Lee and I drove from Maine to my sister Libba’s house in western New York State, where Libba and Simon had already arrived. Lee flew back to her home in Los Angeles, then Libba and I headed south to North Carolina — the start of my long drive back to Las Vegas.

Meanwhile my sister Roe had driven my nephew Harry and my mom back to North Carolina, and Anna and her husband Pete had driven their clan back there, too.

Libba and I took a route through the Shenandoah Valley to avoid Washington, D. C.. The ghosts of John Mosby (above) and Stonewall Jackson feel ever present in that valley. One of the roads we traveled was even named for Mosby — see the picture at the top of the post.

We stayed a night in Virginia, then reached Wilmington, N. C. the next day. As soon as we hit the Tar Heel State, we stopped for barbecue, at a reliable chain called Smithfield’s — reliable but not in the same class as Jackson’s in Wilmington, which makes barbecue that tastes like it did when I was a kid:

Oh, my . . .

Click on the images to enlarge.