Woodstock, Virginia

I went on a little weekend trip with my mother and older sister, Natalie this weekend. We visited my mother's childhood friend, Big Laura. (Big Laura got her name from us kids. When my mother would say to us we're going to Laura's we didn't know if we were going to my mom's bff or to our cousins. So, we would say..."Big Laura or Little Lora" and that's how it started. haha) Big Laura and her husband Dale live out in Woodstock, Virginia in the mountains!

They have a beautiful house. Dale found the blue prints and then gave them to a builder who then helped them change the rooms up to their liking and then built their home.

This is the living room. I think just about every room in the house has a beautiful mountain view.

This is a framed cross stitch that Big Laura's mom made. She said in the Mitchell Street (the road my Mom and Laura grew up on in Northern Virginia) this picture hung above a fire place. The fabric was glued onto some board that Laura carefully, pulled off and then framed it. It's really awesome.

I saw this picture and recognized it immediately. After Laura's parents moved out the Mitchel Street house (and gave their house to Laura) they moved to Timberville into this gorgeous house. I remember coming here. Laura's mom has since passed away but her dad is now living in Florida.

Laura made us some purple potato soup. It was DELICIOUS!!! I had 2 big bowls full. :) We topped off the bowl with some chives and crispy bacon. We also had some homemade garlic bread, and corn bread to go with it. YUM! :)

Here's a picture of a purple potato. Dale's son (from his first marriage) grew purple potatoes on his farm in New York. :)

Laura made pumpkin dump cake for dessert. Sooooooo yummy!!! It's like a pumpkin pie but cakey instead. I will need to get the recipe so I can make it. :) After dessert, we put on coats and gloves and went out to explore the property. We walked all around. Laura showed us a part of the property where a tornado came through at 2am at the end of April. Luckily, for them when the tornado was heading right to their home it veered off to the left and up the field across from them. Thankfully, the tornado missed all of the homes in the path but it did leave a lot of topped off, and uprooted trees.

Laura asked me if I'd ever had a Persimmon and I have not. I took a stick and threw it up in the tree and knocked one down and figured I would try it later. :) Then we sat outside for a bit and just chatted.

We then rode up to a farmers market stand to check out the local produce.

Behind the stand is a orchard.

Each apple section had a bucket with a apple you could take to try. I took a pink lady apple. I haven't tried it yet but I will. :)

Lots of veggies inside the shop.

No purple potatoes. LOL

We then drove down a little ways to the town of Woodstock! :) Laura took us to a little coffee shop that also had local merchandise as well.

Cute little town.

These little 'gems' are soaps!! Sooooo cool. I thought about getting a garnet one for Nate but I didn't get it. They looked so real.

We stayed the night in Strasburg at a Fairfield inn. This was the mountain view we had from a window. Very cool! :)

On the way home, we found a Starbucks and I got my Caramel Apple Spice (with extra Caramel). I got one on Saturday too so this is my second one of the season. :)

We saw a sign for Skyline Caverns (5 miles ahead) on the way home and decided to go ahead and go tour it.

And we go into the caverns........

Rainbow lights! :)

This is a good luck rock and it's the only rock you're allowed to touch in the cavern. It's kinda of waxy like and very cold.

So I touched it. Picture or it didn't happen.....see picture. LOL :)

Walter Amos is the guy who found skyline caverns. If I remember correctly, the tour guide told us that Skyline is the youngest caverns out of all of the ones in the U.S. but it's 55 million years old. That's unbelievable!!!

The only souvenirs I got this weekend......a sticker and a post card for my rain man book. (calendar) It's a little thing that I do for each yearly calendar. I like to put ticket stubs and stickers etc to places I've been that year. :)