And then….

The weekend before last, Courtney, Ashley, and Josh came to visit all of the way from NC. … Unfortunately… I don’t have a ton of pictures… so. we’ll have to shoot from the hip.

Friday, Josh got here first. He needed a quick transmission flush, so a trip to Foreign Affairs and several hundred dollars later.. he was ready to roll again with a “Danger-Ranger” that was shifting nice and smooth again. I had a big pot of Chili going at home… so we ran back to the house, met up with Virginia… ate some Chili.. and headed out again. (For the interested folks.. the Chili is over on the cooking blog… ) We headed out to a wine tasting down at the wharf here in Staunton … For the record, there is no water near the wharf. … But the wine shop was really neat. It was in the bottom of a rather old building… HUGE timber frame members… and the fire suppression system was plumbed entirely in copper, complete with solder joints. I’d be interested to know what happens to solder joints in the event of a fire in a building full of alcohol.

Anyhoo. We walked around town with Josh.. then returned to the house to relax a bit before Courtney and Ashley got here. Since they were coming from Asheville, they got here to Staunton around 10:30… and we just sat and talked for a while before going to bed. Saturday morning, we all meandered out of bed… got ready to go… and hit Kathy’s for breakfast. Kathy’s is a local restaurant… really down-home Southern cooking. This translates to: they make an awesome breakfast. Virginia got “bacon waffles” … you might think that this would be a waffle, with a side of bacon. And you’d be wrong. This would be a waffle with chunks of bacon magically cooked into it. Uh-mazing.

We then hit downtown Staunton, and caught the tour “Trolley” around town. This was … interesting. The trolley had a “guide” that was narrating the trip, but it didn’t seem overly well rehearsed. The narration was either very fast, or lacking, depending on the speed of the bus. Special attention was paid to churches (apparently there are over 80 churches in Staunton). Special attention was NOT paid to hygiene  by the man who was sitting in front of us. I think he may have actually rubbed himself with dead mammals AND fish before boarding the bus. He then sat in the front seat, and opened his window. Of course he opened his window. If the latent smell wasn’t bad enough, we had to add movement and airflow to it. Since he was sitting in the front seat, we all got to share in this awesomeness. As an added bonus, at one point, he leaned out of the window to BARK at a woman on the street, who was walking her dog… in retrospect, he was probably barking at the dog… the woman was just collateral damage. So… Maybe I was too quick to judge the narrator of the trip… obviously, I wasn’t really paying attention.

After the trolley ride, we went into the Visitor’s Center, where Courtney could grab 3 copies of every pamphlet in the place. Normally, I would tae the rest of this paragraph to find some reason to make fun of her for reading all of the pamphlets in a town that she’s just visiting… but… she actually found something that we didn’t know about.. so… +10 points to Courtney. What was it that we found?? Finally picture time…

Those are brewing barrels. Apparently, here in Staunton we have an awesome little place called Queen City Brewing. Now, for those folks that live in “real” cities, it’s no big deal to have a brewery…But… this isn’t just a brewery… sure, they do make their own beers (quite a lot of them in fact)… and they do tastings…..

… with 12 beers on tap, and more in the back…. but, the kicker is: this place is like a Build-A-Bear workshop. Except replace Build with Brew, and Bear with Beer…. Yep. You go in there, you can make your own beer… spend about an hour and a half doing that, then come back in a few weeks (depending on brew time) to pick it up. Yeah. Beat that.

Our first trip there, we didn’t brew our own… but we did a tasting, and then bought a “pig” of beer. What’s a “pig” of beer?

This is a “pig” of beer. It’s 2.25 gallons, and it sells for right around $30… then, you have a tank of fresh frosty beer in the fridge…. there’s even a magical little bag inside that fills with air as you drink the beer out in order to keep the beer from going flat.

But, there was one HUGE flaw with the pig…. it just didn’t look right.. so… the girls got to work…

Some Crayons.. some construction paper… some tape….

We have the technology….

Petunia was born….

Curly tail and all… now.. it was truly a pig…

But it was a pig wit magical powers… a pig that could dispense cool refreshing beer.

So.. we had our pig.. we had good food… what else did we need?

Nothing. .. So. we sat around… talked… Courtney and Ashley played with the iPad… we watched some movies… then played some games… and just enjoyed the rainy weather inside…

The next morning, we started with some pound cake… then Josh took off to get back home… Courtney and Ashley stuck around for a little longer… so we went to Gypsy Hill Park…

The ladies fed the ducks….

We all rode the mini train….

 

For some reason… there were a bunch of children on the train… and they screamed every time we went through a tunnel… so… that was… loud… but… the train is really neat…

After the train ride, and the feeding of the ducks… Virginia posed the following question: “Do you guys want to walk around the park? or… We could go get some Gelato…” …. so.. of course, we went and got Gelato! … But then… it was time for Courtney and Ashley to head back to Asheville….

It was an awesome weekend… but it was over far too soon….