Unfortunately, I had to work in the morning, but the rest of our day was spectacular.
We had planned to go camping and had even talked about going down to Mt. Rogers, but that was almost 6 hours away and for goodness' sake, we live at the foot of the Shennandoah mountains.
I got off work and began to prepare our dinner for the evening; which consisted of tasty baked chicken with bar-b-q sauce and rosemary (SO YUMMY!) and a cold rossini and tomato and cucumber pasta salad. We were preparing to live it up even though we were camping, so we brewed our favorite coffee from Central Roasters and baked a banana bread to take along with us for breakfast the next morning.
The day before, Brynn was still out staying with us, and the three of us went berry picking in the morning. Between the three of us, I think we gathered about 6 pounds or more of raspberries! Naturally, we took a bunch of those with us as well to go with the banana bread. :-)
We were off!
Camping gear, blankets, food coolers and the two dogs loaded up in the Explorer and head out to Skyline Drive. We made all the way, a daunting 7 miles, to the entrance of the park, when smoke began to pour out of our hood! The ranger in the booth then informed us that we were gushing fluids and best pull off straight away.
Nice.
Eddie and I watched as every drop of coolant fluid cascaded all over the parking lot of the National Park. Of course, cell phones don't work there. We decided to wait about half an hour, then dumped tons of water in the reservoir and said a prayer that we could get back down the mountain to the garage without anything happening. But we couldn't just drop off the truck with the dogs and all our gear in it. So much for a romantic evening.
We then kept going and went home. The truck didn't appear to be leaking anymore, wouldn't you know, so we decided to take two cars and go camp out at Riversong, my family's cabin in the woods, not far from us and very secluded.
A view of the place's namesake
A view of the place's namesake
At first we were going to just sleep out on the back porch of the cabin, but once we got there we realized that there were about five hornet nests scattered under the furniture out there. Not terribly inviting.
We were starting to run out of daylight, so we set up our tent in the the little meadow by the river surrounded by forrest. It was so wonderful!
Our little home for the night
Our little home for the night
Time for dinner!
We settled down on the ledges in the river to watch the sunset and enjoy our hot chicken and cold pasta with our Lake Anna wine, which was the wine from the winery that we met at some 3 years ago. I must admit I was a little disappointed at first that we wouldn't be camping up in the park, but once we got to Riversong, I was even more excited and it turned out to be SO much better than had we actually made it into the park! Where else could we have such pristine beauty and not see a soul, and drink our wine in peace from the legality of ABC laws??
Eddie looking mighty content
Yummmmm.......
Enjoying the wine
Lake Anna Wine, Sunset
Eddie looking mighty content
Yummmmm.......
Enjoying the wine
Lake Anna Wine, Sunset
After dark, we settled into our cozy little tent expecting it to be much warmer than we had planned for. The weather we have been having in Virginia has just been amazing. We were actually cold in the middle of the night! There was a full moon out, and clear skies so we left the fly off of our tent and lay watching the moon and stars through the blanked of black leaves against the sky.
The next morning, we woke early and were surprised to find that our coffee was still warm! We sat in the lawn chairs by the river for hours sipping coffee and eating banana bread and our fresh picked berries.
It was heaven. I was with the man I am crazy in love with in such a beautiful and peaceful setting. I couldn't have asked for a better anniversary. Thank God!
