Visiting Friends in Great Falls

On Friday 25 May we hired car. This was interesting for 2 reasons. Firstly, we started to get an insight into how spread out everything is in the USA; it was a 55 minute drive just to get to the hire car centre. Fortunately for us, Bill and Lydia were happy to give us a lift there and tie the journey in with a trip for them to the garden centre. Fabulous!

Secondly, we very nearly hired the car without any insurance. In Europe a hire car fee always includes the insurance. It was only because we asked a couple of questions about the excess (deductible) if we were to have a bump that we discovered that insurance was not included in the quote. That turned out to be $25 a day extra which, for an 11 day hire, made it significantly more expensive than anticipated.

However, with the paperwork done and after a short detour to fill up with fuel we were all set for the 110mile drive up towards Washington DC and out to the west a little to get to Great Falls. The route took us through some of the parts of Virginia that were settled first and also past the sites of many of the military actions in the 1812 War. At nearly every mile there was a sign recording any historic activity in that area.

Phil and Lesley’s home in Great Falls

We had expected the journey to be very slow because of the anticipated extra traffic from people escaping for the Memorial Day Bank Holiday weekend. But, as it turned out, we made very good time and arrived at Phil and Lesley’s lovely house by about 1330. We hadn’t seen Phil or Lesley since they moved to the USA 10 years ago and so, as you would imagine, there was an awful lot to catch up on. We planned to use their home as a base for the next 11 days which meant that we’d be able to share two good weekends with the whole family and also make some touristy trips out during the week when the rest of the household would be busy with school and work.

Great Falls, VA, USA