This is a retrospective blog of my seven-week exploration of Virginia along with a journey through the Shenandoah National Park and on down the Blue Ridge Parkway to Cherokee, North Carolina. 'Retrospective' means simply that it wasn't written during the trip, but is being written in hindsight a little over a year later. Baaswell Sheep accompanied me and is writing the blog in the way he's done my later blogs, since he's so good with the color commentary. Unfortunately, since I didn't plan for this blog back them, my pictures are limited to the major attractions, but I'll try to make those galleries a little bigger than I do in my later blogs.
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We left Salem today and went up through the northern edge of Roanoke, stopping in a little town we know. It's called Daleville and is home to the Three Li'l Pigs barbeque restaurant, one of my companion's favorite places to eat. Being a sheep, I'm rather adverse to BBQ if you know what I mean, but my companion promised to keep me away from the grill. He enjoyed a pork sandwich while I had a side salad and we shared a really good sweet iced tea – quite refreshing.
A quaint little town, it's claim to fame is twofold: it's about ten miles from the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Peaks of Otter lodge on the parkway, and it's home to the national D-Day museum through a rather sad and odd twist. It seems that by some fluke, far more draftees from Bedford were on site in Europe on D-Day in World War II than from any other location in the United States, and thus Bedford had the highest number of D-Day casualties. So, when a memorial was proposed, the site suggested was Bedford, and that plan came to fruition. Neither I nor my companion are war buffs, so we never visited the memorial, but they probably needed a break anyway – we learned that the day before we arrived was the 80th anniversary of D-Day, so there had been a huge event at the memorial site with people coming from all over the country. In a way, I was surprised we were able to get a room so soon after such an event, but we snagged a very interesting one for a couple of nights. For safety's sake, I don't want to reveal where we're staying in real time, but as I did with The Dancing Bear Inn, I'll highlight this one and other local inns we stay in on the day we check out.
The owner of the bed-and-breakfast recommended this place and after our visit to the foothills looking for that house and then walking around the downtown streets, we were ready for a good dinner, so we gave it a try. Amusingly, as we went in, we saw the bed-and-breakfast owner and her husband at a table on the patio, so at least we can say this time that the person who recommended the restaurant really does eat there. We got a really good lasagna (according to my companion – I don't eat meat) and a nice salad for me to enjoy. Then it was back to the B&B to wind down and enjoy the swing on the front porch.
Please note that all restaurant and product names are used simply for referential purposes and links provided as a courtesy. Reviews are the sole opinions of the reviewer: no restaurant has paid to be listed here, and no restaurant is being explicitly endorsed. In other words, go out there, try them all, and form your own opinions!
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