Barb’s Burblings

The first time I visited Charlottesville was when I was in middle school and my dad was giving a lecture at UVA. I really liked it at the time; it was pretty, it was close to Monticello (Jefferson was already my second favorite president), and the people seemed nice. I applied to UVA, got rejected, and wound up at Gettysburg, so I can’t complain.
Now Becca and Steve live in Charlottesville. I was there this weekend, and still find it lovely. It was a great, relaxing weekend. We didn’t really do anything of note–wandered around a farmer’s market and the downtown mall, got some great food, and talked a lot. Just a perfect, restful weekend with friends. I couldn’t ask for more. I’m not happy they live 130 miles away, but in some ways it’s nice to spend longer periods of time together like this. And hey, I much prefer them being in Charlottesville than them being in Wisconsin!
Anyway, today we drove around a bunch and wound up at Michie Tavern, just down the road from Monticello. We had wandered around some paths at Monticello, so I was pretty thirsty when we got to Historic Michie Tavern. Luckily, we saw this building:

A historic building with a sign saying “Cold drinks”. Fabulous! I’m not sure what I thought would be inside; maybe someone with ice water? I’m not sure, but whatever I was picturing, it certainly wasn’t what we found:

Awesome. So I had some Historic Mountain Dew.
And then we went to Carter Mountain Orchard (and they’re not kidding about the “mountain” part; it’s at the top of this huge hill, and only small portions of the road up are paved) where I got this awesome slushie made from wine grapes. Mmm.