Will Stop for Food…And Waterfalls

We’re back in Williamsburg, and back to the law school grind. Before we left I took a nice deep breath of mountain air and said a sad goodbye to the best bedroom view I’ve ever had.

The Inn At Riverbend was absolutely wonderful. If you’re ever looking for a Virginia getaway, I can’t say enough good things about this place. The food was wonderful, the hospitality was incredible…everything was great. The innkeepers really went above and beyond to make our stay wonderful.

After our last breakfast at the inn, we packed up and headed out. We were taking our time because there wasn’t really any reason to hurry back home. After a couple hours we noticed signs for something called the “Natural Bridge”. Curiosity and spontaneity took us over and we decided to veer off the route a little to check it out!

And THANK GOODNESS we did! Because there was this beautiful sight to behold when we got there.

It’s a natural rock formation that looks like a ginormous bridge!

Allow me to give you some scale. See that teeny tiny little person in the picture below? That’s Jason!

Told you it was ginormous! Once you walk under Natural Bridge, there’s a nice trail that meanders along a stream and we decided to walk it.

We weren’t really itching to hike another 2 miles after our 7+ mile hike from the day before, but we did it anyways because the stream led to…

…another WATERFALL! Seriously, I can’t get enough. I’ve never lived in a state before that had this much variety and natural beauty. Have I mentioned that I LOVE Virginia? What’s that you say? I just told you yesterday? Sorry I’m not sorry.

I’m so glad that we’re both down with being spontaneous, because this unplanned detour ended up being a highlight of our whole trip. When we saw this Tolkien quote etched in a stone along the path, we knew it was destiny for us to be there. It’s almost scary. 😉

There were caverns and other cool things to see in this area, but our exploring got us hungry so we decided to just get back on the road. We had a classy joint in mind for lunch and we didn’t want to be late for our reservations.

Classssyyyy. My family stopped at this gas station years ago on the road back to Georgia from my college in Massachusetts, and my mom and I were hungry and persuaded by a sign that boasted the “best dang BBQ in Virginia”. It wasn’t just the best dang BBQ in Virginia, it was some of the best we’d ever had. NO JOKE!

I was so happy to find this place again, and it was exactly how I remembered. Now, I consider myself to be a Southerner and I’ve had barbecue everywhere from Houston to Memphis and this random gas station in Virginia is honestly in the top 3 I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating. Diamonds in the rough are always the best! I ordered a pulled pork sandwich and Jason got a half rack of ribs topped with cowboy BBQ sauce. So. Dang. Good.

About another hour down the road it was time to make another food stop. Because clearly we hadn’t eaten enough. In all honesty the next stop had nothing to do with us being hungry and everything to do with us being crazy foodies. My mom has been telling me that the “pie queen of the South” has a restaurant and bakery in western Virginia, and so this was the perfect time to take a visit!

We loaded up on Mrs. Rowe’s goodies so that we would have treats to enjoy for the rest of the day a long time! Most of it we got wrapped up to take home, but this slice of coconut custard pie was calling my name too loudly for me to ignore. How awful.

I didn’t want to stop eating it. It was the perfect slice of pie. Thin, buttery crust. Creamy, flavorful coconut custard. Fluffy and delicately sweet meringue topping with crunchy pieces of toasted coconut. A slice of heaven.

We weren’t ready to come back home at all, but it had to happen. The trip was short but sweet and we have some great memories to hopefully keep us surviving through this last little bit of the semester, which is going to be tough. Whenever I get stressed out, I’m going to visualize this view.

Thanks for reading! Back to regularly scheduled recipe posting soon, I promise!

-Lauren