Of Steam and Gas Engines, June 11

Today is checkout day but before we break camp and head for home we have to take a GPS ride to find Darden's Country Store. I was quite surprised that the Points Of Interest, POI's, in the GPS actually had Darden's Country Store. Of course you must include the 's so the search engine gets the correct place. We followed the GPS right to the door, well almost, it was damn close.

The lady in the store told us that they did not have any ham's ready. The were "resting" and would be ready in July. We also found out that they don't raise their own hogs but purchase the ham's from the commercial packers in Smithfield and cure them their own way.

So next we asked the GPS to take us to the VirginiaDiner. So without looking at a map we headed our following the GPS directions. Over dirt roads and around robin hoods barn and we finally reached US360 and Wakefield. The address in the POI database was no where near the actual diner but the GPS did get us from the back woods of Darden's Country Store to US360 so that was OK.

Across the street from the Virginia Diner was the Plantation Peanuts store. There you could graze on their offerings, all kinds of roasted peanuts, Cajun, Jalapeño, ... along with double dipped chocolate peanuts and double dipped chocolate peanut brittle. Umm good. We bought a good supply.

Then it was back to Surry for a ham sandwich at Edward's Ham. We also bought some gifts for us and others. As we were making our way back to the park we stopped to top off the fuel, $2.79/gal, and another stop to pick up some strawberry's. Alas the strawberry farm is closed Monday's. Our bad.

We ate our sandwiches at the camper and then hooked up and headed home. When we took a break on I64 we noticed dark clouds to our north west. Yep we would have some rain as we made our way home.

It was dry when we arrived at home and we left the rig hooked up because we needed to have the state inspection done on the trailer on Tuesday. So it was just empty the fridge and bring in the dirty clothes.

We had a great extended weekend. Follow this link for more pictures.