birthday weekend

Last weekend was hubby's birthday!  He spent days trying to think about what he wanted to do to celebrate, and in the end, he wanted to travel, even if it was only a little.  We haven't been on a roadtrip in months, and we haven't really travelled in forever, either.  The last time was Christmas, and before that....our honeymoon.  For two people who love travel as much as we do... that's a bit depressing.

Husband picked out a town (Charlottesville, VA), and we made plans.  I decided to show you guys a few picture from the trip.  Don't judge me too harshly; they're cellphone pictures.  I had my camera, but at the one or two places it would have been awesome to take it, I accidentally left it in the car. C'est la vie.  Next time I'll do better, I promise. 

(This post is longer than most. Sorry! But I couldn't resist sharing!)

We woke up pretty early, went on our long Saturday run (usually we run separately because of schedules and such, but this was a treat!), showered, and booked it out the door.

First stop: Barboursville Vineyards! Time to taste some wine and pick out a bottle to save for a special occassion. After some deliberation, the choice was, of course, a bottle of husband's favorite wine: Octagon.

We took a few minutes after our splurge to walk around the Barboursville ruins, which I had never seen before. The mister gave me a brief history of the place, and we puttered around the ruins of the old governor's house.

Now that we were on the move, we decided to go big, and headed to Monticello! It's one of husband's favorite places, and neither of us had been since high school. 

We bought tickets and did a tour of the house, then walked around the gardens for a while.  I've always loved Jefferson's gardens.  They're a cross between a cutting garden and a free-for-all and a well-manicured lawn, which is how he wanted them.  He liked English gardens and French food and beautiful things.  And books. Can't forget the books.

 

(not a terribly wonderful picture of me, but it was windy and it's the only one we're both in from Monticello)

That night we had dinner at a local pub/grill place, walked around the UVA campus a little, and headed back to the hotel to relax.  We'd had a long day.

Sunday morning, we slept in a little, got breakfast in the hotel, and headed to do some exploring.  The downtown stores and shops and such weren't open, yet, so we found a coffee shop and planted ourselves.  It was called Mudhouse.  It was a little bit coffee-snob-y, but when I asked for coffee recommendations, the cashier definitely knew what he was talking about.  Apparently, he'd had seven cups of coffee and multiple espressos already (and it was 10.30 in the morning)!  The art on the wall was a bit strange, but the delicious french pressed Costa Rican coffee more than compensated. 

We decided to head to another vineyard for the early part of the afternoon and then come back to the historic downtown area of Charlottesville later.  We chose a vineyard neither of us had ever been to: First Colony Winery.  The people there were very nice, and we enjoyed tasting new wines. The winery recently changed owners, and they're updating their tasting house area.  The road to get to the winery is not paved (yay gravel and sand?), which made life a bit more exciting.

Afterwards, we headed back to Charlottesville, kicked around the historic downtown for a bit, checked out the nice shops and the other coffeehouse (yes. too much coffee.), then decided to grab some Taco Bell for dinner and head home.

We had such a good time!  By the time I made it home, the tiny car we had rented had given me some pretty awful back troubles, but other than that, the weekend was wonderful.  A birthday celebration worthy of the occassion.