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Breakfast in the Country

Since it’s Friday, I decided to treat myself to a fancy, store-bought cup of coffee this morning. As I might have mentioned, our nearest Starbuck’s is 35 minutes away in Vinton (at least until they finish the much-anticipated store in Rocky Mount, bringing that classic cup 15 minutes closer!), and the drive-through at our nearest shop had a line, so I visited the fine folks at the Smith Mountain Lake Coffee House, where I decamp when our home wifi is iffy. After having lived here for more than four years, I shouldn’t be so surprised at the absolute quiet of the post-summer season here at the lake, but the contrast is pretty stark at the Coffee House, which is really hopping from May – September. More dark roast for me, I guess…

Driving home, too, I saw a welcome sight: it’s going to be a bagel day tomorrow! For all the New Yorkers we have living around here, you couldn’t get a good bagel and it was a darned shame. Until this summer. The Bagel & I is a new-ish bagel shop up in Lynchburg, and hallelujah, they bring a pop-up to the lake on Saturdays! These folks are super nice and the bagels are extremely delicious. They’re really popular; on any given Saturday, you can see a line form outside their tent. And it looks like they’re adding a Friday bagel day to their line up this week.

See you in the morning, bagel friends!

Tomorrow’s breakfast is sorted. Hope you have a great weekend!

Posted on by Anne · 2 Comments

A Morning Mess

I work from home all the time, and have done so even before the pandemic, but every once in awhile now Jim works from home too. He is doing so today since we have an ice storm going on.

He was all set up very busy this morning as I was making spare coffee to store in the fridge in case our power went out (it went out last week for a day and I sure missed my afternoon cup), and since I wanted to be busy, too, I was reading a book while making the coffee. I’m taking a social media break for Lent this year, to free up time to read more books and do things like my job.

All of a sudden, our cat who throws up all the time started doing his thing, right there in the kitchen, and I turned around too fast to see how much mess he was making, and managed to catch the rim of the cup I was using for that soon-to-be-stored coffee and splashed the whole thing all over me and my book.

Jim: You got coffee on my book!

Me: And all over myself, wah.

Cat: (Says nothing and patiently waits for the other cat to clean up the throw up by eating it.)

I should probably get Jim a new book, as this one now has pages that are cold-coffee-crispy. But I still feel lucky since our bad weather today pales compared to what most of the country is going through. Even if we lose power, we’ll have coffee. Even with coffee-scented pages, it’s nice to have a good book to read. And if I hadn’t been on a social media break, it would have been my phone that was doused with coffee and don’t even get me started on how that would have presaged a very bad day.

Posted on by Anne · 6 Comments

Creeping Out, Creeping Back In

I first drafted this post talking about how lucky we were in our remote part of the country. Until very recently, our reported cases of Covid-19 had been very moderate. Even with the rate of people wearing masks standing at about 50-50, with the wide-open spaces in Franklin County we felt like we might miss the worst of it.

Then Memorial Day came and evidently everyone went to Myrtle Beach, including that virus. Myrtle Beach is a spot on the South Carolina shore, just about five hours south of our area. There’s a boardwalk, and golf courses, and an amusement park, and evidently lots of pent-up need for people to get out to the sand, because they opened up their businesses in June and the virus exploded.

Look, it’s the Coronavirus Highway!

People in Roanoke love Myrtle Beach! And they brought that virus back with them. The worst souvenir ever.

So now our local cases are creeping up. Mask wearing is a little better, but I’m cautious and more mindful of staying home. But for awhile there…

Jim and I went out to eat at our favorite restaurant, instead of doing take-out.

Napoli Cowboy has a nice outdoor area now! And you have to make a reservation.

I made a trip to Rocky Mount for a mammogram, which is no fun but you gotta do it. Hats off to the clinic for being extremely impressive at monitoring patients’ health and getting us in and out quickly.

I started going into Roanoke on Saturday mornings to peruse the tremendous Kolsch selection at Barrel Chest, where they remember you and what you like, with always something new and good to recommend.

I would also include a stop at Roasters Next Door so I could support a local coffee shop that happens to have delicious lavender-pancake flavored lattes.

But now it looks like all of those good things might be on hold and it’s 100% worth it if we can avoid this mess spreading any more than it is.

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Roanoke’s Christmas Market

We had a chance to visit the Hyde Park Christmas Market in London a couple of years ago, and we found out last night that Roanoke’s “Dickens of a Christmas” has a very similar vibe.

Dickens of a Christmas happens during the Friday evenings between Thanksgiving and Christmas. On one Friday, the city hosts a parade. Last night the big event was a dog costume contest.

The city was filled with very cute dogs.

There were singing kids…

And lovely shop windows …

And all of the restaurants seemed to have a crowd, including this Roanoke institution:

Cora and I wandered around and left with a lot of holiday spirit (and a cool needlework kit from the Crafteria (a former cafeteria restaurant converted into booths of crafty stuff).

During the week, you can even get coffee in the Crafteria! This is where I’m taking out of town friends next time we have visitors!
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Coffee Tastes the Same (Good) in Alabama

The town next to Auburn is called Opelika (it’s fun to say, give it a try!).

It is much easier to get a hotel in Opelika than in Auburn on busy weekends (fun fact: this is also true for the SEC football refs, as we learned during a stay at the Opelika Hampton Inn a couple of years ago). The Opelika hotels surround a shopping center known as TigerTown, which may indicate its proximity to the Auburn campus.

A certain soon-to-be college graduate, I have found, doesn’t want to meet up with her mom until 9 a.m. Since I get up early, I have learned that the TigerTown Target opens at 7 (perfect for picking up waterproof mascara).

I love you, Target. I love you, TigerTown.

And on this early morning, I’m enjoying the warmth of the TigerTown Starbucks as I listen to the salty-sweet accents of the older gents at the next table, sorting out the worlds problems…

… and happily getting a text from Jim to let me know that he succeeded in navigating a Roanoke ice storm to get to the airport for his flight down here this morning.

The family starts arriving this afternoon. But first the grad-to-be and I will get one last walk around campus. A well fortified walk.