When we weren’t watching several movies, Kellie and I spent a good part of our time exploring new parts of Virginia, which is something I haven’t written about in quite some time.
We started out on Sunday by heading West, stopping first a Linden Vineyards, which is quickly becoming our favorite winery in Virginia. Even though we’ve been there before, we did a little wine tasting — when in Rome, and all that — before stocking up to restore our depleted Linden supply. Its interesting that in my first mention of Linden here, just under a year ago, I apparently wasn’t overly impressed with the wine. I said I’d give it a second chance, and I have, along with a third, a fourth…..you get the idea. Like I said, this has become one of our favorite wineries in Virginia to visit and one of our favorite Virginia wines to drink.
After Linden, we headed Southwest to Luray, home of Luray Caverns. but that isn’t the reason we headed out there. Part of it was to see the town, part of it was just to explore the area. We didn’t really find anything we were looking for out there, so we started heading back East. That’s where we came upon something that was a bit of a disappointment.
I wrote last year about our stop at the Sunnyside Farm Rest Stop. We’d read in the Washington Post last month that the land on which Sunnyside sits was up for sale and it appeared from the article that the rest stop would eventually be closed. When we got there Sunday, it looks as though that’s already happened. The whole place was shut down, apparently permanently. Too bad.
From Sperryville, we headed further East and stopped at Grey Ghost Vineyards. We had been there in April as part of a tour of Virginia Wine Country and, well, needed to stock up again, which we did before heading home
Yesterday, we headed south. First we stopped in Fredricksburg and the Fredricksburg Heritage Festival. From there, we took a long drive back home, going west through Orange and Culpeper counties and then north through Fauquier County before getting back home to Prince William. All the way, we were on one or two-lane roads, with farm land as far as the eye could see and about as far from civilization as you can be and not drive more than three hours.
As I’ve said before, I love Virginia precisely because you can do stuff like this — drive an hour or less away and find yourself surrounded by something other than the same old strip malls.
July 11th, 2006 at 5:11 pm
Next time you head to Linden, check out the new winery “across the street”, Fox Meadow. Excellent!
For more info: lacochran.blogspot.com