Friday

70th Birthday Road Trip


Tuesday October 30

Gretchen planned a wonderful road trip to celebrate my 70th birthday!  First we went to Charlottesville and walked around several of our favorite haunts. Then we drove to Earlysville and headed up to Skyline Drive. Driving south, we were disappointed in the fall foliage, a lot of brown but not much color.  We dropped off the Parkway to go to the Fenton Inn, near the entrance to Wintergreen.  Fenton is a beautiful place, built by the owners to remind them of a European village; Lilia is from Crimea.  It is really cool!




Will is a master woodworker as you can see from the door he created for our room, the Captain's Quarters.  He also has graphic inlays in the wooden floors and has crafted much of the furniture.




The picture below shows the view from the breakfast nook. We loved the Inn and would highly recommend it!


Our last stop today was Wild Wolf Brewery for dinner. We had a very tasty jambalaya.


Wednesday

We had never been to James Monroe's Highland, his plantation next to Monticello. So we headed down the mountain noticing the changing color of the trees on our way to Charlottesville.  The tour of Highland was excellent.  The most interesting fact was the house that is there is not the one Monroe built.  The house in the photo below was built by a more recent owner.  The stones on each side of the walkway outline the foundation of the original single story home which was destroyed by fire.




Following the traditional tour, we did the augmented reality tour.  It was simple but pretty cool. However,  I'm not sure how cool we looked walking around the grounds.




To cap off the day we went to one of the reservation only dinners at the Veritas Vineyard Farmhouse Restaurant.  It is a 4 course dinner with wine pairings.  I'm ready to start the first course...AOF Italian Sausage Consomme with Local Hydro Tomatoes, Peppers and Onions paired with Chardonnay. The surprise for me was the Viognier paired with the second course. It was very good...and I generally do not like Viognier! Gretchen and I highly recommend this restaurant if you like great food and wine!



Thursday

Alas, it is time to head home.  What a wonderful trip you planned Gretchen.  I loved every minute!  Thank you so much for a super 70th birthday celebration!

Post Note

The leaves really did seem to change color over night from Wednesday to Thursday.  The tree below was at Highland.  On Thursday we came home via the Parkway and the fall foliage was gorgeous.  What a difference a day makes!




BTW, we saw an eagle in Big Island alongside the road on our way home!




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