City of Charlottesville

Maybe the stars just weren’t aligned. We pulled into one restaurant highly recommended on Yelp, and it looked TERRIBLE! We pulled up to another, which looked PERFECT but there was a large gathering of people outside waiting to be seated. We finally pulled into a small diner with plenty of character, including snaggle-toothed short order cooks plying their trade at the counter. But the menu was positively not appealing to Heather. But when she indicated she didn’t want to eat there, Gordon uncharacteristically asserted himself with a bark, saying he was hungry NOW and wanted to stay.

Gordon had a delicious BLT. Heather tried going on strike, but succumbed when she saw the coconut cake and had a piece with coffee, even though it was not EXACTLY what she wanted.

We then headed toward the pedestrian mall, with lots of cute shops, street vendors, and LOTS OF RESTAURANTS. Heather is not proud of it, but admits to engaging in continuous needling of Gordon every time we passed another EXCELLENT LOOKING RESTAURANT.

Heather was slightly mollified when she saw a street sign directing people to, “PIE.” We resolved to investigate on our way back down the mall.

We enjoyed walking up and down the mall, mostly looking at the old buildings and people watching. As we headed back to the car, we went into The Pie Chest, which had two cases FULL of sweet and savory pie! We got 2 small pot pies, one mushroom-gruyere, and one shrimp-corn for dinner. Oh … and a piece of honey-spiced pear pie to share for dessert. Heather became less grumpy.

We then headed across the street to a small market and picked up a beautiful loaf of ciabatta, some goat cheese, some snap peas … just because we couldn’t resist.

On the way back to camp, we stopped at the Beer Run to sample some of the local beers, which are famous … but when Heather saw a LINE FOR THE BATHROOM (small city trope) we turned around and went home.

We are a little concerned about Williamsburg, but Gordon says we will just take a stress pill before going in. Perhaps we will get used to all the people? Stay tuned.Read more