virginia

It’s been a few weeks now but I thought I would share a little bit from our trip to Virginia.  We headed to Virginia for our friends wedding weekend and I had absolutely nothing planned, I know totally unlike me. Nonetheless we had an amazing time just winging it.

We flew from Portland to Dulles on Thursday morning and then picked up our rental car and headed to Charlottesville for the night.  Before hitting the road we stopped at Lotus Vegetarian in Chantilly, VA. The food was pretty good for not so healthy Asian food although the spicy items were far from spicy.

After we ate we got on the road and made the drive to Charlottesville.  We hit some crazy traffic and it ended up taking us nearly three hours!! Needless to say Neil and I were so ready to get out of the car by the time we arrived and we were lucky that Edith slept the entire way. We checked into our hotel, headed to the bar for a beer and then we were off to bed.

In the morning we headed out to Bodo’s Bagels because of course the first thing on the agenda would good East Coast bagels. Fact: I have yet to try any good or REAL bagels in Oregon. What is up with all the fake bagels in Oregon aka the round bread with a whole in the middle. Anyways that’s an entirely different post but yes we went to Bodo’s Bagels where we had amazing bagels topped with some delicious hummus, tomatoes and sprouts.  I also had a surprisingly decent cup of drip coffee. I also didn’t take a photo of my bagel because I ate it too fast, so good.

After Bagels we decided to head downtown and do a little walking around and get the coffee snob aka Neil a cup of coffee. We found ourselves at Mudhouse after wandering around for awhile trying to find it. It was worth it though as Neil enjoyed his pour over coffee and Edith and I enjoyed a grapefruit-basil homemade soda.

We wandered around the downtown walking area for a bit longer, popping into shops as we went along before meeting up with Kath and Mazen for lunch at Eppies. I was pretty thrilled to try a spot that had Southern food with clearly marked vegan options. Neil and I ordered two veggie plates but of course Neil ordered the better three options which were the collards, black beans and sweet potato. I ordered the slaw, fruit and broccoli and although Edith enjoyed it I was happy to sneak bites of Neil’s.

After lunch we said goodbye to Kath and Mazen and decided to take a walk to a local brewery but we arrived about 2.5 hours before opening. So we ended up walking to Beer Run which was as little further of  a trek in the heat but it was worth it.  We sat outside enjoyed a beer and just relaxed. It felt amazing not to have an agenda at all. Okay I shouldn’t say not at all since we did have to get back to our car and head to Orange to really start the wedding weekend.

To be continued..