Tri-City Trek

Thank you all for the lovely comments and emails for our anniversary! That was so thoughtful, and I'll answer your comments soon! We're very thankful to the Lord for giving us many great years together and an enjoyable trip to celebrate!

Come along...I'll take you along on our tri-city trek.

We traveled north to a couple of towns in Virginia where we'd only driven by but not visited (Warrenton and Culpeper), and we ended up driving home via a third city (Charlottesville) where we lived many years ago.

We arrived in Warrenton on a very rainy day in time for lunch at Great Harvest Bread Company: This was a new-to-me and quite delicious sandwich shop, and today I've been searching recipes online so we can duplicate here at home the Dakota Bread I selected for my sandwich.

Here's a Dakota Bread poster on the outside window of the shop (sorry for the glare) so you can get an idea of all the seeds that covered the top of the loaf: Dakota Bread includes pumpkin, sunflower, poppy and sesame seeds, too! Here's Tom in the shop waiting for me to take pictures before we can eat! The shop offered sample tastes of any of their loaves for customers. I would definitely recommend this shop if you have a franchise near you:After lunch we walked right across the street to - Kelly Anne's Quilting...how convenient! Not much to look at on the outside: But plenty of beautiful fabric inside! I kept reminding myself of Hannah's advice..."shop from your stash!" And I left the shop with just looking and not buying.I loved this antique setup in one corner of the shop: We walked the streets of Old Town Warrenton and visited shops and the Old Jail Museum which were all very interesting: The next morning dawned beautiful and sunny! Great! We headed to the local Farmers' Market in Warrenton just to check out another market. Sarah told me later that even being away from home we couldn't get away from the market on a Saturday: This particular market accepts craft vendors whereas our local market doesn't. I'm sure Granny would love to sell her baskets at a market like this: I especially wanted to take pictures for Sarah of any baking vendors selling sweets: We left Warrenton and headed to Culpeper where we walked the main city street and visited their gift shops before checking out the Farmers' Market down by the depot. Yes! Another Farmers' Market! We were actually looking for friends we thought would be selling their farm goods here but didn't find them:And honey for sale from the Beekeepers' Club. This picture was for Jonathan: I took so many market photos, but the last one I'll post is another sweets photo for Sarah: Leaving Culpeper and heading towards Charlottesville, we spotted a quilt shop sign along the road; and Tom took the exit to downtown Madison to visit That Little Quilt Shop--two quilt shops back to back and no purchases back to back. My family is proud of me. :)
Arriving in Charlottesville, we decided to tour Ash Lawn-Highland, home of James Monroe. Shown in the background below were the slave quarters: The gardens and grounds were beautiful. Our excellent tour guide relayed lots of information about Monroe's home. Here's the back of the original home and the addition (in yellow) added in later years after a fire. Ash Lawn-Highland is a stone's throw from Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. Both are great tourist destinations. I'd recommend both if you visit Virginia!

We're home again after a great anniversary away. This week we're preparing for my sister to bring Granny back on Labor Day weekend. We'll be glad to have her back for a couple of months!

~Deb

Comments

[Laura]

What a wonderful trip, and packed full of so many sites and stops! Sounds like your both had a fantastic anniversary.

We need to get to Virginia for a bit of touring, it's on our list of places to go;)

Have a great week, and praying granny gets home safely.
Laura

[Kathy]

Did anyone else notice the happy guy in the background over Tom's left shoulder? Looks like he was smiling just for your photo. Nice of him, wasn't it? :-)Glad you could enjoy such a lovely anniversary weekend.

[Dorothy Horton]

What a wonderful trip! Thanks for sharing! What self control to go to those quilt shops and buy nothing! Wow! I do like Hannah's advice of shopping from your stash. :-) Glad you were able to get away for your anniversary! We look forward to our anniversary trip in October. For now, we are just have to be content loving on our new grandson. (-:

[Tammy C]

Nice market for the family if it was closer!

neat about the Beekeepers' Club.

Your tour sounded fun.

[Toni]

Wow, I'm glad you had a great time. This is my kind of getaway. I've toured Monticello but have never been to Ash-Lawn Highland. I'll have to keep that in mind for when we are up that way. Thanks for sharing your trip with us.

[Bobbi]

Deb, I've been to that quilt shop in Madison. It was an old Presbyterian Church many years ago. I'm glad you had a good trip!

[Heather Pickle]

Happy anniversary Deb!! It looks like you had a lovely time! I have been meaning to email You . We have moved much closer to you. We are now living in Delaware instead of southern Arizona. I kept wondering as we drove through Virginia where you lived. We fell in love with Virginia. We will definitely be back. I would love to get together when we do. :-)