Trip to Winchester, Virginia

July 29 – We managed to leave about 10 for Winchester, VA.  We knew the places we planned to visit were not long visits and we had until 6 to meet our friend Becky for dinner.

 

Winchester Apple

As we arrived in town the first site was a huge apple painted patriotically.  I made Bill turn around so I could go back for a photo.  Later we saw 2 more that were just red.  This area is major apple raising country.  They boast the largest apple storage facility in the country.  Too bad they are not ready yet.

Our first official stop was the Stonewall Jackson Headquarters house.  It was furnished with several of the pieces he travelled with along with period furniture and original to the house pieces.  The second owner of the house was Mary Tyler Moore’s great-grandfather.  She ordered and paid to have wall paper reproduced for the room Stonewall actually used for his office.  Her grandfather was Col. Lewis Tilman Moore.  A lady in period dress led our tour and explained about the furnishings as well as who came and went from the house and some of the neighbors.

Bill and young George

Further down the street was the George Washington Office Museum.  George used a little log structure, now the middle room of the building, as a military office from September 1755 to December 1756 while Fort Loudon was being constructed at the north end of town.  The family that owned it lived in the house for 100 years.  They added 2 rooms on the ground level and a loft.

We stopped at the local Visitor Center to use the facilities and pick

Meet Woodie

up Virginia brochures for our next month in VA.  They had a nice exhibit on Patsy Cline who was from Winchester.  We brought a picnic lunch and ate across the street behind the Abrahm’s Delight home.  We sat under the trees on a small bench along a little pond.  We got some closer shots of a woodchuck.

After lunch we visited Abrahm’s Delight, which is the oldest house in Winchester.  It was part of a land grant of over 500 acres.  The Hollingsworth family built the house in 1754 and it was the first Quaker meeting house in the area.  Although there has been an addition, the 22 inch thick stone walls are just as they were as is the cellar or basement where the kitchen was located.  There are many unique antique tools and household implements on exhibit.  After the Civil War many acres had to be sold off to survive.

Virginia monument
and headstones

The famous cemetery is Mt. Hebron which has a Confederate Cemetery and a National Cemetery.  We visited the tomb of Daniel Morgan, a famous Revolutionary War soldier.  It was sad the condition of many of the headstone of the Confederates.  They were arranged by state with a large memorial in front of each section but so many of the stones were leaning and just looked rather disgraceful.  Bill said he’s going to write a letter.

As we left Winchester we stopped in front of Patsy Cline’s childhood home but didn’t go in.  It’s a tiny little house.

We have been to Middletown before and visited the Route 11 potato chip factory there.  We were disappointed to learn it has been moved to Mt Jackson, a few miles down the road.  So we headed to Cedar Creek National Park.  The volunteer there was just getting ready to close up but chatted with us a bit.  The Belle Grove Plantation that is part of the site had its last tour at 3:30, which we were too late for.  We bought the self guided tour book and set out to tour the battlefield with that.  Bill drove the first part then I drove the last.  It’s funny that they tell you landmarks like “yellow trailer” and “red brick house” to tell you when to pull over or where to stop.  I was more interested in the house but maybe another time.  After a while I get tired of battlefields and it’s just like hearing blah, blah, blah. 

Kelly and Becky

We had passed the Irish Isle restaurant where we were to meet Becky at 6.  We met her and her friend Maria 15 years ago on our cruise in Alaska and have kept in touch ever since.  Her mother used to winter at a condo in FL but she has since died and the condo was sold.  We arrived back at the restaurant early and got parked along the street and walked over and it was closed.  I called Becky right away and she told us another place the next exit up to meet her.  It was a Greek and Italian place, Roma’s, that was really good.  We had a great visit and it was great to see her again. 

We checked out a different route home that we wondered if it would be a shorter way to get from Sharpsburg to I-81 for our exit on Thursday.  The shortest way is not possible due to low bridges but this one was fine so will knock a few miles off the trip.

We stopped at Nutter’s for an ice cream, then home to watch some TV.