Road Trip U.S.A. – Days 13 – 15

Day Thirteen

A very scenic day. We departed Evansville, Indiana and crossed into Kentucky. We kept to the back roads as much as possible and were rewarded with some fantastic scenery along the way. It was nice to pootle along enjoying the rolling landscape. We also managed to visit a small winery, accessed via a very scenic narrow tree-lined road, with the sun shining through the branches and leaves as they arched over the road.
Cedar Creek Winery, Kentucky was a couple of miles off of the 80 on our way to London, Kentucky. So it would have bee rude not to pay a visit.
We stopped in London, Kentucky for the night. We parked up the camper-van at Budget Host Westgate Inn & R.V. Camping (2154 Russel Dyche Mem. hwy. & Bravo Ln, London, Kentucky 40741) after we’d made a quick stop to purchase some food at a local grocery store.
Then it was Chef Randall to the fore. I rustled up steak in a tomato, mushroom, onion, and garlic sauce, served with linguine. Not bad for a camp-stove meal, and far better than we have eaten in a lot of places during our travels. Laura and I washed the food down with a bottle of Tailgate Red from Holy-Field Vineyard and winery in Kansas (http://holyfieldwinery.com/).

Day Fourteen

We departed London, Kentucky and headed South to Middlesboro. In fact we missed our turning in Middlesboro and ended up in Harrogate, Tennessee. A quick u-turn and we found our way back onto the 58 heading towards Bristol, Virginia.
We stopped in Gate City for a bite to eat at the Blue Rooster Cafe. I ordered an egg and sausage biscuit, Laura ordered eggs, bacon, biscuits and gravy. The food was very good, but better than the food were the people. They were really friendly and chatty. The owner said he loved our accents. Laura told him that she’d been listening to him and the other customers conversations because she loved their accents. He seemed pleased to hear that. He then said he should tape us talking and listen to it, so he could learn to speak with a London English accent. It was a very pleasant stop indeed.
We then motored on deciding to stay on the more scenic 58, instead of the new faster I81. When we reached Bristol we’d had enough of the scenic slow driving, so hopped onto the I81 up to Abingdon, Virginia.
Time and tide wait for no man, and we had a winery we wanted to visit.
We drove up to Abingdon Vineyard and Winery, via an interesting route given to us by the new Garmin SatNat in the camper-van.
The winery was set in a very tranquil location, but yet again I was far too exhausted to do a tasting, so I just purchased a bottle to go.
It was a shame not to sample the wine as the owner said they offer six free tastings. Poor Laura didn’t offer to drive as she was far too tired, and her eyesight is not good either. She needs new glasses, or at the very least a decent nights sleep. Apparently she’s been kept awake yet again by some bloke snoring his head off. Tut-tut. I’ve no idea who the scorer could be. ;d
Wine purchased and safely stored in the camper-van, we drove on to Damascus, Virginia. There was some kind of festival in progress. We saw the word love spelt out in huge letters, LOVE, a train engine, lots of bikers, walkers, joggers, cyclists, hippies, and people in general, many more people than we’d seen for weeks.
Damascus was a busy busy place when we drove through, which unfortunately meant zero parking to be found. Local entrepreneurs were charging $5 to park on their front lawns. We would have parked up if there had been a place for us to stay for the night nearby, but judging by the amount of cars and people wandering about, we decided not to bother looking.
Instead we carried on driving on the 58 until we reached the Beartree Recreation Area ($20 for camping). Parked up, I got the stove out and began making some fresh flatbread. To ease the burden of cooking I opened a bottle of Ring Neck Red from Pheasant Hollow Winery (14931 State Highway 37, Whittington, Illinois) that we’d purchased a couple of days previously.

Day Fifteen

Another monster day of driving. This time across the state of Virginia. We departed BBeartree Recreation Area and the SatNav decided on a nice slow scenic route back to the highway. In fact 2 hours worth of scenic driving.
Back on the main road to the coast, we paid a visit to Chateau Morrisette (http://www.thedogs.com/). A very impressive set up. A massive tasting room/shop in the winery building and also a very large stand alone restaurant.
On the way to and from the winery we passed a quaint house covered in crime scene tape. I wanted to take a photo but it was on a bend so I could not do it from the van, and did not fancy finding a safe place to park and walk back. I’ve seen far too many serial killer movies etc. to risk that. ;o
We then motored onto Emporia, Virginia where we found a motel for the night. For dinner, well I say dinner because it was after 5pm but it was the first meal of the day for us, we went to Shoneys. Along the highway all we had seen were franchised junk food places, that put us both of stopping for something to eat, hence no food until five. So, we ended up in Shoneys, a few feet across the parking lot from our motel room. We decided on the all you can eat $12.99 buffet. Not to stuff our faces with sauce covered meat and fried fish, but to gorge on vegetables and salad with a tiny bit of meat and fish on the side. We both ate and enjoyed lots of lovely vitamin rich food.

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