{"id":3873,"date":"2022-11-25T16:45:22","date_gmt":"2022-11-25T12:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/?p=3873"},"modified":"2022-11-25T16:45:22","modified_gmt":"2022-11-25T12:45:22","slug":"natural-and-unnatural-goodness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/?p=3873","title":{"rendered":"Natural and unnatural goodness"},"content":{"rendered":"

On today’s episode of\u00a0Math and Musings<\/em><\/a> you’ll hear me talk about my recent trip to Natural Bridge, Virginia. For most people the highlight of this locale is, well, the\u00a0natural bridge<\/em>, a 200-foot tall stone edifice rising above a tributary of the James River, forming an archway that has awed natives and settlers for hundreds if not thousands of years. Sitting on land once owned by none other than Thomas Jefferson himself, it is now under the management of Virginia’s state park system. It’s basically the Grand Canyon of the east; one has to see it in person to appreciate it.<\/p>\n

But that wasn’t the highlight of\u00a0my<\/em> trip.<\/p>\n

I’m saving this one for a future episode, but the standout moment for me last weekend was my sidequest to a random convenience mart in Staunton, Virginia. (Look it up–it’s out there.)<\/p>\n

And I found it. A freezer full of Choco Tacos. Whoa. Made by the Klondike company for nearly 40 years, Choco Tacos were inexplicably discontinued\u00a0several months ago, much to the chagrin of seemingly the entire Internet.<\/p>\n

But for one magical moment in backwoods Virginia I was able to recreate this childhood favorite. Oh, I’m sure it’s just a solid ball of chemicals and barely qualifies as the “ice cream,” “chocolate,” or taco-shaped “waffle” it emulates. But who cares.<\/p>\n

Yeah, the natural bridge was pretty cool too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On today’s episode of\u00a0Math and Musings you’ll hear me talk about my recent trip to Natural Bridge, Virginia. For most people the highlight of this locale is, well, the\u00a0natural bridge, a 200-foot tall stone edifice rising above a tributary of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3873"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3874,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3873\/revisions\/3874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}