We were late for the second day of camp. We were running just about on time until we hit a traffic situation on I-95. About 15 minutes away from our exit, traffic ground to a halt. We crawled along at 2 miles an hour or less. Traffic condensed from 3 lanes to two lanes and then down to one.

Finally, we hit the source of the problem:

45 painful minutes later, we finally got to our exit and made it to art camp.

My son and I then drove around looking for something to do. I thought we might take a look at the Virginia Historical Society. This is a wonderful place to spend some time. It has great exhibits, plenty of free parking and even a good spot to eat your lunch.

But it was closed!

So, we drove around, sat in the car and waited until it was time to get the girls. It was kind of a bust of a morning.

That afternoon, it was another scorcher and we needed to do something inside. I settled on touring the most recent exhibit at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

The exhibit contained rougly 200 photographs of African Americans from the 1890’s to the present day. There were historical prints, fashion magazines and art photographs. I asked my children to try to pay attention to how the hairstyles and clothes changed throughout each era. I’m not sure they grasped what the exhibit was about but they had two favorite pieces. One was an artistic work of a large close-up photograph of a Barbie doll face photoshopped in a mosaic with African American features. “Barbie!” they called out. They also liked watching an art film where footage from a Texas beauty pageant with the first African American winner was set to the Psycho soundtrack and sped up and slowed-down in certain places. My favorite pieces were the family portraits from the 1890’s with elegantly dressed families in outdoor settings.

This was one of my fast days but the VMFA desserts did me in. I couldn’t bear to throw my son’s barely touched cinnamon scone away. Then I had to finish off my daughter’s vanilla cupcake (which had the strongest and creamiest vanilla flavor I have ever tasted).

It was hot and bright and time to get home to rest up for the next day.

As we drove home, we noticed that I-95 southbound was still butter-jammed! The traffic did not seem any better than it was over 6 hours earlier!

It had been a day with rough patches but we managed to salvage it. I was proud of my kids for rolling with the punches rather than getting upset about all that didn’t go according to plan. It’s one of life’s best organizing lessons.