I know it appears rather lame that we seem to be taking more days off than not lately and only cycling one day before resting one or two days, but we decided to spend Halloween in a city where there would be entertaining ways to celebrate the holiday.  Since we were in Richmond and the next real city is several days away, we arranged to stay two nights with Dennis and Crystal before moving on to the small town of Petersburg.  It was an excellent decision, and we did have a great Halloween.

An appropriate place to spend time on Halloween

Phil and I made strawberry pancakes for our hosts back at Crystal’s house.  Afterwards, Crystal took us to Hollywood Cemetery, which was only a block from her house.  We walked around the whole cemetery, exploring, admiring, and taking photos.  The cemetery is known for being the resting place for thousands of soldiers from the Civil War as well as three former presidents and a few other famous people.

After the cemetery, we went back to the house, where Dennis had just sold his SWEET bus (Schoolbus for Wandering Exploring Everything Tight)to the neighbors, who plan on taking it down to Florida to live for the winter.  Then we walked to the 821 cafe for lunch, where I ate a delicious Union burger (with mushrooms, Swiss cheese, onion rings, lettuce and tomato).  Crystal let us try her fried artichoke sandwich, which was surprisingly tasty.

The quarry on Belle Isle

After some time back at the house, we went to the river and walked across a suspension foot bridge to Belle Isle, where we walked along the river to a quarry.  I never knew Richmond had such natural beauty.

On the way back, we stopped to buy candy for trick-or-treaters.  We sat, passing out candy and drinking wine on the porch of Crystal’s house with her roommate, Emma, and some of their friends.  Then came the parade.  I had never seen or heard of a Halloween parade, but there is one in Richmond.  Unfortunately, it started raining shortly before the parade was scheduled to start, so it was shorter than usual.  It was still amazing.

All dressed up for Halloween

Crystal let Phil and I borrow some of her clothing to dress up for the occasion.  Phil turned himself into a fine pirate, while I donned a traditional Bavarian dress to become a German woman.  Crystal made herself into a zombie.  We went back to Dennis’s dad’s house before going out to Sticky Rice, a restaurant that offers half off sushi after 10:30pm on Mondays.  There, we met Lauren, who has biked across the country twice – once with Bike and Build and then again two years later as a promotional ride for a vodka company.  She was excited for us and bought us a drink, as well as gave us a donation!  The bartenders, John and Sophie, were also very good to us.  Sophie was particularly interested in our trip, since she had done some traveling before and was saving up to do it again.  After having one last sushi roll, we walked back to Dennis’s dad’s house for the night.