Weekend Getaway to Virginia

Gary and I took advantage of our Friday off this weekend and had ourselves a little getaway down to the land of sweet tea and bluegrass! We left rather late on Thursday night, so we stayed overnight in Harrisonburg, VA. It broke up the drive a little.

Friday, I was reading an article in the Roanoke Times about the author, David Baldacci's, second home at Smith Mountain Lake, which is near Roanoke. So, we decided to make a little detour and check out Smith Mountain Lake. It is really pretty there and since the weather was so nice that day, we had lunch outside on a deck situated right over the water at Harrison's at Sunset Cay. The atmosphere was very nice and the food was yummy, too.

We made our way to Buffalo Mountain and before long, it was time to head into Floyd for the Friday Night Jamboree at the Floyd Country Store. This is an event not to be missed. It takes place every Friday night, but on warm spring and summer nights, there are bands playing outside all over town, not just in the Country Store. The local folks are always there and we now recognize several of them from our many trips to the hoedown, as we have nicknamed the jamboree. But, along with the local regulars, there are always visitors from all over the US and from abroad. This time, there were people from Scotland and Australia in attendance. A really good band named "Mastergrass" was playing that night.

The town of Floyd is in the middle of a revitalization project. They have built a 14-room hotel and converted an abandoned grocery store into several smaller shops. Sidewalks are being refurbished and they have built stone seating areas, a public restroom building, and they are in the planning stages of a town park. It looks nice, although I kind of wish they had left the town as it was. I liked the old Floyd. They did leave the old cemetery untouched. It sits right in the middle of town behind the new hotel. There is even a civil war soldier buried there, who died in 1862. Very interesting walking through that old graveyard.

Over the course of the weekend, Gary and I ate at least three meals at the Poor Farmer's Market, also known to us as "Felicia's." That's what dad calls it because he knows the lady that owns it and her name is - you guessed it - Felicia. Two of those meals we ate there were breakfasts centered around biscuits. Very tasty. Mabry Mill is also one of our go-to restaurants, but it doesn't open for the season until this coming Saturday, so we missed that by a week! Oh well, next trip.

The trip was nice, although a few more days would have been nice. These jobs of ours really cramp our style!