There are a zillion wineries in Virginia. Maybe not a zillion, but at least a million. They are everywhere, especially in the Shenandoah Valley where grape vines truly thrive. One of our favorite pastimes is to visit a winery on a lazy Sunday afternoon, especially when Jimmy O is strumming his guitar, as he did last weekend at White Oak Lavender Farm. & The Purple Wolf Vineyard. The drive over … [Read more...]

    Fish, that’s what, and maybe crab a little. Still, you can’t fish every waking hour, though I’d like to try some day. But there are lots of other things to do and see in Deltaville. For starters, there is The Deltaville Maritime Museum and Holly Point Nature Park, home to the Nationally registered historic boat, the F.D. Crockett. Situated on 36 acres crossing both the … [Read more...]

Too bad I don’t have an editor. I’m the first and last one to look at my articles and sometimes I go to sleep at the wheel. Like last week. I said in my article on the Ark Encounter that Williamstown, KY was 665 miles from Charlottesville. It’s not. It’s about 465 miles. But I was correct that it takes about 8 hours to get there. 465 miles is still a ‘fer piece. I also gave credit to Daniel … [Read more...]

  In the Disney TV series on Dan’l Boone, Fess Parker spoke with a rural, Kentucky drawl. He said words like “Kilt him a ba’ar when he was only three.” The King of the Wild Frontier also said “a ‘fer piece” meaning a long way off. He was talking about driving from Charlottesville to Williamstown, which is indeed a ‘fer piece. The GPS lady said it was 692 miles and she was dead on. But … [Read more...]

I wrote recently about Spencer Sausage which I find on the Outer Banks and in Eastern North Carolina. It is good stuff. But there is another excellent sausage from down that way. When we were in Nags Head, I went to Food Lion and they no longer carried Spencer Sausage, but  they had a brand called Bass Farm Sausage. It looked good and I bought a package of 8 link sausages. Later, though, I found … [Read more...]

  By Matt Reilly   If you were to poll a group of anglers on their favorite times of year to fish, winter would likely fall at the bottom of the list for most. The month of February, in particular, can be a hard one to love. High water, sub-freezing days, and wild bouts of wind are all common occurrences during the second month of the year in the Old Dominion—but so is great … [Read more...]

    If you find yourself with nothing to do on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, buckle up the kids and head for Liberty Mills Farm in Somerset and explore the largest corn Maze in  Virginia. While you’re at it, take a wheelbarrow out into the pumpkin patch and hand select a big, fat pumpkin for Halloween. This year, Liberty Mills has 12 miles of paths and has designed four trails … [Read more...]

    One of Virginia’s former great seafood restaurants is now out of business with no hope of recovery. Lowery’s Seafood Restaurant in Tappahannock has closed its doors for good. Years ago, I was headed to the Northern Neck and a fishing trip out of Lewisetta. A friend suggested that I stop in Tappahannock on my way and eat at Lowery’s if I was hungry. As it turned out, I went … [Read more...]

  By Sherman Shifflett   Most of us have places we would like to visit, but never got around to it. One of mine was the Cass RR in West Virginia. Finally, Ava Pippin and I made it happen on Thursday, July 1, 2021. Friends said we could go over there and back in a day, but it is a three-hour drive from where I live in eastern Louisa County (near Cuckoo), plus a four-hour train … [Read more...]