Mountain Lodge (Dirty Dancing)

On Monday I hired a car and drove up to Mountain Lodge, about 16 miles outside Blacksburg. The drive up was ... interesting. The first half is a dual carriage way so fine. Then it goes to a windy road (in the dark at this point). Which was also fine, though I am glad I didn't see the sheer drop on the far side at this point. It was when the fog descended when I become a bit nervous. I couldn't see a few meters in front of the car at one point! And on an unfamiliar road in the dark, it's not a good place to be.

The entrance of the hotel is 2 large stone pillars. Just as I was approaching (very slowly) a huge stag stepped out of the fog and into the road, looked at me briefly and ran off. It was amazing!!!!!

After that I went into the hotel area. Well I drove around. It was deserted. There were a few lights on. The hotel is a huge stone thing. I have seen that film. The girl dies in that film! It was a little unnerving. In the end I kind of abandoned my car near the most likely entrance (thankfully I was right) and ran inside. It was sooooo cold! But they plied me with hot tea once I got there so all good. (And nothing like where my imagination was taking me!)

I went up there to do some outreach for the Elder Hostel. Over 50s from around the country descend and spend a week doing astronomy. I did a planetarium show on Monday night, which didn't exactly go to plan thanks to technical difficulties. They were supposed to go to a professional show but no one wanted to go outside so they got stuck with me! (Somewhat less that professional - hey it's been about 3 years since I last did one!)
But they were a great bunch and didn't seem to mind my fumbling. :-) I was going to go and have a drink with them afterwards but once I got to my room I crashed! (I was going to take a photo of the room as it was nice but I made a mess first!)

On Tuesday morning, I gave a 2.5 hr talk on the history of Astronomy.
1.) 2.5 hours is a long to talk for!
2.) I spent the weekend learning about the history as I have no clue.
3.) I had a historian in the front row how taught this for a living.
Still, it went well. I know my limits so when the historian interrupted (politely), I was happy to stop and let him talk. It was interesting and it gave me a break. (And he is going to email his notes so I can improve the talk for a later date.)

My talk room.

The hotel was nice but a bit old and out dated. The bathroom was impressively cold in the morning (and had no shower curtain so ended up very wet too!).  This was not helped by a snow storm over night. I braved it after my talk to take some photos.

Snow

There wasn't a lot, thankfully as I had to drive that day back down the mountain. But it made the lodge look very pretty.

Mountain lodge.

Mountain Lodge's claim to fame is it was the set of Dirty Dancing. They have a lot of things out to remind people. I need to rematch the film now. (I meant to before I went but work has been crazy so haven't had much downtime recently.)

Memorial to Patrick Swayze

From the gazebo

Unfortunately there is a lot less of a lake than there used to be. A lot less.

The boat house.

Jetting to the "lake"

And I found a helpful thermometer to prove how cold it was. And I should point out this was without wind chill.

Cold!

I do not like!

 I did like all the little (fearless) birds around.

I wanted to get more photos but it was just way too cold. I had double layered fleece gloves on and after 10 minutes,  I couldn't feel my hands! So I got in the car and went home!