+- WineBoard (https://www.wines.com/wineboard)
+-- Forum: RESOURCES AND OTHER STUFF (https://www.wines.com/wineboard/forum-300.html)
+--- Forum: Wine Country Touring/Dining (https://www.wines.com/wineboard/forum-41.html)
+--- Thread: Shenandoah Mountains and Valley (/thread-15341.html)
- mrdutton - 10-27-2000
Hello everyone!
Here is another travel-gram from Mike and Carol-Lee. If you should become bored by all this, the advantage of E-postings should become quite apparent; just don't read any further!
We left Virginia Beach Saturday morning, October 16, 2000 and headed west on I-64 toward Williamsburg and then north-west on US 17 from Yorktown through Fredericksburg and then on to Warrenton, Virginia. Along the way, we could easily discern that we were headed into areas that had experienced more fall-like weather than we'd had in Virginia Beach. We saw a lot more color in the leaves on the trees and, sadly, quite a bit of venison on the sides of the roads.
We stopped in Fredericksburg for lunch. We had a passable lunch at Aunt Sarah's Pancake House, a place we'll not be stopping at anytime soon again. After passing through Fredericksburg and then on to Warrenton, we then headed due west on US 211 to Washington, VA.
Washington, VA is the FIRST town in the US other than DC to be named Washington. And guess what? There are no big signs there saying, "George Washington slept here." (We'd actually gone past his birthplace a few miles south-east of Fredericksburg.) Washington, VA is, however, a quaint little village with quite a few colonial and Victorian buildings which have been nicely preserved. It is also the home of The Inn At Little Washington, which is one of the few Mobile 5 star restaurants in the US. Fortunately for us, they do not serve lunch...........!! We walked around the town a bit, bought a few things and took a quick tour of the ground floor of the Inn. All was very beautiful and if we were to visit again in another life where we felt indulgently rich, we'd even consider staying at The Inn at Little Washington (rooms start at $350.00 a night with a two night minimum on weekends).
We left Washington, Virginia slightly poorer and also much richer for having visited and traveled north on US 522 to Front Royal, Virginia.
Front Royal is at the HEAD of the Skyline Drive and the Shenandoah National Park. We spent a quiet evening in a nice motel called the Skyline Drive Comfort Inn........ We found a German restaurant for dinner and had pork tenderloin smothered with onions and brown gravy which was called Jaeger Schnitzel along with some pickled red cabbage and spaetzle. We chose a Schmitt-Shone Riesling to go with our meal. Food and wine were quite good. We even managed to share a Sacher-Torte (again please forgive me the spelling, if it is wrong) and coffee for dessert.
We entered the Shenandoah National Park the next morning after a non-descript breakfast at the local dive. There was a bit of haze, but no real fog. The views were breath-taking and the color of the leaves on the trees was at the peak. Just beautiful, breath-taking scenery everywhere we looked. We got up to about 3500 feet above sea level before we got back to US 211 and drove down the western side of the Shenandoah mountains into the Shenandoah valley. We went to the town of Luray in order to visit the underground caverns.
At Luray we went exploring through the caverns. We ended up about 200 feet below the ground level before we finally emerged back into the sunlight. The last climb was quite exhilarating, 70 some steps to the top after walking up-hill and down-hill underground for about 1-1/4 miles. The stalagmites and stalactites and other rock formations were tremendous. It was the sand castle from hell! (Remember, as children how we'd allow wet sand to dribble through our hands and fingers to form those wonderful sand castles at the beach?) Well this was all that magnified about a thousand times. Really interesting and quite beautiful. I really wished that Don (my geologist brother) could have been with us - a geologic explanation of how all this formed would have been most interesting...... I think.
After resting from the climb out of the ground, Carol-Lee did some souvenir shopping and I did some more resting.......... We left Luray and headed south on the local roads to Stanley, Virginia. After arriving in Stanley, we found (more by luck than by good navigation) the Jordan Hollow Farm Inn where we were to spend the rest of the day and night. Their web-site is: www.jordanhollow.com. Very nice place. We shall go back there someday! Our suite was quite comfortable - sitting room with TV, large bath with shower, bedroom with king size bed, fireplace and Jacuzzi (don't ask about the bubble bath........ we both giggled!).
The farm house there was progressively built from 1784 through 1820 and is now used as their dinning room and company office. We had a most delicious dinner there consisting of filet mignon for Carol-Lee and a rack of baby lamb for me. We shared a bottle of Oasis Vineyards Meritage (Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot) which was just wonderful. (Oasis is a Virginia Winery). We both had garlic mashers and roasted beets as sides and we shared a Caesar salad as an opener. What a tremendous meal that was.
The next morning, breakfast included french toast stuffed with mascarpone and baked, cinnamon apples, bacon and fresh fruit along with freshly squeezed orange juice and all the coffee we could drink. Another exceptional meal! (Instead of having the normally served two pieces of french toast, we each only had one piece.)
We sadly left the Jordan Hollow Farm Inn (I'd remarked to Carol as we were resting in rocking chairs on the porch outside our room, "Listen, the silence is deafening!") and proceeded on our trip.
The rest of Sunday we travelled along the Skyline Drive from its intersection with US 211 until we got to the very end at Waynesboro. We went about 75 miles through the mountains on this twisting curving highway. The posted speed limit is 35 mph, but at times we could not help but find ourselves moving downhill at over 50 mph. We were anywhere from 3800 feet above sea level to about 2500 feet. A very beautiful drive; kind of like being on a slow roller-coaster. The trees were beautiful with all of their brightly hued leaves; we got glimpses of the wild-life as we saw some hawks and eagles. Since we were traveling during the day, we did not see any deer.
When we got to Waynesboro we travelled further west and slightly north to Staunton, Virginia (pronounced Stanton). Saunton is the home of Mary Baldwin College (what a beautiful campus with all of its great Greek-Roman buildings).
We found that some folks had restored the old C&O train station and had opened a restaurant called THE PULLMAN. Full of beautiful old antiques, this was quite a place. The bar had jury box seats for the patrons and the back of the bar was an old apothecary from an early 20th century drug store. Beautiful old carved oak wood-work; some of the medicine drawers still had the original labels on them. I had a salmon steak that was cooked to a proper, tender, flaky, medium-rare and Carol-Lee had tips of beef with a very rich beef/veal demi-glace along with garlic mashers. We shared a bottle of Australian Merlot. Interesting conversation with the waiter; this place is currently involved as part of the set for a new Stephen King movie. One of the stars in the movie is Anthony Hopkins. We just missed seeing him.............
We stayed in an old Victorian home (not far at all from the birthplace of Woodrow Wilson) that was part of the Frederick House Bed and Breakfast (www.frederickhouse.com). Our room was, again, a suite. A very large sitting room, a hallway with double doors separating the hallway and the sitting room from the bed room. The bedroom was huge and centered against the wall was a most comfortable king-size bed; no Jacuzzi but so-what. We both slept like babies!!
After awakening we went to breakfast. We had a delicious combination of granola and yogurt along with a large helping of fresh fruits including orange slices, grapefruit slices, pineapple and red grapes.
Then onward towards home. Although I wanted to stop outside of Charlottesville to visit Monticello, I also wanted to visit a couple of Virginia wineries. Guess............ Yes the wineries won out. Monticello will still be there, we can plan another trip to visit and then also go back to the wineries.........
We drove through Charlottesville, past the entrance to the UVA campus and onward to the north toward Culpeper on US 29. However, we never got near Culpeper, since the vineyards we visited were close by Charlottesville. Getting to the wineries was a real thrill - back country roads, twisting and turning, up-hill and down-hill; we thought we were lost forever in Booger-Holler! However we finally found both wineries. We visited Burnley Vineyards and Horton Vineyards. We bought wine at both establishments. At Burnley we bought a fruity wine for Carol-Lee and a big tooth enamel staining Red Zinfandel for me. At Horton we bought their Port, their Viognier, their 1993 Stonecastle (a Rhone-like wine) and their Norton (a domestic grape that produces a really very good dry red wine).
Let me tell you, some of the Virginia wines I've sampled are on par or ahead of the finest wines from California and France. We got some good stuff up in them hills; you just have to work a bit to find it!
After leaving the wineries, we got back onto I-64 and breezed on home through Richmond and then the southern peninsula (Newport News and Hampton), across Hampton Roads (well actually underneath, through the tunnel) and back into Tidewater and home in Virginia Beach.
Worthwhile trip. You all need to try doing something similar!
Hope you've enjoyed my travelog and have not been bored too very much........ if you have been bored; now is the time to wake up!!
Take care.
Best regards, Mike