You may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.
Mid-autumn frivolities: The Visitor's Centre at the Sherando Lake Recreation Area, administered by the USDA's Forest Service.
The Williams Branch of the North Fork Back Creek, 8 November, with no one here (besides us).
The Lunch Lady is carting our comestibles over to our favorite benches.
It's a warm enough day for a leisurely lunch and an hour or so with our improving books, but now . . .
. . . we'll fit in our regular dash up the 'cliff trail' above the lake.
Topping out some 20 minutes later, with . . .
. . . a clear view of the lake below (which would be impossible in the vegetation-choked summertime).
Our guide is waiting for us, sort of patiently.
Down through the now very familiar zig-zags that wind through the cliffy bits
One more zag below, down to the dam, and back to the carpark.
A ten minute drive north towards Interstate 64, and ten more on that to home.
With, just before the highway entrance, our reliable fun spot if the breezes cooperate . . .
. . . like today.
After a road trip north on I-81 to the Best Buy in Harrisonburg (to pick up our lame Dell laptop from the 'Geek Squad', we need to stop in at Kristin's favorite shawarma place near the James Madison University campus.
It's really very good.
Sometimes Choupette just likes to get off alone for a while, and the seldom used back staircase out of our study is a favorite hideout.
From which remarkable scenic views are sometimes to be had
Another favorite hiding place
-- Melvin won't get out of the chair, and I want to use it now!
Mr Mel has his own considered way of posing for photographs.
Comparing notes about the weather
The cat tower has been moved (to make room for the forthcoming holiday crèche), and the kids are trying to get used to it over here.
-- Is she gone?
A minor disagreement about something
(Choupette would prefer that Melvin move away so that she can inhabit the top of our little stair).
-- It's nothing to do with you. Beat it.
The Staunton Christmas Parade
Commotion in the streets! We'll hurry down and investigate.
Ah, of course. 25 days before Christmas, it's the Staunton Christmas Parade.
Nobody's parading, just groups of oddly dressed people milling about. Mustering the troops, as it were. And despite the appalling low temperatures, nearly everyone is laughing.
Our intersection's being kept clear, but noisy crowds are lined up, and laughing, with little kids, in three directions. (There's a city truck blocking off the fourth leg, down to the left towards the main street.)
Still no parading though. We'll walk up Augusta Street a ways.
They're still marshaling the participants before starting. If it's meant to begin at 7 p.m., these folks have half an hour still to chill out.
It doesn't all look like fun, though.
The 'FFA' may indicate the Appalachian or the Blue Ridge branch of the national FFA, formerly called the Future Farmers of America, 'an intracurricular student organization'. [There's a high school chapter at Buffalo Gap, 10 miles west of here.]
-- Hey, that's my bank. What's going on? It looks like one or more marching bands.
(We've been told that the high school bands in the region rotate through the weekends to the Christmas parades in other towns.)
An awful lot of them are congregating round the ATM machine. Suspicious?
So far we've seen schools of all age groups, local companies, charity groups, civic utilities, various kinds of clubs, including . . .
. . . the American Shakespeare Center. In costume.
Could that banner signify an FFA branch in the Buffalo Gap high school?
Festive lights everywhere, and a Grinch
The American Shakespeare folks from behind
Some of the thematic intentions aren't immediately clear.
We're near the end of the line-up so far. In one Christmas parade that we attended (as spectators), in 2019, there were 105 participating organizations that year, so there may be far more groups still to hurry along and line up here.
For the Veterans' Day Parade that year, there were crowds and crowds of martially clad cadets from the military academics, local political celebrities, school bands and youth groups, and most of all, many many older overweight men on 2- and 3-wheel motorcycles.
The Legacy Renovation team is here.
Kids lining up in front of the Catholic church campus (the billboard says 'Pregnant? Need help?').
It's hard to tell what that's about.
Or that
Back to our intersection
Up our own street, E. Frederick St, towards what must be the head of the line.
The idea is that the floats come down past the Catholic church, turn left at the empty intersection, come up this way past the Presbyterian church and then turn down to Beverley Street, the main drag, and carry on through the downtown. It's all very inspiring.
An affable police presence
Outside our front door, pushing through the crowds is becoming less fun, and as it's . . .
. . . really cold out there, we've retired to our mezzanine to watch for the parade to get underway.
They're finally on the march, but we're too far away to benefit from these ingenious presentations.
Lots of marching bands
There goes that crowd of sorry bench sitters. Poor kids.
That's a small family with a big costumed figure and a bunch of dogs.
Majorettes leading the way for another marching band
It looks like we got to caught up in the wonders of the telly and missed most of the parade from about 50 meters away. The main groups have come down the hill, and now we get some lit up vehicles that have had to wait for the end of it.
However long or short the parade has been, and it's very long mustering exercise, we note that there aren't very many observers hanging about by this time.
That's a nice house across from the Nu-Beginning 'farm-to-fork cafe' and grocery on Lewis St.
This year's Christmas crèche is beginning to take shape. Much more to come.
An unresolved question of who gets the comfy blue cat bed this time.
With only, perhaps, a little quiet resentment.
But life goes on.
Next up: Dispatches are awaited.
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All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 7 December 2025.
