Rediscovering America_ Exploring the Small Towns of Virginia & Maryland - Bill Burnham [5]
Any of the downtown Blacksburg restaurants can be hopping with college students at night, so if a quiet, adult dinner with candles and linens is what you’re pining for, take a trip to Christiansburg to dine at the Farmhouse Restaurant. Built in the 1800s as part of the Ridinger Estate, the white clapboard farmhouse was transformed into a cozy, elegant restaurant in 1963. There’s an old train caboose for a unique dining experience, a rustic lounge and a 250-seat banquet facility. (285 Ridinger Street, Christiansburg, tel. 540-382-3965, farmhous@swva.net)
Information:
Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce and Visitor Center, 1995 S. Main Street, tel. 800-288-4061, www.montgomerycc.org. Also visit www.downtownblacksburg.com.
Find information online at the Blacksburg Electronic Village, www.bev.net.
TABOO: Don’t even try visiting on Virginia Tech Parents Weekend (unless you’re a parent, that is). It’s the single busiest weekend, typically held in October, but all events are scheduled after the football game schedule comes out in February. Check with the Montgomery Chamber of Commerce (tel. 800-288-4061, www.montgomerycc.org).
Side-trip from Blacksburg: Catawba
At one table sit three high school couples, gowned girls on one side, tuxedoed boys on the other. At the next table, two unshaven, long-haired young men fresh off the Appalachian Trail shovel in one helping of food after another. They may be headed in opposite directions — the hikers to Maine and the high schoolers to the Creek County High School prom – but for a few hours they share a dining room at The Homeplace, a local Catawba institution and, by word-of-mouth, a much-anticipated destination for hikers on the 2,167-mile AT that passes nearby. Hikers have been known to speed up their pace to make it by Sunday dinner. (The Homeplace is open Thursday and Friday 4-8 pm, Saturday 3:30-8 pm, and Sunday 11 am-6 pm)
The attraction – aside from a beautifully restored century-old house on just the prettiest spot in Catawba Valley, surrounded by mountains, rolling fields and manicured landscaping – is the food. The Homeplace serves up nothing more than the most delicious, down-home, all-you-can-eat, just-like-grandma-used-to-make meals. Outside, there are swings on the wraparound porch, a gazebo and a pond. For someone who’s been on the trail since Georgia, reaching The Homeplace must be something akin to heaven on earth.
“Ever been here before?” asks the friendly waitress. We shake our heads. “Well, this is how it works. We bring everything family style – fried chicken, three vegetables and biscuits come with every meal – then we refill the dishes till you’re just ’bout miserable. Then we top it off with peach cobbler.”
There’s no menu, the prices are not posted (it’s only $11 per person), no alcohol, and only two main entrée choices: roast beef or Virginia ham. (On Thursdays there’s pork barbeque.) They keep things simple.
The Homeplace (tel. 540-384-7252) is just seven miles off I-81 at Roanoke, and about 20 miles northeast of Blacksburg, but Catawba seems worlds away from anywhere.
There’s one place to eat, The Homeplace, and one place to stay: CrossTrails Bed & Breakfast, located on 15 acres where the AT and the TransAmerica Bicycle Trail cross. There are guest rooms in the main house and a loft in the carriage house, each with private bath, views of the mountains and air conditioning. Try cross-country skiing, fly-fishing, or just relax on the porch. (tel. 800-841-8078, www.crosstrails.com, $$)
Marion
At the height of his popularity in 1925, world-famous writer Sherwood