A Taste of Virginia-Charlottesville...............

Its that time of year when the weather seems to change drastically. We had several days of rain and flood warnings, but thankfully no issues like South Carolina experienced. Then, nice cool crisp air arrived. Lovely weather....but getting into the 40's at night. That means using the heat! With the change of seasons so evident, I felt myself getting that nesting feeling....cleaning out big time and reorganizing our living space. Maybe sprucing up the motorhome a bit. The sun was shining brightly on the particular day I decided to take action, so I blasted the radio and got busy. After the deep clean, I took out some of the ceramic creations I had painted back in Phoenix last winter, and added a few new picture frames as well to display a few more important pictures that I will need to look at everyday when we hit the road. Imagine my surprise when my eyes caught a glimpse of something really bright in our front window! WOAH! It was a crack in the windshield! We are not sure how/when that happened, but we did have quite a lot of storms/wind lately. No matter....we need to get it fixed very soon. That is our goal of the week-to arrange for the window to be replaced.  

Do you see the crack? It extends downwards too...its pretty big!

our little corner of decorations

found some more wall space for new picture frames, starring guess who?

 Each day, there is more and more color in the trees as well. Time is flying by, and the color change is like a barometer for us. Soon the colorful leaves will be falling and we will be hitting the road again. Its happening quickly though, or so it seems.

our backyard here in Louisa, Va

just makes ya want to sing that John Denver song;  take me home... country roads...

 On Saturday, Tom and I went on our very first food tasting tour. It was quite a thoughtful gift from Jess and Andrew. I had often been tempted to check out a foodie tour in NYC, but never got around to it. Anyway, what a great time we had! We were surprised that it was just the two of us, so it was a private tour just by luck. Not only did we visit 6 different establishments for a tasting, but we learned about some of the local history. It was a walking tour in historic downtown Charlottesville, so we really enjoyed some of the history of the old buildings that are now shops on the cobblestone mall, with apartments above them. For more information on A Taste of Virginia Food Tour - Charlottesville, click here.

Our first stop was breakfast at the Pie Chest. When I had filled in the email reservation form, in particular-the sections on allergies....I wrote that I was allergic to cheese. I'm not, but instead of explaining my strong aversion to cheese, I thought it was simpler to just keep it like that. I forgot I did that, so when the waitress brought a pot pie filled with butternut squash, apples, walnuts and cranberries and asked who had the cheese allergy, I thanked her for being so accommodating. It was amazing! (Tom kept teasing me about my "cheese allergy"..one of those things that will follow me now, I'm sure....hahhaha).

First stop

Tom enjoying his egg/cheese/sausage breakfast sandwich tasting

this was piping hot and delicious, but I had to doggie-bag most of it.

Lucky for me, the tour guide (and owner) was a shutterbug and wanted to take pictures for her website and twitter and facebook and whatever, so we both had a great time with our cameras. She insisted on taking several pictures of us with my camera at each stop. We really had a fun time with her. 

historic downtown mall in C'ville 

Chalkboard wall in the mall...The major sentence...Imagine a Day Without Water...can send me into a tailspin. Visitors are encouraged to write something (anything) on the wall.

Hanging out with Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe- 3 most influential men from the area

beautiful buildings along the mall - each one so different

some are apartments now, and the rents are pretty steep

we had lunch here at the Whiskey Barrel

Delicious southern fare...organic fried chicken and the best collard greens ever! Oh, and Hard Cider!

Heading out on the streets around the downtown mall

The stature of Sacajawea in the middle of Virginia is to honor her for helping guide explorers west

really cool flowers around the statue

The statue points WEST to honor Sacajawea

 Walking through a market square that housed several establishments, we made a stop at an organic butcher shop. I confess right now, I have never been to a butcher. The closest thing to a butcher shop for me is the meat section in the foodstore, where all the meat is nicely packaged in plastic. Not too sure I was going to like this stop, since I'm not a big fan of looking at meat and envisioning where it came from. When that butcher took out a huge hunk of meat and a scarily sharp knife and started cutting up the side of beef into all of those different cuts like it was butter, I thought I wouldn't be able to watch.  I'm glad I did though, because I learned so much. I know...its embarrassing to admit that. Unfortunately at this shop, the tasting was not going to be of a nicely grilled cut of beef, but rather a sample of beef jerky. When you stop laughing, let me tell you....that was a first for me as well, and it was delicious. When I asked the butcher if it was the same as the beef jerky thingies they sell near the check out counters in so many foodstores (think Slim Jims), he laughed heartily and said just never eat that. He didn't know what that was. Hahahha.

The organic butcher shop...i really learned a lot about cuts of meat-we watched the butcher cut all that up from a huge hunk of beef 

Can you identify these cuts of meat?

 Bacon wrapped filet mignon!  (Sshh! I'm going back to buy one of those for Tom!)

 This small diner was packed, which is always a good sign! We had our tasting outside at the counter, which was perfect as it was such a gorgeous day. Our tasting was a golden beet salad, mine without the freshly grated Parmesan due to that allergy of mine, and that was delicious too!

Golden beet salad at the Blue Moon Diner

 We really enjoyed all of the stops we made, but if I'm totally honest with myself, this would have to be my favorite. Pearl's Bake Shoppe. To die for! Yum! Cupcakes are baked fresh daily. They don't sit in the cabinet for days like some bakeries...oh no. Wow was that fresh and delicious. And made with real ingredients. No fake ingredients or wonders of food science in that cupcake. A real treat!

lovely old-fashioned shop with a lot of interesting history

We selected the Death by Chocolate and the Basic Pearl Cupcake....both were amazing

 The very last stop was at a chocolate shop - a real chocolatier! By now, we were pretty full. I know! We each got to pick two of the premium signature chocolates, but I had to have mine packed up. It was just too much. I did have a taste of the tiny pieces in the tasting dish, but that was all I could handle at the time. Talk about smooth! Wow...a treat for sure! They also sold handmade cards in the shop, and I just happened to see one that expressed my thoughts at the  moment...hahah! Below me was the display case of the signature chocolates.

The shop also sold hand-made cards ...too bad the picture didn't capture the chocolates

Thankfully, we did a lot of walking during the tour and the day couldn't have been any more perfect. We were given a few coupons to each establishment we visited, and I'm pretty sure we will be visiting at least some of them before we leave in a few weeks. The organic meat and the cupcakes are especially calling us!