“We’re super excited,” said Rita Witte, the owner who has been at Princess Ann for the past 18 months. She’ll keep the same menu to start, the same green motif for the interior, and the overall feeling will be the same. At Always Flavored, the goal is simple: to bring people together through delicious food.

The red checkerboard pattern looked like the logo on the Purina dog food containers, and people around town always thought that was where the dog food was made. But is this true? Was it full of Purina Dog Food that emptied into Purina trucks that went all over the country, serving up dog food to hungry canines?

Fast forward 132 years, and the pharmacy is still there, but the windows are whitewashed because this iconic landmark is getting a major renovation as it adapts to the times. And soda fountain fans need not worry; the historic soda fountain behind the café bar will be a focus of the new pharmacy.

This fueled much discussion at the “Rappahannock River Crossing Parkway Alternatives Study,” a Fredericksburg Area Metropolitan Planning Organization meeting.

Ten films were selected to show the needs of various rivers, and each approached an environmental theme or message. Amongst the first films viewed, a theme surrounded the idea that the well-being of a fish upstream could predict the well-being of other fish hundreds of miles away downstream. The brook trout and the striped bass were used as one example. “As those fish go, so go our stripers down in Kent Island,” said a Maryland fisherman in a film called “A Journey Upstream.” Water quality is an issue here, too. “The biggest threat to the Chesapeake Bay is water quality,” said one of the narrators.

This May, the ribbon will be cut on one of those improvements: the Route 17 bridge over Interstate 95 at Mills Drive, just south of the clinic. The $23.5 million project includes a four-lane bridge with pedestrian accommodations. The old bridge was "structurally deficient," VDOT said.

Their description is “our hottest level,” but Crimson chef Nabil Asad isn’t sugar-coating it. “It’s very, very hot,” he said, pointing at the spices they use. You really have to have a high tolerance,” he said. It’s a variety of “Nashville Hot,” with an extra kick that’s Crimson Coward’s specialty.

Another set of eyes was on the scene, and that was Leslie Lautenslager, the executive assistant who captured it all in her book "My Time with General Colin Powell, Stories of Kindness, Diplomacy, & Protocol." She will be in Fredericksburg on March 12 to talk about her experience.

“You’ve got to live with the flooding,” said environmental engineer Elizabeth Lardner, who went between the three displays talking to the residents and city staff at the Dorothy Hart Community Center. “We’re working with Mother Nature,” she said, referring partially to a recent flood that put Old Mill Park underwater when the Rappahannock River overflowed its banks in early January.