Abingdon or Hotels 11. (6/10/2022)

My latest trip was uneventful for a change. No mass murder, no start of a new war, it was boring, or at least nothing to be glued to the TV for. Although, I think there was a shooting at a hospital in Oklahoma, but that one received only minor attention after what happened in Uvalde, Texas. Not that it should become so common place that I should call it uneventful; however, the media hardly covered it because the atrocities in the small Texas town and the screw ups by the police and the Governor still dominated the news.

Enough, I want to step away from that for a change of pace. This past week brought me to Abingdon, a town in Washington County, in southwest Virginia, approximately 10 miles from the Tennessee border. Now if you think that this is the far end of Virginia, think again. Some of my students had to drive an hour and a half form the farthest tip of Virginia, near the Cumberland Gap area in Lee County. To think that when I left Abingdon Friday morning at 8:30 to return home I had to travel 8 hours. This included lunch and switching out my state car for my personal vehicle in Richmond.

Knowing that my retirement age is approaching, I have been inviting one of my colleagues to join me and co-teach my classes with me, or at least attend them and learn. My regular compatriot grew up in Abingdon, so he was thrilled to join. Although his mom (as he calls her) still lives there and he visits her regularly, it was funny to see that I had to show him where all the good restaurants were for lunch and dinner, or even where the town’s microbrewery was (darn they changed the location of the entrance and the tasting room). I like to treat myself to an ice cream from Dairy Queen after class, and I had to show him where that was (near the turn to mom’s place). We spent three nights in town and had fun together on two of them. One of the evenings he visited mom and I spent time on my own. That evening it rained, but not hard enough to prevent me from walking from my motel room via the Creeper Trail to one of my favorite restaurants in town (128 Pecan).

We stayed at the new Holiday Inn Express, which was great. Rooms were new, clean and up-to-date. It is in a newly developed area next to sports fields that are connected to the Creeper. I saw them develop the area two and a half years ago (pre-COVID) and thought it would become a sub-division of some sort. One of the evenings, my compadre and I had fun trying to figure out the post development hydrology and stormwater management of this and a site downstream from this site. It seemed messy and kind of screwed up. It is difficult, at times, to leave your work in the office at the end of the day, isn’t it?

My nice, updated room at the Holiday Inn Express.  The view was something to be desired, but OK.

Restaurants we visited were Bella’s Pizza and the Hardware Store (BBQ) favorites of both of us (both definitely get a high 3.8 or 4 stars out of 5). Lunch was at some Mexican joint (ok) and Milano’s. Both lunch spots were new introductions to our Abingdon native and he (we) liked Milano's that much (also a 3.8 for sure) that he swore that he needed to bring mom to Milano’s for dinner when he is back in town. 128 Pecan has been a favorite of mine for a long time, and it did not disappoint me again on this trip (4.2 stars out of 5).

Then the piece de resistance: Wolf Hill Brewery. While they moved to a new taproom two years ago, I found that the atmosphere of the old funky place had disappeared. This tasting room is clean, sophisticated and dull in my eyes. But the beer remained the same and is still good. Their hours appear different and they lost their taco food-truck, one of the things I was looking forward to. A COVID casualty according to the lady behind the bar. Naturally, we got there right before trivia started, so the place filled up and I never had a chance to sample a second beer. We just wanted to get out of there before the noise started. Oh well.

I realize that this has become a travel log, so a little more. After Wolf Hill Brewery and dinner at the Hardware Store my friend decided to show me the sights around town. It was not what a warm blooded guy had secretly hoped for (just kidding); regular readers know that I am a sucker for nature. However, in the back of the training room were four (cheesy) paintings of a mill and he had recognized it as the mill at White Mill, just 4 miles west of downtown. During dinner, the server told us that grits served by the restaurant were milled by the mill which had recently been restored. This had triggered my friends need to show me the mill in real life and off we went. A nice country drive later we visited the mill and got to walk around it, look at nature and take a few photographs. On the way back we observed a grove of dead trees and speculated why this happened; a subject we brought back the next day in class: flooding caused by beavers, herbicide drift, who knows?

Common Ninebark blooming just below the mill at White Mill, VA

Just a bench at White Mill, VA

The mill and White Mill, VA.  I took the photo from the bench above.

Altogether, I had a good week. At times it is nice to have company on my travels. Other times, being an introvert it is nice to travel alone. But I did enjoy the company this time around. For sure it was nice to have a fellow driver behind the wheel. I am getting older and I noticed it when I got home, I was beat.

My excuses to those of you who were looking for more depth, politics, philosophy or whatever in this post. At times it is good to be light hearted and write an account of my travels; a diary of sorts. The original objective of my blog was a photo blog and an account of my travels through Virginia. Moreover, I can’t be a philosopher every day.