After a wonderful Saturday night visiting with my family in Roanoke, we had another nice day with them before flying back to Orlando. We had breakfast at Andy and Art’s house before heading out to their church for the 10am service. My brother Andy has a full-time job in Roanoke, but also is a very talented musician, and plays organ and leads the choir at his church on Sunday’s. He’s got such a talent for music that I never acquired, despite piano lessons as a young teenager.
We met my parents and sister for the service, and it was a special service honoring St. James whom was the first apostle to be martyred, as written in the Bible. Art had a special part in the service as seen here. 
The service ended with a walk outside and a prayer held in the front of the church. 
This was followed by a pot-luck fellowship brunch in their family life center, which we stopped by briefly, but didn’t want to eat as we had a huge meal ahead of us at Hotel Roanoke.
And Hotel Roanoke was our next stop indeed! Hotel Roanoke is a beautiful tudor style hotel that is a landmark in Roanoke, and over 100 years old, first opening in 1882 as built by the Norfolk and Western railroad.
Today it is operated by Hilton Hotels, and just became part of the Curio brand; recently upgraded from the Doubletree brand. It is also affiliated with Virginia Tech as part of their hospitality program, and has a huge conference center.
When we were kids growing up in Roanoke, we used to belong to the ‘swim club’ there at the hotel, which offered a nice indoor pool experience we used many times. Unfortunately the pool is no longer there as it made room for the expanded conference center, but the hotel is more grand than ever. I’ve only stayed there once, and that was several years ago for a high school reunion, but we’ve eaten there many times in the fine Regency Dining Room.
Today we had our Sunday Brunch here in the classy Regent Room. With multiple hot and cold stations, and a whole additional room full of items featuring everything from salads to shrimp and prime rib, with wall murals adorning the walls, it makes for quite a nice treat!
We enjoyed the wonderful meal, atmosphere, piano music, and most of all spending time with the family. The brunch was quite a nice and leisurely meal, and we really made the most of it.
After brunch DOS and I headed to the airport for our 4pm flight back to Orlando (via Charlotte). After dropping off the rental car, we had about an hour wait before our flight. Our flight to Charlotte was on a Dash-8 prop jet, and was a quick, albeit noisy 50 minutes.
We had a quick connection (less than an hour, which is short for Charlotte), coming into the commuter terminal E, and then trekking up to terminal C, which is quite a walk. Our flight from Charlotte to Orlando was on a 757 with the international configuration of sleeper seats, which is nice, with only 3 rows of First Class. We had the bulkhead 1 D and F, but still had plenty of room to recline and stretch our feet on the foot-rest.
We got to Orlando by 8pm, and checked into our favorite airport hotel – The Hyatt Regency Orlando Airport, located right in the airport terminal. We got our favorite runway view, high floor room, and took our traditional photo on the balcony overlooking the jumbo and other jets.
We had dinner at McCoy’s Restaurant on the 4th (lobby level) of the Hyatt at 8:30pm. As it was a bit late for a Sunday night, we had a lighter meal than normal; splitting the pick-your-own trio, followed by a pizza. The trio was stacked on a rack three plates high, and offered a chicken quesadilla, Ahi-Tuna, and wings (for DOS). Our next course of pizza was just enough food to finish off the day.
Heading to bed by 11pm, it was a nice ending to a wonderful weekend. Tomorrow we both travel to different destinations; Las Vegas for DOS, and Minnesota for me – but that’s not for several hours. Until then, Good Night!