On the tourist trail

Another day 'off' today (I know, we are going soft). We cycled into town to find a bike shop so that I could get the back tyre pumped up - again!  Next stop the tourist information centre to pick up a map of a walking tour round Lexington and some information about good routes from here to Roanoke, our next stop. The walking tour was more interesting than we expected including, as it did, 2 fascinating museums - the George C Marshall museum which covered his life and in particular the Marshall Plan which, for younger readers, followed WW2. The other museum was the Virginia Military Institute museum, which showed life over the last 150 years at the place, which is now a University where all undergrads are cadets, wear uniforms etc. apparently if found in a 'Not alright place' when there is a random check done they have to 'bone' themselves - I decided I'd rather not know. Also went round an extraordinary collection of antique guns and met the VMI American football team mascot - see photo!

The museum of military memorabilia had a rather strange entrance (see below) and the sign indicating where it was stood right beside. A sign proclaiming 'Baby's first gifts' - which conjured up an interesting combination.   We also passed the 'Stitchin Shop' where 'fibre artists go to play', a furniture shop holding a grand tent sale without a tent in sight and a jewellery shop saying 'It is impossible for the diamond in her ring to be too big, just like it is impossible for your car to be too fast!'  I loved the sign for the coffee shop shown below.   Finally, on our way back from dinner tonight we diverted to watch part of a game of American football - just two school teams and I don't think they were allowed to call time-outs, but it still went on interminably and incomprehensibly with nothing appearing to happen apart from people randomly running into other people. There were numerous officials on the pitch - I counted at least 7 - but this may have been because they all looked too large to move far from where they were positioned, although the game moved so slowly this was unlikely to be a problem