King Charles is Coming to Front Royal?

I have fact-checked this. It looked so obviously ridiculous. (I thought, “this has gotta be a joke!”)

But I checked it and checked it and checked it. This is NOT fake news! 

It's... surreal, I mean, the King? The ACTUAL King??? Of England, the U.K., Canada, Australia, and lots of little islands where they play Cricket? The King who is the descendant of the King who used to be the King of… the Colony of Virginia? 

But why here? Front Royal is not exactly a big stopping point for celebrities. Bing Crosby once came here back in the 1950s, and that was a big deal. The town named the baseball park after him. We call it “the Bing.”

Well, move over Bing Crosby.

King Charles wants to visit Shenandoah National Park during his State Visit to the U.S.A. The northern entrance to the Park is here in Front Royal. But Charles and Camilla also want to experience some local life, and we just happened to be having a special 250th anniversary “block party” on Main Street on April 30.

The royals are somehow going to participate in this event, although no one knows exactly how. But the word is that 30,000 people (twice the population of Front Royal) are coming to find out.

Perhaps the King knows that “Front Royal” was on the Western border of the colonies in the days when Great Britain still ruled them. After the Seven Year’s War with the French, the British took the line corresponding to the Appalachian mountains as the border of their sponsorship of and involvement in the Anglo-American colonial project. The remainder of the region was to be preserved for the indigenous tribes who had roots there. Is there something symbolic about going to “the West” as it was 250 years ago, when the British still ruled the Eastern colonies? Or am I just overthinking this whole thing?

Whatever I “think,” they are coming on Thursday.

And the town just announced all this today. It's going to be crazy around here on Thursday.