Month: August 2017

Bob and I have been having a pretty laid-back time in The Villages with our two dogs.  We (as in Bob) are now golf-cart driving and parking pros.  We like that the golf cart is electric-powered and definitely enjoy golf cart traffic “jams” rather than car ones.  We have also bonded with our sweet dogs who enjoy treats, play time and/or walks,  and time at the dog park.

 

One of the advantages of golf cart riding is the ease of snapping photos en route of the beautiful local scenery.  See some “moving” pics below —

 

We have also spent some time checking out the various town squares and recreation centers.

 

We found a nature center to visit as well.  The Sharon Rose Weichens Preserve is a wildlife refuge in The Villages.



Bob and I are living the good life in The Villages, Florida, a retirement community about 45 miles northwest of Orlando.  It is an active area with over 36 golf courses, and we are learning how to tool around the area in the home owners golf cart.  We had a lovely transition with the owners on Thursday evening before they headed off Friday morning.  We are caring for their beautiful home and caring for their 2 great dogs — Reagan, a 9 year old Labrador Retriever, and Winter, a 3 year old Golden Retriever.  They are sweet, sweet dogs who love their ice cream and peanut butter treats.  Walks and chasing geckos is pretty okay too.

The Villages is a beautiful, active community with numerous recreation centers that offer a full slate of classes or groups in which to participate. We have guest passes from our home owners that allow us access, and we can access the fitness facilities for $5 per day.  In addition to the recreation centers and golf courses, there are also 3 town squares with dining and retail options, including nightly entertainment that begins at 5.  It also seems like there are more hours of the day designated as happy hours than times that are not!

After our lovely Charlottesville house sit, Bob and I rented a car to drive to West Virginia to visit our 47th state with just Montana, North Dakota, and Hawaii yet to visit.  We stayed in Lewisburg, WV, about a 2 hour drive from Charlottesville.  Lewisburg is a small town of about 4,000 located in Greenbrier County (Greenbrier is a popular name in these parts).  It has a cute historic downtown and lots of opportunities for hiking.

One of the best parts of our stay was a visit to Beartown State Park an ara of massive fragmented boulders and deep crevasses surrounded by almost rain forests-like vegetation.  It is a short hike along a boardwalk but really unique.  We even saw a bit of “wildlife.”

 

The Greenbrier River Trail is a 78 mile long trail that is a repurposed former railroad that follows the Greenbrier River.  The trail is used for hiking, biking, cross country skiing, and horse back riding.   There are a number of campsites and other lodging opportunities along the route.  Bob and I did an 8.2 mile out-and -back section starting at Horrock, not far from the Beartown State Park.

The morning of our second day in West Virginia, we spent walking around the very, gorgeous Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs.  This historic landmark has been open since 1778.  Along with the many hotel amenities and natural beauty, the site also contains natural mineral springs which were the original draw for visitors.

Fun facts about the Resort:

If you follow golf, you may know that this is the home of the Greenbrier Classic which is played around the 4th of July every year.

While we were there, the Houston Texans were staying at the resort and holding their training camp.

From the resort, we drove into downtown White Sulphur Springs.  It was pretty small, but there was a nice memorial to the victims of last year’s flood and a store related to the DIY network show — Barnwood Builders.  We were not familiar with the show but had read articles about it in the local papers, as the six individuals on the show are from West Virginia.

On Sunday, Bob and I headed to the George Washington National Forest in nearby Nelson County to hike Crabtree Falls.  To get there, we drove part of the gorgeous Blue Ridge Parkway.  This road is apparently America’s longest linear park, though free to drive on (at least in Virginia).  The road is 469 miles long, runs through North Carolina and Virginia, and connects the Shenandoah and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks.  We barely scratched the surface but did stop at a couple of overlooks for some photo ops.

 

Crabtree Falls is one of the tallest sets of waterfalls in the US east of the Mississippi River.  it seems to be as the place where hikers go to get in the water (disobeying multiple posted signs) with less than good resulted.  We enjoyed the hike on a gorgeous 70 degree day!  



Our last two hikes in Virgnia have been in very popular spots so have been much more crowded than our usual haunts.  Both the Natural Bridge State Park and Crabtree Falls (separate post) were impressive though very different.  The Natural Bridge State Park is a little over an hour drive from Charlottesville in Natural Bridge, VA.  The town and state park are named for the natural stone bridge that everyone comes to see and which has ties to 2 former presidents. Thomas Jefferson purchased 157 acres of land, including the Natural Bridge, from King George in 1774.  See below for the 2nd president associated with the site.

The $8/person entry fee gives you access to a main trail which takes you under the bridge, through a replica of a Monacan Indian village, into a saltpeter cave, and ends at a falls.  The state park also has a couple of other trails that you can currently hike for free.  Also in the town of Natural Bridge, to take advantage of the tourist traffic, is a hotel, caverns, a zoo, and some kind of amusement park.

After walking the popular trail, Bob and I drove up the road a bit to walk the much quieter Monacan Trail. As is more typical for us, we had the 3.3 mile trail to ourselves.

After our hike, we had a look through the Visitor Center gift shop and them walked under the street to the Natural Bridge Historic Hotel and Conference Center.  A space for people to come and stay after visiting the site has been in existence on the property since Jefferson built a guest cabin there shortly after buying the land.   While it is a beautiful hotel, we saw photos of the lovely original wooden structure built on the current location (built in1890) with wrap-around porches that burned down in 1963 (cause unknown).

On our way out of town, we stopped at the local amusement park for a quick photo op with a big head.



Bob and I welcomed our family home from Mexico Monday night before heading off for West Virginia for a short break before our next house sit.  We will miss our menagerie of pets, some of whom are captured below. 

The following are some photos of other places we visited during our stay.  One of the most unique may have been the Waltons Museum in Schuyler, VA, home of Earl Hamner, Jr., creator of the television series.  The series was based on the Hamner family.  You can pay to tour the museum ($8) and separately to tour his family home (which appears to be for sale).  We just visited the museum.

Other sites in the area that we visited included some of the many, many wineries, distilleries, and breweries in the area .  We never did get to any of the hard cideries.



Cheers to Charlottesville!

Friday we did a hike in Albermarle County right outside of Charlottesville’s city limits.  It was in the Ragged Mountain Natural Area, which is a 980 acre forest with 2 lakes.  We did an out-and-back hike to see the main lake as well as the “sights” indicated on the trail map.



Last weekend Bob was able to meet up with another college colleague.  They met in a town, Harrisonburg, half-way between where we are staying and where Barry (the college friend) and his family live.  See below for photo of the meet-up.

On the way to Harrisonburg, Bob saw a sign for the Woodrow Wilson Museum in Staunton, VA.  We checked out the website and decided we needed to go.  Staunton (now pronounced Stanton) is a city of about 24,000 in nearby Augusta County.  It is about a 30 minute drive from Charlottesville.  It is super cute and can claim more than Woodrow Wilson as a famous son.

Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton and lived there for about 2 years while his father was the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church. While he grew up in Georgia and South Carolina during the Civil War (which led to his hatred of war and desire to stay out of WWI), he visited Staunton often to see family.  He was the 28th president, a Democrat, and the first, and only, president to earn a Ph.D.  The museum cost $8 per person and included a 30 minute tour of the Wilson home, a film on his life, as well as the museum. 

The docents were very friendly and informative.  We learned the origins of some common sayings from them (put it on the back burner, keep your irons in the fire, and mind your beeswax) as well the fact that the 3 “servants” (slaves) that supported the Wilson family were rented from their owners.

 

We also learned from the docents that because Staunton was not burned by the Yanks at the end of the Civil War it still has many of the original buildings from when it was in its hey day as the intersection of 2 railroads.  

 

On the drive back to Charlottesville, we stopped at a memorial for Department of Transportation workers who have been killed while on the job for a unique Big Head photo op for Bob.



On Tuesday, we spent $25 to enter the Shenandoah National Park (good for 7 days) which runs north of the Blue Ridge Parkway once you cross interstate 64.  The road through the park is known as “Skyline Drive.”  The speed limit on Skyline Drive is 35 mph except when it’s slower.  We entered Shenandoah National Park at the Swift Run Gap Entrance Station and did 3 short hikes and stopped at a couple of overlooks as we drove south back towards Interstate 64.  The park was established in 1935 and has over 500 miles of trails.  Skyline Drive follows the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains for 105 miles and has 75 scenic overlooks.

We hiked the South River Trail, the Frasier Discovery Trail, and the Blackrock Summit Trail.

Photos from the South River Trail (mile 63) —

Rocky Top Overlook View and scenic drive —

Our second hike was the Frasier Discovery Trail which was a fairly steep trail through a forest to an overlook at the the top of Loft Mountain.

Photos from the Blackrock Summit Hike —

We ended our day out by splitting a glass of wine at the lovely Afton Vineyards.

On Monday, we traveled about 45 minutes southwest out of Charlottesville to the Sherando Lake Recreation Area.  This is a beautiful park in the Blue Ridge Mountains where you can swim, hike, picnic, and/or camp.  There were a number of families enjoying the lake, but Bob and I had a great 3+ hour hike by combining a number of trails.  It was $8 per car to enter.  We have had lovely hiking conditions — temps in high 80s or low 90s with LOTS of shade.