I may or may not have mentioned the vacation we purchased from Bass Pro Shops several months back. We were shopping for some fishing stuff one day and we were approached by their travel agents about a weekend getaway. We said no at first, but once we talked about it for a few minutes and they offered us enough gift cards to cover the cost of the room, we decided there wasn't any harm. It's to preview a timeshare, so you have to attend a 2 hour presentation. Of course that part wasn't exciting, but we figured if our room was free, it was worth it. They had lots of locations including Charleston, Aruba and several more all over the country. We chose Shenandoah Valley since it was the closest and we had recently heard lots of good things about it from a co-worker. We decided it would be a nice weekend getaway and we couldn't have picked a better time for it!
Friday morning, we got to sleep in a little bit (until 7:30, that's later than I sleep on some weekends!). We fed Bailey, played with her a bit, picked up around the house (I hate coming home to clutter) and took Bailey to camp. She always gets SO excited to go and Friday was no exception. We dropped her off and got on the road. We didn't have a specific time to get there, which is nice since we're usually rushing. We stopped at Chick-fil-A for lunch. YUM! I usually read a lot during our trips, but I decided not to this time. We left our computers home too, and we ended up keeping our phones off once we got to our place. I'm SO glad we did. It was really nice to have no interruptions and for it to be just us. We also didn't plan ahead, which is different for us. We just decided to go and play it by ear.
Our room wasn't ready when we arrived, so we went out to pet the horses for a bit and then decided to visit a winery. We went to Horton Vineyards. The place was absolutely beautiful and they had over 40 wines to choose from! We each got to taste 12 for no charge. We chose our favorites and decided to buy 3 bottles. One to have on our trip and 2 to have on hand at home. We chose a white for the trip and 2 reds to take home. They had some special wines they had made for the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. We chose one of those. When we were on our way back to our room, we saw a sign for another vineyard and decided to go there too. This one was Barboursville Vineyards. This one wasn't as pretty outside, but the inside was amazing. This one was only $5 a person and we got to try all their wines and keep the glasses. During the tasting, we met an older couple and they were SO nice. He was retired Navy and he's a pilot for Delta now. He just got back from a long week of traveling, so his wife was treating him to a winery tour. They were so sweet!
Horton. So pretty!
On the way out of the vineyard, we noticed a house the couple at the winery was telling us about. It was designed by Thomas Jefferson for governor Barbour. The family decorated the Christmas tree with real candles, and the house burned down on Christmas Eve. Such a sad story. What was left of the house is still standing. It was HUGE. Even though it's such a sad story, it was really interesting to look at. There were huge trees surrounding the house and they had an odd looking fruit on them. We couldn't figure out what they were supposed to be. We ran into the couple again and they told us they were walnuts. Of course, Josh had to find out for sure. He broke it open and sure enough, there was a walnut inside. We also found out that walnut stains. Josh walked around with his hands looking like this for the rest of the trip.
We had a great time at both of the vineyards. After visiting those, I now think most of the MD vineyards we have visited are a bit on the stingy side. Haha.
We decided to drive back toward town and find something to eat. We saw gas for only $3.50 a gallon, so we decided to stop and fill up. Of course, Josh looked for a local beer while we were at the gas station. He got Star Hill's Pumpkin Porter. We had both noticed restaurants we were interested in while we were driving through town on the way to the vineyards. We stopped at Josh's first. I don't remember the name of it, but once we got up closer to it, we realized it was really fancy looking and a bit pricey. We were not dressed to eat there and neither of us was in the mood for a fancy meal anyway. The place I noticed was The Barbeque Exchange . That was much more like it! It was probably the closest thing I've had to real BBQ outside NC. Josh got the BBQ Sandwich with hushpuppies and I got the BBQ tray with a pumpkin muffin, mac n cheese and collards. The meat came plain and you got to choose the sauce you wanted on it. They had several, but I only paid attention to one...Craig's Carolina. It was the real Eastern NC vinegar based stuff, not that tomato based stuff. The pork is pulled and I prefer it to be finer chopped, but it was pulled more finely than I've had at most places. We both had more than enough to eat, so we went to go check in to our room.
Once we got settled, we decided to check out the bar for Happy Hour. We each had a Star Hill beer. I had The Love (a delicious wheat beer) and Josh had Northern Lights (an IPA that even Josh thought was over-hopped). After having a beer at the bar, we decided to go back to the room and watch a movie. We were both really tired, so we ended up going to sleep pretty early.
We got up early the next morning and went to breakfast. It was a little chilly outside, but we ate on the patio anyway. The view was amazing. The food was really good! We took our time eating then went to the stables to see the horses and other animals. Of course, I loved this part. We still had some time to kill before our tour, so we walked a short trail. When we got back to the general store, where some of the pools are, we found a giant chess set. It looked pretty cool, but we didn't play. We went to the preview center for our tour. Josh was signing the paperwork when he noticed a bold statement that said MD residents were not obligated to take the tour. We thought we might not get our gift cards if we opted out of the tour, so Josh asked. Nope, we didn't have to take the tour AND we still got our gift cards! Heck yes, we saved 2+ hours of our lives! We were so excited, because our tour was supposed to start at 11:45. We thought we would only be able to catch the end of the game, but now we could make the whole thing! In our excitement, we walked out of the preview center with Josh's Oakley's sitting on the coffee table. He realized it not even 5 minutes down the road, and we turned around to go get them immediately. We looked where we both knew he left them and they were gone! We thought maybe someone turned them in. Nope, someone kept them for themselves. We went back 3 times over the course of the trip and no one ever turned them in. Of course, Josh was really upset. Now I'm on a mission to find another good deal.
Part of the view from breakfast. The lake.
More views from breakfast. The stables.
This little guy just wouldn't leave us alone. I kept trying to swat him away from my juice but he kept coming back. Finally, I let him fall to his death and asked for a new juice.
Chicken and biscuits with smoked gouda grits. So yum and the most tender fried chicken I've ever had.
Josh got steak and eggs. His steak was way overcooked, but still very tender.
A fuzzy chicken. Josh calls it a llama.
Peacock!
Another fuzzy chicken with her chicks. That peacock kept bullying and pecking at the little chicks!
Giant chess!
A lifesized example.
We found a local bar that had just opened 3 weeks ago. It was only noon on Saturday, so we had the place to ourselves. We ended up being the only people there the entire game, so we had 4 TVs just for us. We stayed and watched the whole, disappointing game. This was actually probably my least favorite part of the trip. There's no reason we couldn't have won that game, but I won't go into that. Moving on...
After the game, we went back to the resort. We played a round of mini golf. I started off strong, but of course, Josh came back and beat me. Next, we went fishing for a while. Josh forgot to bring fishing poles, but you can rent them for $5 each and you get to keep them for 24 hours. They had several types of boats. We chose to get a John Boat. There was no charge since we decided to row out. We stayed out for about an hour and a half. Josh caught 1 fish, and I just got my line tangled in the tree a couple times. No luck here. We each enjoyed a Pumpkin Porter while we were out on the boat. Even though I didn't catch anything, I still had a good time relaxing. We got cleaned up and went to dinner afterward. I got a french dip sandwich and Josh got a burger. It was very good. We lounged and watched football for the rest of the night. We tried to stay up for the FSU game, but we both fell asleep before it went off. We fell asleep relatively early and "slept" for about 10 hours. Neither of us slept well Saturday night. We both tossed and turned and woke up with sore backs. Needless to say, we were looking forward to having our bed back Sunday night.
He did all the rowing :-)
My bobber stuck in the trees.
The fish Josh caught.
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Now, this is what I call relaxing.
We slept in until 8:00 on Sunday morning. We got up and got ready, packed our things, then went to breakfast. We decided to eat in since it was a little cooler than Saturday morning and Josh didn't bring anything with long sleeves. After eating, we loaded up the car and went back on the lake. I wanted to go kayaking and Josh wanted to fish. We got a kayak and fished off of it :-). Neither of us caught anything, but we had a good time rowing around the lake. We both got a bit wet and needed to change before we left. We both had leftovers from dinner the night before, so we warmed it up and decided we would have that for lunch whenever we got hungry. We had an easy ride home until we got to DC. We did hit a bit of traffic, but it wasn't horrible. Of course, I took a nap. We were back home by 2 and we couldn't pick Bailey up until 4:30, so we caught up on laundry, did a couple chores around the house and did a little work in the garage. We really want to be able to park in there this Winter!
On the lake Sunday morning. So pretty!
Finally, it was time to pick up Bailey! It was really nice to have some just us time, but I always miss her when we're away. Of course, she was super excited to see us too. We decided to go to Bass Pro shops since we've been wanting to get Bailey out more. She's never been, so we thought it would be nice if her first time was when she was exhausted. She's usually really funny about giant animal types of things, but she didn't bark at anything. She was definitely a little nervous, but she did really well! We'll have to start taking her more.
Taking it all in.
It wasn't easy to get her to sit for this one. She wanted to sniff everything.
After a long weekend at camp.
We had such an amazing weekend in VA. It was simple and low key, but that's just what we needed. It's so beautiful in the foothills in the mountains, especially with the leaves just starting to change. This weekend was a great reminder of all the things God has blessed us with. We live in such a beautiful world!
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