Abingdon: We Showed Up and Doubled the Population

With one day of money left, and exhausted from several consecutive states of driving, we sat down to pick our final location. Several possibilities crossed my mind: Roanoke, Asheville, Blacksburg, Charlotte, etc. All of these locations fell about halfway between Birmingham and Pittsburgh; however, none of these locations stood out more than our final choice: Abingdon, Va. Abingdon, Va., for the six of you who have never heard of it, is where the first space shuttle was launched, the birthplace of the Rolling Stones, and the site of the world's largest brewery (source: Wikipedia).

Alright, none of these things are in Abingdon. In fact, the only recognizable landmark in Abingdon is the Martha Washington Inn, which I assume, based on my one poor-quality iPhone picture (sorry for the quality, the camera was absent for our trip to main street), is full of lots of argyle socks and overpriced brandy.




Further down the road from the Inn, the main stretch turned into a college-looking town, the likes of which Marc compared to Miami of Ohio. It's a quaint stretch of existence; it's full of quiet college students. I have a special admiration for towns like these. One can only look at so many Wal-Marts before you begin to miss the traditional hard-working spirit of a small business.



With our limited repertoire of activities, we decided the most appropriate course of action would be to eat well and subsequently drink well. A trip to the liquor store would provide the best blog material of this visit. We walked in and perused the isles of aisles scattered around the store. We noticed high prices on just about everything but whiskey/bourbon, so once again we followed our old motto: "When in Abingdon, drink as the Abindonians drink." Before settling on an old favorite, Black Velvet, we heard the front door chirp and the subsequent exclamation, in a deep southern draw, of "Hey Mama!" A portly Po’ Boy with a belt buckle the size of Abingdon's high school exchanged pleasantries with his mom while picking out a bottle of hooch. It's moments like these that make travel worthwhile.

Nava, one of the thousands of attractive older women we saw in the South, directed us to Alison's, a local, casual eatery perfect for our current down attire. We hopped back on the main stretch and continued to the restaurant. Allison's was nice. Nothing special, but a perfectly filling meal and exactly what we expected. I downed a cup of the famous potato soup (which was somewhat reminiscent of the same soup I used to eat in eighth grade - my favorite soup of all time). For an entree, I, fighting a slight unrelated stomachache, ate a small quesadilla. Marc had a smothered burger with enough toppings to lift the top bun to the ceiling. We paid the tab and ran home.




Marc, exhausted from a long day of travel, took a few sips of his strong drink and called it a night at 10:30pm. He mentioned something about the time messing with his sleep pattern, but we actually lost an hour, so I think he really was just that tired. I decided to stay up and wrestle with the bottle while doing several activities: chatting on Facebook, calling our friends in Vegas (somehow my over-the-phone "good mojo" didn't result in a win), and updating the travel log.

Wednesday would be the beginning of the end. I took one final sip and closed my eyes.

Sometimes nowhere is a good destination,

CPS