Original Middlesex County Courthouse, Urbanna, Middlesex County, VA. (circa 1748 - 1852)

Well you are already in the Courthouse Group I see--this is certainly a keeper!

Thanks Doug. I was looking at some of your photos earlier today and realizing there is still more to see and shoot down your way. A lot more. I had fun meeting a fellow fan of photographing historic places at a church in north/western Middlesex Co. I tried to talk him into joining us here.

Oh we are nothing if not landscape. Newport News (the Native American word meaning "Ditchwater" or "Mosquito Swampland") probably has more classic nail parlors, hair salons, bad restaurants and storefront splinter churches per capita than anywhere else on Earth. Wouldn't want you to miss 'em--COME ON DOWN! (Hint: don't wait until our roads are repaired). ;)

My buddy lives down there and there is one place that sells seafood in the front and has a little no nonsense restaurant on the side. You place your oder at the window and they call your number when it's ready. Although donald trump would never be caught there, the food is generally good. However I don't think it's in Newport News proper. I think it's in Hampton. So despite all of the nail salons, there's some good to be found if you know where to go.

I have had the ineffable pleasure of living in the Hampton and Newport News areas since 1967. I have found absence makes the heart grow fonder and allows time for more nail salons to be built. Whether the hair salons are yet ready for Donald Trump I am not sure--I would think anyone with a powerful vacuum cleaner and sharpened hedge shears would be in business. Roughly one good restaurant in Newport News for fifty bad ones, I would say. But you are right, after forty five years you know all six or seven good restaurants, and even some in Hampion (Surf Rider, Gha Bua Kham).

Check out this guys photos..... http://www.flickr.com/photos/prettytony/7168119441/in/pool-travel_virginia#/photos/prettytony/7168119441/in/pool-1062116@N22/

Fortunately the old Court House (yes I photographed it too) is on Old Courthouse Way, well off the main drag, stuck in with a firehouse, a public library, a police station, and a part of the department of social services, or it too would have had to be torn down to make space for new nail salons of the 21st Century. As it is, I believe it is open to the public only one day per week for a part of a day.

What's a suave fellow like you doing checking out pictures on Yahoo?

The redneck bubba in me makes me post pics there also. A word like "Yahoo" has been a part of the southern vernacular for ages, I think it's safe to say that General Lee's boys said "Yahoo", quite often when providence smiled upon them and they gave the Yankees a good lickin. Come to think of it I think Oriole's fans said the same thing when Boog Powell would hit a home run or Brooks Robinson snagged a hard hit liner down the third base line to defeat the Yankees back in the day. Where as "Google" seems much less familiar as a term and more like something that came in with the nail salons.

You make an excellent point, as I would expect--my embracing of and seduction by "Panoramio" was long enough ago that I did not expect to wake to find myself in bed with Google--a rather uncomfortable awakening as you may imagine. But by then my ego was out of control . . . .

As to "Yahoo," one should I think reach back to Dean Swift's Gulliver's Travels. As Lemuel Gulliver did so long ago (1726), I have definitely come down on the side of the Houyhnhnms, effectively cutting myself off from the other Yahoos . . . .

ummmm the other thing is Flickr wants me to pay money to post more than 200 pics. That's not going to happen. I'll always keep panoramio as my main focus. I like the Houyhnhnms that I have met here.

I myself have not a nickel to spare for self-aggrandizement, so I suppose I should be more nearly grateful for my now many thousand opportunities to annoy the public with my art--and my Dad's artwork . . . .

We are in the same boat.

Ars gratia artis.