More rain here...we need it. I would have enjoyed more in the spring and summer.
I was actually a pretty lousy cousin ... but it wasn't my fault. My folks grew up in WA/ID and moved cross-country after graduation, so I grew up way away from the whole brood of cousins, who I never really got to know.
I will echo Aimo's observation: the Shenendoah valley is indeed beautiful. I grew up in Waynesboro lamenting the small-town atmosphere, and I have spent the rest of my life wondering what the heck I was thinking then. I would love to move back there, but The Boss has other priorities.
I have a second cousin in that branch who grew up in different places b/c her dad was in the Air Force. She spent her high school years in Bridgewater and then went to James Madison in Harrisonburg. Actually, when she started, it was Madison College and all girls. Her ring says Madison but her diploma says JMU. Anyway, she then joined the Air Force and lived all over, finally retiring a few years back in San Antonio. Both of her parents died in the fall of 2014 in Bridgewater. She got the house, so she moved back, renovated the house, and is living the valley life now.
I'm guessing your second cousin was in Bridgewater within maybe a few years of the time I was at Waynesboro and the two high schools were both in the Valley District. I remember at least one football game, probably in 1970, that I traveled to Bridgewater to see. There were several smallish liberal arts oriented colleges within a short drive back then: Madison, Bridgewater, Mary Baldwin (in Staunton) ... all my faulty memory can dredge up at the moment. I was amazed when I was back there around 2010 at just how much JMU had grown.
Walla alert Aimo.