2015 Starting a new year in Culpeper

Welcome to Culpeper, Virginia 2015.  I had a very busy December and Christmas.  We spent two weeks in California with our son Jeremy, his wife Shelly and their four kids and had a ball.  Then back to the Pepper just a few days before Christmas.  Some of our traditions had to be changed this year and it became the first Christmas eve and morning that Andrea and I had spent alone ever!  We made the most of it and spoiled each other a bit.  However it was a very nice Christmas with celebrations on both coasts and fun with all of the grandkids except one who could not come east this year. Then I bought a new car taking advantage of the year end sales and now I am eagerly awaiting this new year.  As I looked about for faces to shoot, I discovered that everyone had just slipped back into their own routines.  That is part of what makes life great.  All of these people let me interrupt their lives for just a few minutes.  Thanks to all of them.  Let's get on with seeing them they are all very cool people. 

I have known Misty Turner ever since I moved to Culpeper seven years ago.  So I  have known that she is a hairstylist, but I had never visited her salon until recently.  It is where she plies her trade and  works her magic.  She has a very loyal (and sometimes vocal) following.  I can see why.  In addition to regular stylist skills, in October Misty passed the prestigious ABCH exam which is very difficult and has less than 50% passage rate on first attempt.  Passing that test makes her an American Board Certified Master Haircolorist!  The customer, Rose, was most gracious in allowing me to take her picture while having her hair done.  Coincidentally I discovered that Rose is from my hometown of Boise, Idaho.  It seems like their are quite a few of us here.  Most of the Idaho transplants work for Micron which is a Boise based company with a plant in Manassas.  However that is not why Rose is here.  Back to Misty.....  you can contact her at:  HairbyMisty.com or 540 547 2002.

I wanted to do a picture for my Culpeper Times feature called, Rich Crowley's Snapshot of Culpeper, that showed how low the gas prices had gotten here in the Pepper.  I recruited Robin Mulkern a stay at home mom who writes as yet unpublished, childrens books, to pose by the gas price sign.  Within two days it had dropped to $1.99 and as I write this it is $1.95.  So sorry Robin, we did not make the paper on this one because the prices won't land in one spot long enough.   So far, that is good news.

I was busy waiting for my wife at TJMAXX (meanwhile she was busy waiting for me to pick her up at Belk.....just a small communication breakdown. :)  SORRY!!!) when I saw this young man working at the dressing room desk.  I could not resist making him one of my "faces of Culpeper."  This is Bobby Zajkowski and he is very cordial as you can see and appears to like his job.

Davis street was brightened a bit when Jill Engh began working at Harriet's General Store.  Pretty smile.

There is a tasty new restaurant/donut shop in town.  You can see that it is the famous Dunkin Donuts.  I used to stop by the shop in Fairfax occasionally and so it is very nice to have one here.
 This onehas a drive thru for convenience or just a quick hit.  They also feature sandwiches, soft drinks and coffee.

Pravina Patel is the manager.

This is the crew.  This picture started out as perfectly centered against the wall of donuts and only included Pravina and Sam, the gentleman on the left of her.  However, they started grabbing other people and calling for still more and soon the whole group was there.  For me that was perfect, the more the merrier.  The only problem was that we had lost our perfect centering and customers were starting to line up behind me.  There are few people in the world that are more anxious than people whose mouths are watering for donuts.  So...... as an act of self preservation I hurried and shot the picture...uncentered.  As I am writing on this blog they have been open about ten days and I have purchased 14 donuts.  That is more donuts than I have had in the last five years..... they are that good!

 I was fortunate to catch this man in a quiet moment at Sleepy's Mattress so I could grab his picture.  This nice guy is Ryan Davis and he is a genuine resident of Culpeper.  He graduated from CCHS and now works at Sleepy's.

It is that time of year....darn it!   It is time to start thinking about filing taxes. Lettie Glenz and America Rodriguez were outside the Liberty Tax office and it was freezing.  They kept their smiles and I got their picture.  They are dressed as the Statue of Liberty if you hadn't guessed,and these two attract attention.  By the way, Lettie, along with her husband  is the co-owner of this Liberty Tax.  I told him that she needed a raise and he agreed.

It seems that most of the time I shop at Staples, Monica Newman is the woman that takes my money or maybe I should say that she checks me out.  Since that is case, I could not resist putting this great smile in my blog.

Eddie Decker has lived in Culpeper four years.  He is from New York (pretty sure he says New Yawk) and works at Culpeper Light and Power Department.  He lives here with his wife Stacy and has two daughters.  AND his truck looked spotless.  Every other vehicle was covered with salt and grime, but Eddie's sparkled.





BIG FINISH

My next blog is going to feature people of Culpeper and their canine pets.... their dogs.  It seems that everyone but me has one.  Here is Vicky Hale from Culpeper who is a dentist with her office located in Orange,  She is with her two sons and Clementine her Bloodhound which she refers to as her child. Notice that Clementine has ear rings and that her nails are painted.  There will be lots more of these kinds of pictures in the next blog.  If you want to be a part of it, email me at richcrowle@gmail.com

That's it for now.  Keep an eye out for me so that you too can be one of my Culpeper faces.  Be sure to check out my picture in the Culpeper Times each week.  My feature is called Rich Crowley's Snapshot of Culpeper.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!