After an intense period of traveling in the last year (Aug – October in Africa, portions of Europe and then Vietnam), then a few months in New Zealand, we decided to chill out a bit and stay at home for a while to enjoy our home in Ponte Vedra. We were planning on getting a puppy, which was supposed to join our family in the end of May. But alas, plans never quite go as expected – the litter that we were to get our puppy from only had one female and the breeder decided to keep the female for their breeding, so we were put off to get a puppy in August. Due to that, we were able to join the VV side of the family to attend the wedding of Will and Baylee and continue on to an extended driving trip.
We picked up Sam’s dad in South Carolina and drove up with him to Lynchburg, Virgina where we enjoyed hanging out with family and celebrating with Will and Baylee at their beautiful wedding held at Cedar Oaks Farm. We met Baylee over a year ago before she and Will were engaged when the family came to Ponte Vedra over New Years. When I met her, she had such a wonderful personality – I knew that she would fit well into our family as she hung out with Anna, Ethan and the other VV kids. It’s so different these days with kids weddings, and even though we didn’t bust a movie on the dance floor, we enjoyed watching the young ones dance and celebrate together.
After driving Sam’s dad back to Greenville, we had lunch from Bucky’s BBQ, always a staple food when we visit, then we carried on to Lake Lure where we stayed at our hotel. We love going to the Lodge on Lake Lure, even though we don’t get up there as often as we would like. We took a short walk and then jumped in the lake to cool off and enjoy the beautiful weather. We hopped on the pontoon boat for a sunset cruise around the lake which was relaxing and enjoyable. The day was finished by another fabulous meal at the Lodge restaurant, Appalachia where we had way more food than we could eat – great salads, steak and shrimp with risotto. It was a perfect quick stop as we started our thre- week driving odyssey.
Post Lake Lure, we went up to a beautiful property called Primland Resort in Virginia where we stayed at one of the treehouse properties and enjoyed a couple of days of golf, spa, wine and good food. Sam almost stepped on a massively well fed rattlesnake on his first day of golf, so thankfully the snake slithered away and he was none the worse for the encounter. Glad it wasn’t me – I think I would have freaked out. The golf starter showed us videos of bears on the course, which I was hoping to see (from afar) but that never happened.
We were making our way up to Canada, so we stopped in a little Bed and Breakfast just north of Pittsburg, PA where we did some laundry in town and ate at a local pizza joint before we continued on to Niagara Falls. This was my first time ever to visit Niagra Falls, which so many of my friends were surprised to hear, given the extent to which we have traveled. So I have now checked the box off my list. We stayed on the Canadian side, which had beautiful views of the falls. The town itself is like a sad Las Vegas – very touristy, but the falls were beautiful to see and we had a room overlooking the falls and had dinner where we saw the sunset over the falls and were treated to a fireworks display at dark. That was unexpected and a nice treat.
We always love to see natural wonders, so this was so nice to see.
I’ll post more later on the rest of our Canadian portion – but always fun to travel with Sam, whether over seas or on a driving trek. Happy that we still like being together after 30 years!
VAN VOORHIS FAMILY BLOG 