The Magic Trip: Richmond, VA

So Robby and I had a pretty hectic year.

What with writing a musical, directing/musical directing shows, prepping for festivals and industry readings, we thought we needed a vacation.  The Wizarding World of Harry Potter Diagon Alley was opening this summer and the Potter fans we are, we obviously had to go.  And ok, twist my arm, we’ll go to Disney World as well.  ::jeez::

We drove down (which was an adventure since our car broke down–story to come!) and stopped along the way.  Obviously, we had to have entertainment for the drive down!

Our first stop was visiting our friend Ben in Richmond.  Now, we’ve known Ben since elementary school, so we go pretty far back.

He gave us a tour around Richmond.  We stopped on this hill where you could see the whole city.

Notice the bend in the James River?  Apparently, this view is how Richmond got its name.  It’s similar to the view of the River Thames in England at a royal village west of London called Richmond upon Thames.  William Byrd II was asked by the House of Burgess to plan a town at the Falls of the James in the early 1730’s.  He traveled several times to Richmond upon Thames and it’s believed that this view led him to name this new town “Richmond.”

Now, since I’ve known Ben since forever, I can be pretty frank with him.  So I was pretty adamant about one thing.  His car was filthy.  I told him I could barely see out the window. His response?

“Cris, I tried getting a car wash, but I couldn’t figure it out and I ended up driving out of the garage.”
“You’re ridiculous.  I’m taking your car through the car wash.”

Ben was so excited to go through the car wash.  I mean look at that car!

Once his car was somewhat cleaner, and we finished up our tour, we grabbed dinner at Heritage. If you ever make it down to Richmond, it’s is a great place to eat.  They split their dinner menu into “Small,” “Medium,” and “Large” plates.

We split the artisanal cheese platter to start.

Robby and Ben both had the House Made Charcuterie while I had the Bibb Salad with dates, fennel, feta, and pickled onion (I was hungry and forgot to get a photo of mine. It was delicious though!)

After dinner, Ben took us on a quick tour of his alma mater, The University of Richmond.  The campus was gorgeous and it reminded me so much of Hogwarts!

This was the English department.  I was jealous.

Robby and Ben were very studious.

After all that studying we headed back to Ben’s apartment where we played Mario Kart on Ben’s old Nintendo 64 just like when we were kids.  I was horrible.  Nothing’s changed.

After I lost (for the third time), we headed to bed since Robby and I were heading out early the next morning.

Little did we know, our car would break down and we’d get stuck in the middle of nowhere…