Travels to Western Virginia

One of the fun things about my job has been getting to see all the different parts of Virginia that my family/school/social life has never taken me. Really, as a child and young adult, I traveled in and out of the country, but not really much around the Commonwealth. We have family in Maryland, visited DC often and I worked in West Virginia during college, but that was pretty much the extent of local travel in my realm. Since working with my current company, I've visited Hot Springs (waaaay out there), staying at a favorite of many presidents - The Homestead, and passing through the breath-taking Goshen Pass (Google image search it, just amazing). We've spent a lot of time in Roanoke, I know the Hotel Roanoke like the back of my hand by now! Roanoke has a great short hike to the Roanoke Star perfect for the busy business traveler sick of hotel gyms. We also head out to Virginia Beach and Hampton Roads fairly often (avoid the budget "oceanfront" hotels - they are scary and generally not really oceanfront) and I love getting to stick my feet in the ocean while on a business trip.

This week, I'm in Blacksburg for the first time in my life, preparing and delivering a presentation to the Town for a local streetscape and road improvements project in the heart of this college town. I left home at about 8 and headed down the highway without any coffee or breakfast. I made it all the way to Lexington before I had to stop out of boredom, hunger and fatigue. I stopped at the first bakery/coffee place that grabbed my attention. Barb's Bakery (111 West Nelson Street Lexington, VA 24450, 540-463-2531) it was! I'm not sure if it was Barb herself that served me, but she was very friendly and the place smelled amazing. I have to say the coffee was so-so, but the fresh bagel was AMAZING.

After that, I stopped for a quick photo op in the window of the antique/music store next to my parking space:

("fight crime, shoot back" if you couldn't read it)

And another photo op on the way out of town:

That's Virginia Military Institute way in the background. Lexington is also home to another fantastic school, Washington & Lee.

After the quick stop-off in Lexington, I continued South to Blacksburg where I met my coworkers just in time for a bit of catching up and then lunch! Just in case I hadn't gotten my fill of homemade breads for the day, we headed over to one of my coworker's favorite lunch spots, Our Daily Bread. I actually managed to put the wonderful bread smells out of my mind and had the ratatouille (vegan) and the fresh fruit salad (also vegan) with a soy cappuccino. I saw a couple of steak sandwiches ordered among my self-proclaimed "country boy" coworkers from Salem and another one had the tuna salad sandwich that he said he highly recommended. We may go back for lunch tomorrow. It was THAT GOOD. I might stop and buy a loaf of bread either way!

After lunch was a quick tour of Virginia Tech's campus. Sorry to all you Hokies out there, but I seriously don't get what the big deal is. It's a campus. It's pretty gothic and everything looks the same! I totally would have gotten lost all the time, had I gone there. But, to each his own! It's a great school regardless and I think it's really neat that they have lots of biking/jogging trails through the fields. Here are a couple snaps of my tour.

A Hokie Stone building on campus:

I'll let you in on a secret: Hokie Stone is locally mined limestone.

The football stadium (Sorry about the horrible pic taken out a car window! The stadium is much more impressive in person):

So far, a very pleasant stay in Hokietown. Looking forward to tomorrow! Blacksburg and Western Virginia to be continued next time!