Griffith-and-Feil-continues-family-drug-store-tradition .

I recommend the chocolate soda…. It is made and tastes like it SHOULD be made and taste.

Enjoy the last days of summer.