Springing the Blues, part 1: getting there

Glen Allen, Virginia, April 2, 2008
We're dying for a good meal. It's been almost 48 hours since our last bite of Real Food, a roast beef sandwich at the famous Rein's Deli in Conncecticut. I violated one of my cardinal rules of restaurants yesterday by driving 10 miles off our route onto a peninsula in southern Maryland for lunch at Captain John's Seafood. Captain John's is not to be confused with Cap'n Jack's or Captain D's, or its neighbor, Captain Billy's, whose weathered billboard on the highway suggests it has either seen better days or it hasn't, ever. I think I can safely add a "No 'Captains'" rule to our restaurant guide.
We made a more pleasant stop in Orange, Virginia, home of Billy Cooper's Music Store. This is the pedal steel guitar capital of the Eastern Seaboard. They have an amazing assortment of steel guitars for sale, and other instruments as well. My favorite item in the store is the pad of post-it notes with a little picture of a pedal steel on each note. The artwork takes up a lot of space on the tiny square, but it's cute and it provides entertainment for us "steel widows."