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 bid goodbye to our bed and breakfast in Clifton Forge and headed south down to US 11 at Buchanan, then journeyed up US 11 to the Natural Bridge area for much of the afternoon. It's the weekend, so it's no work and all play for a nice change of pace!
Our first stop was a place my companion had gotten a brochure card for many, many years ago, but had never had a chance to visit. Sometimes the long wait is worth it, but only if your perception of a place is accurate. What he'd not realized from the small card was that this was a genuine country store, not a modern oversized recreation like you find in some of the more touristy locales. So, it was interesting in it's own way, but it's more appealing to locals and those who have a way to store the foods you can procure from there. Given we were on a long road trip in high ninety's temperatures, we really couldn't take anything with us beyond shelf-stable products, and we had no need for any of them either.
We went back south to the actual Natural Bridge area and stopped at the hotel to take a look at it, as it is a historic site and my companion has never stayed there. The hotel is a nice quick stop for visitors to get a taste of the area and its history, as there's a nice one-room museum at the front right of the hotel. Across the lobby from the museum is the Red Fox Tavern, and my companion would have stopped in for a snack, but it didn't open until later in the afternoon, alas.
After the hotel, we went across the street to the Caverns at Natural Bridge*, but the parking lot was crammed full, so we left and went to the visitor's center for Natural Bridge State Park, which contains the actual natural bridge for which the area was named. We didn't go out to see the bridge, as we'd seen it not that many years ago, and it was a pretty darn hot day. Instead, we enjoyed a black cherry cola and an ice cream sandwich to help cool us down before continuing our journey.
* - We've learned that the caverns are currently closed now, having been acquired by the Natural Bridge State Park. They're refurbishing some of the fifty-year-old infrastructure and trying to undo some of the damage done my fifty years of tourism. As of October of 2025, there's still no word on when they will reopen.
We still didn't have a good chance to visit in downtown Lexington, but we drove through and then stopped at Duke's around the peak of the heat of the day. Fortunately, the place was air conditioned reasonably well and gave us a nice chance to stretch our legs and look for some interesting hidden finds. Duke's is also home to three cats, though we only ever saw one of them. Outside they had a number of concrete statues, and my companion debated on getting one of a red fox, but it was rather heavy, and he hated to think about driving that thing all over Virginia -- at this point we still have four weeks of our journey left, a lot of it through the Shenandoah and Blue Ridge mountains. So, he decided to pass on the statue.
Weren't we just here last week? Well, as a matter of fact, we were, but this seemed like the best place to stop for a night before heading out to the east coast. Nothing like staying in a familiar place, and we even got the same room again! Since we had some time to kill, though, we went over to Waynesboro for a short visit, checking out a few stores in the main shopping center, then grabbing dinner before heading back
As the name suggests, this is one of those combination seafood and BBQ places, and from the looks of things, it's pretty popular with the locals. Amusingly, they have an outdoor dining / concert area lovingly referred to as "The Pig Pen". Given the heat, we gladly opted for indoor dining and my companion enjoyed a pork and catfish plate with some slaw and mac-and-cheese for me. I was impressed that for such a busy looking establishment, the food came rather quickly, and my companion says the meats were nicely prepared.
Just have to throw in that when we got back to Staunton, we returned to Kline's Dairy Bar for another of their heavenly strawberry shortcakes, a perfect way to end a busy day of sight-seeing.
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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