A Birthday Trip to Virginia

Hi everyone! As I said in a previous post the courthouses are open for business and mom's work life is getting busy. Since mom had to cancel 4th of July weekend with her daughter and postpone the annual Labor Day Weekend trip she  asked for 3 days off so we could go somewhere for her birthday.

After a few hours of searching on VRBO mom found the perfect spot. A small cabin on 7 acres, on top of a mountain in Fries (pronounced freeze), Virginia with no cable, no internet and no satellite. Mom figured it would be the perfect spot to relax and recharge. 

This was the start of the road up to the cabin. After 1/2 mile it turned into a gravel road that went up and I mean up to the cabin.   

Once I was walked and mom had unloaded the truck and unpacked the cooler and our other food she had her usual bottle of champagne on the back deck. 

It was a lovely afternoon and so good to be out of the truck. The drive was only supposed to take 8 hours but due to construction on I-77 North and 2 wrong turns it took mom 9 hours and 7 minutes to reach the cabin. 

 

Mom took a couple of photos from the balcony off the 2nd floor master bedroom to show how secluded this place was.

During our 4 night and 3 day stay we saw 2 deer on the property, plus a few Red Tail Hawks, squirrels, lots of Blue Jays and other birds. Mom even saw the print of a bear cub paw in the driveway one morning. Wow! Thankfully we never saw momma bear or her cubs.

Mom found this feather laying on the deck when we arrived and she stuck it in a crack in the railing and took photos of it. 

I enjoyed laying on the deck. Of the 3 full days we were here, we only left the cabin one day. We spent the mornings watching a movie while mom worked on her needlepoint. In the afternoons we sat outside and listened to music while mom read and made our dinners. 

The second night at the cabin mom celebrated her birthday with a great meal.

Mom was right, eating outside was very nice. 

On our 2nd full day in the mountains mom put me in the truck and we drove into the town of Fries, population 464. Mom parked and we walked along the river towards the dam. The town was built along the New River. 

When the town was first established the dam was built to provide hydro-electric power, then a textile mill was built along the river. The mill is now closed. The path we walked on was an old railbed.

 

We took a water break at the foot of the old mill and I laid in the cool grass. Mom told me that the New River is one of the oldest rivers in the world, if not the oldest. And, she added that like the Nile and the St. Johns River in Florida, the New River flows in a northward direction. 

After our trip into town and some sightseeing I was very happy to take a nap in the shade on the back deck.

The sunsets we had each night were pretty and we fell asleep in the 2nd floor master bedroom each night with the sky all sorts of pretty colors. While I love hiking with mom in North Carolina, I have to admit that doing pretty much nothing for 3 full days was wonderful. 

As we were driving home at the end of our trip mom did some calculations and said that our next trip, fall in North Carolina, was a mere 103 days away. She has already started planning her menu,,geez.