Girls Weekend 2015-Richmond, Virginia

Thursday, October 22, 2015 – Richmond, VA 

above the clouds on the way to Richmond, VA for Girls Weekend

(the following was written by Kathi)

It’s finally here!! The 18th annual Girls Weekend. It’s weird, the year seems to fly, then when 

GW is approaching it slows to a crawl and feels like it will never ever be time…and then, 

suddenly, it’s time! Lordy, do we love Girls Weekend. Just sayin’. 

In order for us to have the majority of the day here, poor Lori had to take the red eye. She arrived 

first at about 10:30, then I arrived an hour later. My bag actually showed up when I did, unlike 

last year, and soon we were in a taxi and on our way to our Airbnb in Carytown, an area of 

Richmond that, according to my reading, was a somewhat funky, somewhat eclectic 

neighborhood with lots of places to eat and shop, and great for walking.  We arrived before the 

adorable little basement apartment we were renting was ready, but we got to meet our host Fiona, 

and her cute little dog Squeaker. We offloaded our bags and took off for a walk and to find some 

food while Fiona completed cleaning the place. 

Lori had been doing some research and suggested we eat at the Daily, a nice little place with 

outdoor seating and a good lunch menu. After received copious amounts of directions and 

suggestions from Fiona – who could talk a blue streak – we went to find the Daily restaurant and 

had a delightful lunch while sitting outside. It was a gorgeous day – about 78 degrees and 

brightly sunny, and we enjoyed a cup of soup (curried sweet potato for both of us, yummy!). 

Then Lori had a big chicken salad and I had tofu lettuce wraps. Yep, I said tofu lettuce wraps. I 

have been ordered by my doctor to ditch dairy and carbs as much as possible for a while, and I’m 

trying to be a good girl. We’ll see what the dinner report is a few days from now, but our lunch 

was nice and healthy, and tasted good too. 

After lunch we walked about a half mile up the street looking into a few shops, and ended up at 

Kroger where we grabbed some snacks for the room. I didn’t have much sleep before my 5:45 

am flight but had been able to sleep soundly on both legs of my trip here, but Lori was starting to 

crash from lack of sleep, so we walked back to find that our apartment was just about ready. Half 

an hour and several thousand words from Fiona later, we were settled into comfy chairs in our 

cute little place and had a nice chat, until at about 4:30 Lori gave in to the great need for a nap. 

While she slept I made my picks in the football pool, submitted midterm grades for the Public 

Speaking class I’m teach this semester, and started writing this journal…none of which was the 

thesis writing I was supposed to be doing. Gotta be more disciplined than that for the rest of the 

trip. 

                         The little apartment that we are staying in is in the basement of this home.  Our entrance is on the left hand side of this picture , down the steps.  It is a truly darling little place and only one block away from all the action on Cary Street.

After Lori woke up and freshened up we set out to find some dinner, deciding on a pseudo Indian 

place called Curry Craft with a nice atmosphere, great wine, and somewhat mediocre and quite 

disappointing Chicken Tikka Masala. We decided that if we wanted Indian again on this trip we 

would try to traditional place up the street, run by real Indians. We have found ourselves several 

times over the years dining in front of a lovely or interesting window, and we have a nice 

assortment of pictures. Our table at the fake Indian restaurant was by a great window, so we 

asked the extremely willing and helpful server to go outside and take our picture.  There was so 

much glare that in the end she came back to take the shot from the inside looking out. 

       

After dinner, before strolling back home, we went into the Byrd Theater, a circa 1920s movie 

theater (I’m making that up right now, I’ll correct it later when I find out the real year it was 

built) which had “Phantom of the Opera” on its marquee, to find out if they were going to show 

the original circa 1950s (I’m making that up too, I just know I watched it as a kid) Bela Lugosi 

version I so loved as a child. As it turns out, they were actually planning to screen the REAL 

original 1925 Lon Chaney SILENT FILM version, and it would be accompanied by someone 

playing the theater’s Wurlitzer organ in the manner the movie was meant to be seen, and the 

organ was meant to be played. One showing only, at 7:30 the following night. 

                                         

Well, any of you who know me and Lori know that there was no way we were going to miss that. We immediately decided to alter the plans we had made for Friday so that we could attend this showing.  

We left the theater and went across the street to treat ourselves to scoops of homemade pumpkin 

ice cream with hot fudge (you’ll hear more about the folly of this decision later) and walked 

home to enjoy it in our little sitting area, then chatted until both of us were quite tired and went 

to bed.  The big queen size bed was quite comfy, and after spending only a fraction of our usual 

bedtime talking time, we were asleep.