We left Columbia about 9 am and headed north – through Charlotte, then Winston-Salem and Reidsville NC. Next thing we knew, we were in Virginia and we kept on through Danville and Lynchburg and stopped for the night in Lovingston VA, in the heart of Nelson County – about 40 miles south of Charlottesville, bordered on the west by the Blue Ridge Mountains and on the east by the James River.
We checked in to the Village Inn – just about the only motel in the county, though there are lots of B&B’s scattered around the hills. This turned out to be a nice quiet choice – with nice views of nearby fields and mountains.
After settling in, we did a little exploring – stopped by the new visitor’s center for maps and advice. Found the post office and county courthouse (pictured) in the town proper, and then we headed off down the James River Road. This was a winding country road from Lovingston to the James River in the southeast corner of the county – through such scenic spots as Shipman and Wingina. It was almost too much adventure at the end of a long day – our map (from the visitor center) was not very accurate and our GPS assured us that we were not on any known roads or near any known cities. In spite of a few anxious moments, we made it back to our motel well before dark.
Thursday, May 22:
On the advice of the visitor center staff, we headed to the Colleen Deli for breakfast. Colleen is the crossroads just south of Lovingston – it’s well known in these parts for the Dairy Bar (best hamburgers and milkshakes for miles around). The Colleen Deli is located inside of the Exxon station right next to the Dairy Bar – who would have guessed? Their lunch and dessert menu looked really good – but they did fine with breakfast, too – got us fueled up for another day of exploring.
We headed west on Route 56 out of Colleen, right into the beautiful countryside that makes Fran wonder why she ever left this area! There are some pretty farms, framed by the Blue Ridge Mountains in the background.
We drove along the Tye River to Massies Mill, one of the communities that was devastated by the floods caused by Hurricane Camille way back in 1969. This is one of the areas where Fran and Bev spent some time helping clean up after the storm.
Today there’s not much sign of those terrible days – just a memorial down by the Tye River.
The short trail down to the river was loaded with wildflowers – including some spectacular rhododendrons.
Further along the way, we spotted a couple of log cabins – one old and one new.
Next stop was Crabtree Falls, located in the George Washington National Forest. Crabtree’s claim to fame is that it is the highest cascading waterfall east of the Mississippi River. The water crashes over rocks for a long long way down the mountain side. We only hiked as far as the lower falls – it’s a major expedition to the top.
Its other claim to fame is the alarming number of people killed while fooling around on the rocks in the river. The sign says 23 people have died here, but we heard later in the day that another person was killed just a few days ago.
From Crabtree Falls, we headed on over Maintop Mountain, through the Tye River Gap and down into the Shenandoah Valley. We drove north for a distance and then headed back over the Blue Ridge at Rockfish Gap. From Afton Mountain, we headed down into the Rockfish Valley to visit Nancy Avery, a friend from Charlottesville days.
Nancy lives in a beautiful spot – perhaps the only flat land in Nelson County – with the Rockfish River in her back yard and views of the mountains in every direction.
We had a good visit – lots of catching up to do – and were well entertained by “Nelson,” a 9-week old yellow lab puppy that Nancy is training to be a service dog. She does the first 18 months of general puppy training before turning the job over to another trainer who focuses on the specific type of tasks needed for the dog’s owner-in-waiting.
Nancy took us to a Nellysford for lunch – to the Dogwood Restaurant, a new place in the old Rockfish School. Good food, good company, and lots of fish in the ponds outside.
Just down the road is the world-famous (!) Blue Ridge Pig – a local barbecue place that draws customers from all over the east coast. It’s even been written up in the New York Times. Not being fans of the vinegar-pepper style of cooking, we took a pass this time.
We stopped to pick up the mail and said our goodbyes to Nancy. Now it’s easy to understand why she doesn’t travel much .. . she thinks she’s found the most beautiful spot in the world.
We headed back to the hotel – the long way. We drove to the eastern edge of the county, to the little village of Schuyler – the home of Virginia’s own Earl Hamner, Jr. – creator of The Waltons TV series. Hamner’s boyhood home is there, along with a “Walton’s Mountain Museum, and a book store featuring autographed copies of Hamner’s work.
There’s a beautiful little church in the center of town.
There’s also an old store billed as Ike Godsey’s General Store – no wonder so many people think this place really is Walton’s Mountain. We stopped in for a cold drink and some ice – and some suggestions for the most scenic route back to our hotel.
The last stop on today’s tour was the Alberene Soapstone Company, which was founded in 1888, when large deposits of soapstone were discovered in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The place includes 19 quarries in 4 sites, over 1,200 acres – producing a wide variety of soapstone, each with its own unique characteristics and qualities. The major product is material for countertops and sinks.
It sounds pretty impressive, but the place actually just re-opened in 2004, after many years of absentee owners and assorted problems. Today there are a grand total of 13 employees – making Alberene one of the largest employers in Nelson County (talk about a depressed economy).
We got to the plant near closing time, so there wasn’t time for a full tour – we visited in the showroom with one of the employees who took great pride in giving us free samples and lots of literature. She invited us to come back to see the whole operation – and promised that there would be more sculpture and other products as their work continued to expand.
From Alberene, we crossed the Rockfish River just below Schuyler and took the recommended scenic route back to Lovingston. Another nice drive.
Friday, May 23:
After breakfast, we headed over to Davis Creek to see Lois Werner. The road to her house passes through some scenic countryside – rolling hills, old barns, grazing cattle.
Lois has a wonderful cabin in the woods – perched up high in the treetops.We had lots of catching up to do, and then Lois showed us around her property and the neighboring area.
The guy next door has a regular menagerie, including a pen full of goats.
After lunch at the Lovingston Café, we headed on to Charlottesville and checked in to our hotel for the night. As soon as we got unloaded, we walked over to the University of Virginia campus.
Mr. Jefferson’s ‘academical village’ hasn’t lost any of its charm. UVA was cited by the American Institute of Architects as the proudest architectural achievement of the nation’s first 200 years. We walked around the Rotunda and the Lawn. It’s still hard to figure out how it’s such an honor for students to live in unheated rooms with no plumbing.
Saturday, May 24:
Breakfast compliments of Hampton Inn and then on the road again. We stopped off in the town of Madison at the Hearth and Plow outlet store (thanks to Nancy Avery for the tip). It’s a good thing we weren’t driving a truck – lots of tempting stuff on sale.
After a few unplanned detours, we finally made our way to Silver Spring – and to Eric’s apartment. We had a late lunch or early dinner at the local pizza joint and then headed to the grocery store for a real adventure. We gave Eric our best imitation of a grocery store tour – healthy food choices, reading labels, the whole routine. We ended up with a cart of goodies to tide us over the weekend.
Sunday, May 25:
We let Eric sleep in this morning and headed over to the neighborhood bagel shop. We sure can’t get bagels like that in South Carolina.
After sleeping beauty was up and about, we took the Metro to Union Station. All sorts of political junk for sale here – including Hilary at 50% off.
We walked over to Eric’s office – got a tour of the new facilities, and Margaret checked out the bossman’s fancy stand-up desk.
From there we walked through the National Postal Museum and then past the Capitol and the reflecting pool on the north side.
From there, we headed on down Pennsylvania Avenue. We got a good look at the visiting bikers – Rolling Thunder - 100,000 of them in town for Memorial Day.
Heading the other way was a Segway tour group – looks like a fun way to see the city.
Our destination was the Newseum, the world’s most interactive museum – 6 levels, 14 galleries, and 15 theaters of news, news and more news. The building features a 74-foot tall marble tablet showing the words of the First Amendment.
Right inside the main entrance is a giant high-definition screen keeping watch over folks wandering around the atrium. Look closely to see if you recognize anyone.
After watching an orientation film, we headed to Level Six – and out on the balcony for a grand view of the Capitol and the ongoing motorcycle parade.Other highlights: Pulitzer Prize photographs, a 4-D film about three early journalists, sections of the Berlin wall, a gallery of newspaper front pages from every state and many countries, another gallery of historic newspaper front pages, and a 9-11 exhibit including the antenna from the World Trade Center. There was too much to see, too much to remember – it would take about a week to visit everything, but they threw us out at 5PM.
On the way to the nearest Metro station, we visited the Navy Memorial. Lots of water and (today) lots of flowers for Memorial Day.
At the Metro, it took some of us a while to figure out which direction to go. Thank goodness we had a good guide.
Monday, May 26
Today was shopping day – we went over to Columbia, Maryland, where there is a huge mall. We did lots of looking at the LL Bean store and found Eric a toaster at the Sears store. By then, we were hungry enough to really appreciate the Cheesecake Factory restaurant. The food was delicious and the servings are huge – supper is in the carry-out box.
Tuesday, May 27
We were up early today, so Eric could go to work and we headed off to visit Mary Ruth Marcum in Ijamsville, MD, about an hour away. The GPS in the car came in real handy for locating the house! We had a nice visit with Mary Ruth, son Milton and daughter Joyce and then we took off for Baltimore.
We stopped at the Baltimore Inner Harbor and had lunch at Phillips, a long-established restaurant known for its seafood.Today’s lunch came with a bonus: the Juan Sebastian de Elcano, a 300 foot Spanish Navy tall ship, was in port as part of “Sail Baltimore.” Sail Baltimore organizes an annual program of visiting ships from around the world – more than 400 international vessels since 1975. We had a bird’s eye view of the crew preparing for the official welcome.
After lunch, we walked along the harbor to the Maryland Science Museum to see the “BodyWorlds” exhibit. This is an amazing collection of 200 human specimens preserved through the technique of ‘plastination.’ Plastination, a gradual process that takes nearly a year, bodily fluids and soluble fats in dissected specimens are replaced with plastics, and then set in dynamic, lifelike poses for optimal learning. Lastly, the specimens are stabilized and hardened by curing with light, heat and gases. It’s like walking through a three-dimensional textbook.
On the way back to Ijamsville, we stopped for ice cream and then said our goodbyes – on the road again. We drove through some beautiful countryside to the eastern panhandle of West Virginia and stopped at the historic town of Harpers Ferry.
Wednesday, May 28
Harpers Ferry is uniquely situated at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah valleys – it is located in a beautiful valley and steeped in history.
This small mountain town played an important role in the events leading up to the Civil War, when radical abolitionist John Brown raided the Federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry to arm his revolution against slaveholders. This little building is known as John Brown’s fort – the place from which he launched his short-lived raid.
Harpers Ferry was (and still is) and important railroad town. We walked across a footpath built onto the railroad trestle across the Potomac River. Two trains passed by just in the time it took us to cross.On the Maryland side of the river, we had a look at one of the locks for the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. The towpath is now maintained by the National Park Service and does double duty as one segment of the Appalachian Trail. The trail crosses the river here, meanders through town and up the hillside past Jefferson’s Rock.
During the Civil War, the town was occupied by both Federal and Confederate forces – amazingly, much of the 19th-century architecture remains intact. Dozens of historic structures in brick and stone have been preserved by the National Park Service. High Street is home to many interesting buildings, some of which now house shops and restaurants.
On the hill overlooking the lower town stands St. Peter’s Church – its stone façade and stained-glass windows tower over the village below.
Above the church is Jefferson’s Rock – a somewhat unstable formation that offers a grand view of the rivers and valley below.
Jefferson stopped here on his way to Philadelphia (to the Continental Congress) – there was no town here then, and Jefferson declared that this was “perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in Nature.”
Our last walk was along the Shenandoah River, where Canada geese gather in a quiet spot on the water.
We stopped at the “Point,” the tip end of West Virginia, with the state of Maryland to the left and Virginia to the right.Time to go again – back on the road, heading home via the Shenandoah Valley. The 110-mile-long valley lies between the Blue Ridge Mountains to the east and the Allegheny Mountains to the west. We followed US 11 (the Old Valley Pike), as well as I-81. Mile after mile of green rolling hills – a most agreeable drive, with a stop for the night in Christiansburg.
Thursday, May 29
We were on the road early today – enough traveling for at least a week.
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