The Two Hundred and Twenty Seventh...

Number Two Hundred and Twenty Seven:

CAMPING PART 3

Baine's Books and Coffee, Ice Latte, Scone

The third day of camping. Lisa and I are usually pretty quick camp breakers. We wake early, cook breakfast and have coffee, then get the tent down. Now, if the Park has more to do that we are looking forward to, Kiptopeke for example has a beach, we would do it. James River State Park has plenty to do, but we were feeling another adventure. We looked at our gazetteer and saw the town of Appomattox. Yes, that Appomattox, where Lee surrendered to Grant and basically ended the Civil War. We weren't necessarily interested in the Civil War aspect (well, I was, but I knew Lisa would not be), but to visit the small town would be nice. We threw the invite to Ceci, who declined; the boys wanted to get home (to Xbox) and she said there was nothing much in Appomattox. I hadn't been in years, but I knew that small towns these days most always had their "Art" communities and Antique stores.

Row of bride & grooms at one of the shops in Appomattox

Well, there really wasn't much in Appomattox. A nice town for sure, and the swell coffee shop / bookstore / hipster joint for my Napstache was fine, but we didn't linger there long. After one antiques mall and a latte, we headed to Farmville, a bigger town, it has a college, and lunch. One thing I am a fan of when coming to a town you don't know much about, is hitting the Visitor's Center and asking the locals where to go. The lady there had a few suggestions, the last being this place called Charley's Waterfront Cafe, which is directly across from the ultimate in old white people furniture shopping: Green Front Furniture. We weren't much for furniture shopping, although they DID have an awesome selection of bizarre outdoor statues, but we were interested in lunch.

We also noticed ANOTHER state park, one that wasn't in our VA State Park Passport Program book checklist, High Bridge Trail State Park. It is a 20 or so mile railroad embankment that they converted to a multi-use trail that sprawls through the town and beyond. After lunch, we walked on it a bit. Very cool and a strange juxtaposition of having a State Park and art gallery main street next to each other.

Art and hiking.

After the walk we were home-bound to empty the car of our camping gear, shower, and rest up before our friend Melissa's 40th Birthday Party! A long, exhilarating day!