Here, to be specific, is Emmitsburg, MD which is just south of the Mason-Dixon line. No, I'm not (well, probably not) going to go there. It's too (I really shouldn't) easy. We spent yesterday (let's see how my snark level goes) prepping for the next few steps as well as cleaning up after the World Police and Fire Games.
The high point (food alert! food alert!) of the day? That came last night when we were invited to the home of an Alexandria, VA copper for dinner. Homemade gumbo and red beans and rice. Let me just say YES LORD!!! Man that stuff was good. I could probably spend the rest of this post singing the praises of that food, but I'll spare you all the details except to say GOOD CHRIST IT WAS AMAZING!!!
Bennie invited us over, his wife Deanna cooked; Michael, a youth liaison guy from Alexandria shuttled us and we met Will from Fairfax County FD there too. Will was the guy that set up our stay at the WP&FG, really good dude. He's running for city council in Alexandria so we had a nice chat about politics. Just a really great evening with amazing people and SWEET BABY JESUS WONDERFUL FOOD.
As Bennie and I were shooting the breeze about nothing in particular he mentioned he had lost his son two years ago at 15 years old. So we shared some of our common thoughts and experiences and talked about Cameron and Caitlin for about an hour I guess.
This morning we drove up to the aforementioned Emmitsburg, checked out the Fallen Firefighters Memorial on the grounds of the National Fire Academy, were fed lunch at a local watering hole and then drove 45 minutes to a small town carnival honoring the local FD making 50 years of existence. Really nice crowd, we were well received and we sold a goodly amount of t-shirts, etc. which is always nice. They fed us dinner there too, great homemade meatloaf and (this is rapidly devolving into an episode of Man-vs-Food I'm afraid) fried chicken and dropped some funnel cakes on us too.
Side note- Dave Graybill had never heard of funnel cakes before tonight.
I know, right?
That's just wrong.
This evening's lodging is being provided by the Vigilant Hose Company. That's the FD here in Eburg. Don't ask me why they call it that instead of, oh...for instance... the Emmitsburg Fire Department. I can't answer that. It's an east coast thing, there's a lot of volly FD's out here with funky names.
We're staying at the firehouse tonight...
I'll just leave that one out there for a bit...
I'm sitting in the kitchen of the firehouse as I type this, it's actually really nice, better than our Station 2 if you're familiar with that. And this is an old house.
But back to our lodging. This is the first time I've stayed in a firehouse on tour, and it's afforded the opportunity to do something I've always joked about, but would never actually do.. Since this house typically is unmanned (I don't know why they have a bunk room but, hey, who am I to question?) tonight and tomorrow night we actually turned off the tones! If these guys get a call tonight, we'll sleep right through it, undisturbed by the obnoxious ringing of bells that we usually (almost always) wake (really we very rarely sleep through calls) to when someone (almost never happens) calls 9-1-1 in the (I've done it) middle of the (twice) night.
Ahh sweet slumber.
Speaking of which, it's going on 1:00 AM as I write this so I'm going to bed.
Good night everybody!
Peace.
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