Hello Dear Readers. We are closing up our last day here in Virginia, watching the Masters and generally enjoying a quiet day in Big G. We vowed to slow our progress down a little bit to enjoy the places we are visiting, so we planned about ten days in this state. With the weather around the country being what it is this April, it was a good choice.
Our first stop was Whytheville, VA, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Honestly, I chose the location as the best spot to visit the New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia and drive down to North Carolina to find a golf course. We are entering the heart of United States founding history, and Whytheville had its share too. Named after one of the signers of Declaration of Independence, and birthplace of Edith Bolling Wilson (second wife of Woodrow Wilson), there were a couple of good museums in town to learn more. Unfortunately, we saved those for the rainy days and those turned out to be the two days of the week the museums are closed! So all we could do is learn via google, admittedly, Dale’s favorite way to “visit” these sites.
With a nasty weather front coming our way, we spent our first day in town making the hour drive due south into North Carolina and stopped at the New River Golf course for nine holes. As much as we love the small golf courses, we do run the risk of them not having a ball marker with their logo for me to put on our map. And this was one of those courses. They did have logo-ed golf balls, so we bought two, and Dale used his Dremel tool to DIY a marker. Its nice to have a handy husband! The drive was beautiful as well, very woodsy and hilly. And I kept wanting to break into song…”Country roads, take me home….” you get the picture. Dale had booked us at the local dinner theater that night at Wohlfahrt Haus. It was the first night of the Mountain Music Show, a musical review showcasing The Statler Brothers, The Oakridge Boys and Alabama. The dinner was actually pretty good and the show very well done and fun to watch.
The next day, again getting out ahead of the weather front coming, we headed due North into West Virginia and visited the New River Gorge National Park. The fact that the New River extends from West Virginia to North Carolina should be a very good hint about what to expect from this visit. It’s a long park and only visitor centers at the furthest north and south entrances were open. We had wanted to head north, where the best hiking trails are. It became pretty clear, pretty quickly, that the further north we drove, the faster the weather front was going to reach us. So we decided to visit the south end of the park instead. This is one of the most recent preserves to receive the National Park designation, so they don’t even have the traditional sign for a selfie. Best I could do was the old sign inside the visitor center. We also learned that this park is established to protect the watershed and waterways of the area. The area is certainly an outdoorsy Mecca and hopefully will be able to stay that way! We did find a small hike with a view of one of the many falls along the river. And then we continued South to Pipestem Resort State Park. We had lunch in the lodge with views over the mountains that had a serious Dirty Dancing vibe. Which makes sense, as it turns out, we were probably an hour away from the filming location! We had stopped here to get our West Virginia golf round in. It was only their second weekend open, and the last nice day before the weather front moved in so there was no room for us to hop on the course! But they suggested we stop at the executive par three course and feel free to walk it. So we did, expecting that meant there were no golf carts needed. What it meant was the course was not officially open yet! It was mowed, and there were cups on the greens, but no flags….and more importantly, no charge to play. So we pared down our bags to one, and played our nine holes. It may have been an executive course, but it was not an easy thing. But we had fun!
The next couple of days were hanging out at home. Whytheville is clearly a convenient stop for folks heading somewhere else. We watched the park completely empty and completely fill every day we were there. The rain moved in as promised, so we were pretty tickled that our park had an entertainment center that included a small bowling alley. It was a good reminder of how important it is to have your own ball. They had limited options, and the only ball that Dale could find to fit his grip was a couple of pounds too heavy. It’s terrible getting to that age when you can’t just power through something without ruining a body part in the process.
Our last day in Whytheville dawned sunny and COLD. So we decided to road trip south one more time, this time to Mount Airy, NC. The very proud home of Andy Griffith and the inspiration for Mayberry, USA. We took the police cruiser tour around town from Wally’s service station, had lunch at Barney’s Cafe, and toured the Andy Griffith museum. The guides in town clearly love their jobs!! It was a fun little diversion and I’m so glad we didn’t miss it.
We left the next day for our next stop at Charlottesville, VA. Two things were on our list for this stop. A visit to Shenandoah National Park, and a tour of Thomas Jefferson’s home, Monticello. The day we arrived was the only one predicted to be rain free, so we dropped Big G and made our way to MeadowCreek Municipal Golf Course for our nine holes in Virginia. We were paired with a couple of UVA seniors, members of the football team, who were playing a scramble from the red tees to see if they could beat par. They were two very nice young men, and we had more fun watching their attempts at driving the green. They were only successful a couple of times (and wow!) and in the end broke even. But they were very kind and proud enough of their school that they recommended we tour the campus, and sent us to a fabulous Italian restaurant for dinner.
Our first mission was a visit to Shenandoah National Park. Which, unless you are hiking the Appalachian Trail, involves driving the Skyline Drive along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was a rainy day, so there were not many views available, and at 3000ft, that wind was really uncomfortable! We made our way along its serpentine route to the visitor center, got my stamp, learned that this park was established in 1935 as a driving tour with great views. It was too cold and rainy to attempt even a short hike in the park, so we made our way down to Luray and a visit to the Luray Caverns. You might be thinking, like we were, ANOTHER cavern? Well, we wanted to take a walk, and inside sounded like a pretty good idea. And as it turns out, it was a pretty spectacular cavern! We both are amazed at how many caverns there are in this country!
The next day was Monticello. Frankly, I was shocked that this is not a National site. It is extremely well managed, they effectively rotate a lot of people through that house! We found out when we arrived that this is Founder’s weekend, TJ’s birthday is Sunday, April 13th. So, there was a bigger crowd than we anticipated for a cold day in April. And just like the Skyline Drive, the house sits at the top of the “mountain” and the wind made it feel even colder. On a beautiful day, touring more of the plantation would have been in order. Instead, we and MANY of the other guests who had planned to walk the 1/2 mile down hill to the parking lot, jumped on the shuttle buses to stay warm. Then we were off for some wine tasting. Being a west coast wine snob, I had no idea there would be a major wine region in Virginia. And isn’t that funny, one of them is Trump Winery. Well, we had to go for the novelty of it. The drive there seemed a bit questionable, until you came around the corner and then the flags on the fence line gave indication that we were close. The grounds were beautiful, if it hadn’t been a cold and rainy day the views would likely be jaw dropping, unfortunately, the wine was just OK. But let’s be realistic, it is really HARD to beat Washington, Oregon and California wines.
Our last adventure was to visit UVA. As beautiful as my alma mater, University of Washington is, there is no doubt the older schools are very cool. Old TJ designed the original building here, as well as Monticello, and they both have the dome he so loved. What I didn’t know is the Edgar Allen Poe went to school there. There is just enough English Lit geek in me to get excited about seeing his dorm room and wondering how tortured is soul must have been to pen something like The Raven. It is very energizing to walk around a campus with all those young minds. Plus, because they are there, good breweries are not far away. We had to search a little to find one that was not closed for a private event! Apparently it is that time of the year when the graduates are celebrating. Go figure! Small town car rental agencies are generally not open on weekends so we had to drop our car off that evening and Lyft back to Big G. We did find out that we should be asking at pickup if they have an after hours drop off option. Boy, will that change our plans!
But in the end, we spent a peaceful day futzing around Big G, Dale fixing the little things that get wonky from vibration, and me causing vibrations by getting the laundry done. We do enjoy hanging out and watching our ever evolving RV neighbors. We are pretty out of the norm since we don’t have 2-3 dogs traveling with us! We think about it, but there is still too many things on our list this trip to do that to a pet. But we are getting closer! And with that my friends, family and other dear readers, we are off to Washington D.C. for a week. We have a few things on the “to do” list while we are there I can hardly wait to experience and share. So until next time, Lady Wanderingwise wishes you a wonderful Easter week.
Weise's Wanderings 
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