Tango at Freedom Plaza

Our dance instuctor in Argentine Tango recommended that we try the free Sunday evening Argentine Tango Milonga at Freedom Plaza put on by the Capitol Tangueros. The event is held every Sunday evening from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM during the summer. There were dancers at all levels of expertise. The outdoor dance surface was a little rough for the traditional ballroom dance shoe so it's better to wear either leather sole shoes or dance sneakers.

We are glad we went. The best way to get better at dancing is by dancing.

Freedom Plaza is located at 14th Street and Pennsylvania Ave NW, near Federal Plaza Metro Station. Admission is free.

Busy Day Dancing

We had a busy day yesterday. It was mostly dancing, so it was all good. We had our Argentine Tango lesson from Anthony from Tango Duos at 4:00 PM at Lioudmila's. We then had dinner at one of our favorite Chinese restaurants, House of Dynasty. For the main event we danced to the Key West Band at the Harris Pavilion in Manassas.

Anthony moved our Argentine Tango lessons to start at 4:00. The Tango Duos will be teaching us from 4:00 until 5:00. After that they teach a beginner class at 5:00 and then an intermediate class at 6:00. After the summer they will go back to teaching beginner, intermediate, and advanced one right after another. Anthony is a great instructor. He and his partner break down the steps well and he is very patient. With us patience in an instructor is a key ingredient to a good class. Our instructors need all they can get with us as students.

You can find a Chinese restaurant or two in any shopping center in the area. Once in a while you come across a decent one. Very occasionally, you find a really good one. One of the best in the area just happens to be on the way home from Lioudmila's. This House of Dynasty in the Hayfield Shopping Center on Telegraph Road. The service and food are always excellent. They do little things to make the dining experience unique. Things like the little dish of lemon sherbet to cleanse the pallet before the main course and the hot towel when you're finished.

We like to play a game with the fortune cookies. When reading the fortune put the words "in bed" at the end of the fortune. It always puts a twist to the meaning. For instance, mine said yesterday, "Enthusiasm is contagious. Not having enthusiasm is also contagious.". Good advice in any context.

We met our friends Janet and Jeff, and Kathy and Randy, at the Harris Pavilion for dancing to the Key West Band. The Harris Pavilion in Manasssas has a series of dances through the summer with a variety of bands. We heard the Key West Band last year and were glad to see that they were on the calendar again this year. We got to dance some rhumba, cha-cha, and lots of swing.

So we had a busy day. What could be better than getting together with friends and dancing the night away?

Dirty Dancing at Mountain Lake

We traveled to Mountain Lake Hotel on Friday to participate in their Dirty Dancing weekend. Mountain Lake Hotel is one of the locations where the hit movie Dirty Dancing was filmed 20 years ago. The hotel is located in southwestern Virginia just outside of Blacksburg. It's kind of rustic; my cellphone didn't even work and there was no TV in the room. I did find the alarm clock, though. It took about 6 hours of driving to get there. Late in the afternoon there was a terrific thunderstorm. Lots of lightning and loads of rain. We were glad we were staying in the hotel proper and not one of the cabins. We would have gotten soaked going to dinner. We had one of those package deals where the price included the activities and meals for the weekend.

By 8:00 PM the weather had cleared and we were able to go to the dancing in the Activities Barn. They had a DJ who started out playing the songs from the movie. Lots of swings and a couple of Rhumbas, Mambos, and Hustles. We danced from 8:00 to 10:30, which was good because dinner was great and we needed to burn off a couple of hundred calories.

We took a Dirty Dancing tour on Saturday morning. The guide had been working there when they filmed the movie and had a lot of insights and information about the filming of the movie. You might recognize the bungalow where Baby's family stayed and the "No Guests" sign from the movie. The bungalow has changed somewhat over the years. They added the stone wall and moved the staircase.




After the tour we went back to the Activities Barn to play Dirty Dancing Trivia Bingo. Our table won free Dirty Dancing T-shirts. During the trivia game, hotel staff passed out copies of the hotel register page where Patrick Swayze and several other cast members signed in. We noticed that Cynthia Rhodes, who played Penny, stayed in the same room that we did. I can honestly say that Penny and I slept in the same bed. OK, it was twenty years apart, but I can still say it. Quickstepper got her picture taken with a special someone, also.


A local dance studio, Sapphire Ballroom & Dance Center, came up and gave dance lessons during the afternoon. They had beginners classes on Mambo, Meringue, and Foxtrot. It was a good review for us and we got a couple of hours of practice. The instructors from the class had a showcase after dinner. This showcase was based on music and scenes from the movie. The showcase was followed by a couple of hours of general dancing. All-in-all, we got almost 5 hours of dancing in on Saturday.

On Sunday, we ate breakfast and hit the road for home. We took the southern route home; I-81 to I-64, then up Route 29 at Charlottesville to Route 17 toward Fredericksburg. We saw plenty of rain, but the only significant traffic was on I-95.