Friday, July 30, 2021

Shenandoah Valley Virginia July 27-28 2021

 Day 1 Tuesday July 27, 2021 We are off on another adventure today. We pulled out of the yard about 7:20AM headed for the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. We will be at several locations on this trip and we hope to find some cooler weather along the way. We stopped near Wallace to fill up with Diesel and also a light breakfast across the street at McDonalds. And of course their Latte machine was not working. That is a frequent problem at this location. 


After fueling up the motorhome and ourselves we headed to our stop for the night near Rustville VA. By the Way fuel is almost $1.00 a gallon more than it was about 6 months ago and we all know what happened then We are staying at a Harvest Host location called Threads Run Through It. We called about 30 minute before we arrived to give them our arrival time. Lori (the owner) met us as soon as we pulled into the parking lot and showed us where we could park. After some lunch we went into the place of business to check it out. For a person that likes to sew, quilt or do crafts this would be an ideal stop. They have over 4,000 bolts of cloth, thread, supplies, lots of sewing machines and long arm automated quilting machines. You program your design into the machine and it stitches that design on your quilt. A lot different than the way my mother quilted. She did everything by hand stitch. 


It is hot so we had to run the generator so we could run the air conditioners until way after dark when it finally cooled off outside. You don't get any hookups at a Harvest Hosts location. It is free to stay but it is recommended that you patronage the business if possible. You also have to have prior reservations/approval before showing up because most Hosts only have one or two parking spots for an RV and some can't accommodate a large RV. We had a relaxing stay here, there was some road noise but not enough to keep us awake.










Day 2 Wednesday July 28, 2021 We departed our HH  location about 8:30AM and drove a few miles into Lynchburg and stopped in a large Walmart parking lot. I was lucky and got a place to park where the front of the motorhome was in the shade for awhile and I thought we wouldn't be blocked in. We walked next door to Cracker Barrel and had a great breakfast. The country ham was the best I have had in a long time. It was a little thicker than some places serve it and it was not cooked until it was hard and dried out.


After eating we walked back to the motorhome and there was a car, enclosed trailer and van parked right in front of us blocking our exit. I had parked cross ways over several regular parking spots and had parked over the last regular parking spot in the row and the van and trailer had parked over the hash marks at the end of the parking row. But the man that owned the van car and trailer was still at the vehicles. He said “did I block you in”....well duh!!! He said he was loading the car into the trailer and would be gone in an hour. We had to go into Walmart to get a few items so I told him that was okay as we were not in a hurry. When we finished our shopping and came back to the motorhome he was finishing up so we wished each other a safe journey and we all departed.


Our stop for tonight was Barren Ridge Winery which is about 85 miles away. It was a nice drive, the roads were fairly good but there was one road about 3-4 miles long that was a little tricky. It was narrow and very twisty with several sharp 15 MPH curves. Big trucks are not allowed on it and we probably should not have been but the GPS thought it was okay for our large motorhome. 


We arrived at Barren Ridge Winery about 12:30PM and was met by one of the employees. We had called to give them our arrival time. She told us where to park so we unhooked the Jeep and pulled into the parking spot. It was not level at all but I placed one of the ramps that I carry to put under the wheels for such occasions and we were okay. It is not level but for one night we are okay. While I was parking the lady that owns the winery with her husband pulled up and chatted with Lena. 


We have a beautiful view out the side windows of our motorhome. The land here is all rolling hills and there are a lot of wineries in this area. We have seen several vineyards today. After lunch we went into the winery and tasted one of their wines that from the description sounded like one we would like so we asked for taste rather doing what is called a “flight”, which is a small glass of about 8-10 wines. Lena drinks very little wine and I didn't need to taste that many wines so we tasted one called Tinkling Spring. It has some Riesling in it and we like that in Germany. After tasting we bought a bottle. The lady told us we could use the patio even after the winery closes at 6PM. She said the sunset is usually very nice out over the vineyard.













We went out to the patio about 6:30PM to watch the sun set and take some photos around the winery and grounds. Other than a little local traffic coming by the winery it is very quite here. We got several good sun set photos as it was setting over the vineyards.











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