Paint Bank, Virginia

Pics I took after dinner...

Saturday evening, my man drove us about an hour Northwest through Roanoke and Craig counties to eat dinner at The Swinging Bridge restaurant in Paint Bank.  The town is teeny tiny and the restaurant is housed in a old fashioned general store and has a ski lodge feel inside.  You know ~ lots of wood and stuffed animal heads and cute little signage.  There is a swinging rope bridge on the second story that we walked across and the restaurant had a SUPER nice bathroom which is always important in my book.

We both really had a great time and enjoyed walking around the grounds afterwards.  There's a large fish pond outside with giant trout (?) swimming in it and a mill wheel that water spins around.  Not sure if the mill actually does anything or if it is just there for looks but it was a very romantic little walk that we had.  The pictures I took above really don't do it justice.

Across the street and down about 100 feet is a bed and breakfast.  There is a caboose out back that you can rent as your room ~ totally adorable!  The far left picture above is the view behind the caboose - a little creek with a wooden bridge.  Not a bad view to have with your morning coffee, right?

We both enjoyed our meal.  He had a buffalo burger and fries and I ate trout, mashed potatoes, and homemade apple sauce.  The best part was the apple sauce!  So chunky, delicious, and sweet ~ more like a dessert than I would have expected and it was nice and warm.  Since we had an appetizer too (fried green beans) we didn't have room for dessert which was a shame because that's my favorite part of any meal but I could stand to lose 10 pounds so it's not the end of the world.

The commute to the restaurant involved a lot of twists and turns up and down some mountains so I took Bonine before I went so I wouldn't get motion sick in the car.  The Bonine worked great as usual but I was EXHAUSTED for the next 24 hours.  We're talking sloth-like tired!

Our friends, Nancy and Jim, told us about Paint Bank and Jim mentioned how on the way we might see some people gliding in those glider planes that don't have motors.  Apparently, there is a gliding... What would you call it?  Not a school or a store.  I can't really think of what to call it.  A place people go to glide?  I'm blanking here.  Anyway, sure enough we saw two giant and silent gliders in the air.  We also saw a lot of pretty scenery, Confederate flags, and a tree that had about 200 mugs of different colors hanging from it in someone's front yard.  Not sure what that was about.

The Swinging Bridge bathroom's cool sink area