And the travel goes on, Wytheville (4/14/2023)

Things are increasingly winding down. They are going so fast, that the post for my last trip was written while watching television and drinking either coffee in my motel room or a beer at a brewery in Wytheville. I guess the final touches to this post will come in a brewery at my next stop, Fredericksburg. I am really starting to wonder why I did this to myself; I knew I was retiring, and I should have kept it easy the last year.

Oh well, I wanted to go out with a big bang. But man, retirement is going to feel good and deserved. Less than two months to go.

It is all bitter sweet, Wytheville, the town of last week’s visit, didn’t feel like usual. It felt like I had already distanced myself from the town I actually like a lot. I tried to visit some of the old haunts for that pop-psychology word “closure.” However, it just seemed that the restaurant choice for the first night did not seem as good as I remembered.

The Log Cabin was busy for a Monday evening; however, the meal I got was tasteless and the salad seemed to have been thrown together with little attention. I had a south of the border pork roast which tasted anything but south of the border, it had raw onions in it, which were distracting. For vegetable I ordered a stuffed squash, which turned out to be a limp half zucchini with some stuff in it. The only redeeming part were the French fries. But the desert and coffee were good.

Lunch on both days were at my favorite Chinese restaurant (Peking), day one was great, but my second day meal choice was somewhat disappointing. I usually switch between the Chinese restaurant and the Mexican place down the street. However, that place was closed, shut down forever. On further investigation it seems that one of the owners had died and that was it!

The beer at my favorite brewery (Seven Sisters) was still great, but the place was still empty, and the food truck would not be open both days I was there. So, off to the pizza joint (Moon Dog Brick Oven) the first day. That place is always good, no complaint there. My friends at the place I teach had told me about another Mexican restaurant in town which according to them was great, so I tried it the second evening. It is located in the Walmart shopping center and I wanted to look there anyway to see if folks were camping out in the parking lot with their campers. We have bought a small camper and are wondering if that would be an option for us, free camping at Walmart. Well, the restaurant (El Patio) was mediocre in my eyes. Oh well.

So, all together, maybe a bittersweet visit, maybe a good way to close out my 14 years of visiting Wytheville. Somewhat of a letdown. Not at all like my visit to Fairfax. But then maybe it’s good to be done with this part of my life very soon.  The best thing came at the end, on the way back I had a nice walk on the New River Trail.  I even found a good rock that I might be able to use for a root over rock planting for my bonsais.  

Seven Sisters Brewery.  Quiet at usual when I go there, but I had a chance to finidh my Fairfax blog while sipping some tasty brews, and then walking down the street for a nice pizza.

The Wallmart parking lot had a few campers already there.  I was scouting it out to see if it may work for us during our travels.

Just a picture on the New River Trail.  I love the shape of this tree.  Who knows?  A future bonsai design?

The redbuds were in full bloom on the New River Trail.