Amerisuites - Roanoke

... picked up from the fuel stop earlier. We spread a blanket on the ground and had a short relaxing lunch at the PURGATORY MOUNTAIN overlook.

The mountainous scenery that displayed in front of us was absolutely ‘breathtaking’! While we were eating, I noticed movement to the side of us and looking in the direction, saw that we had a little ‘lunch visitor’ ...

... and their family in Radford were had a feast of good ole southern down home cooking.  After dinner we headed back up to Salem and stopped by our old water hole, Mac and Bobs  to join the party!  

On our way out of Town on Sunday we made sure to stop by Alligator Alley, a favorite store of ours, for my husband to pick up a new Lacoste shirt.

We were in no rush to get to Salem, Va and since we had missed Skyline the day before, we spontaneously decided to exit of I-81 in order to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway down to Roanoke. We made a stop along the way at a trail near Lynchburg. The 1.6 mile loop trail takes you to a beautiful waterfall where we stopped for a picnic lunch.  It was such a gorgeous day - the weather was perfect - and this was just a really nice relaxing drive!  

... There are many still waiting to be restored but in a way being able to wander around these too just added to the attraction. Many of the exhibits were accessible and we were able to climb aboard, come with us… more pictures on our Picasa site: http://picasaweb.google.com/on.travels/ RoanokeVirginiaMuseumOfTransportation?f eat=directlink

... VA where we stopped off for lunch at a place called Dave's Tavern. We had some great sandwiches and were waited on by a VERY friendly guy named Mitchell. We believe he originated from Malibu due to his repeated use of the word dude and "right on" and he was really bummed about the rain. However ...

... KY, WV, VA) Favorite Stop: Stacy - New Orleans & Nashville; Dan - State Park outside of Austin, TX Best Food: Stacy - Cafe Pasqual's, NM; Dan - Cooper's Pit BBQ, TX Cheapest Gas: Roanoke, VA - $1.89 Most Expensive Gas: Balmorhea, TX - $2.99!!!! Best Views - Drive from Santa Fe to Colorado Thanks for following along on our adventure and for all the fun texts, calls and messages along the way! Dan & Stace

... lakehouse is at about 9:30pm. One of the towns that we loved driving through the most was Lexington, KY - so lush and green right now and tons of thoroughbred farms! My parents were already here visiting for the weekend (my dad's sister and brother-in-law and his best friend from childhood coming for the weekend) so they were there to greet us and unpack everything.

Today we were on the road for about 9am and just drove the 50 miles or so to the next campground on the Parkway at Roanoke Mountain as we needed to go into a town to do chores. We checked in with the camp host first to find out whether we needed to reserve our pitch, to find that we definitely didn't as there were only a couple of other campers there. Unfortunately he hadn't been at the site very long and so couldn't direct us to a launderette or the library. It was only a short drive ...

After another great breakfast including the southern specialty of 'grits', the remaining 3 who had yet to play golf left to do so while the others went to the club swimming pool. After a relaxing afternoon we left for an evening on the beautiful 'Smith Mountain' Lake. The cruise ...

I handed over my beloved cell phone to my mom (saddest moment of my life I think, well almost) and went on through security. Man I sure hope my cell phone's still there when I get home. I left detailed instructions for my dad that if he used my phone while I was gone he was absolutely not to delete my numbers... so you might all have to give me your numbers again when I get home ;)