2015 - Asheville/Atlanta Day 1 (Front Royal, Virginia)

Instead of my usual Point of Interest posts this week, I will be posting about our recent roadtrip to Asheville/Atlanta.  I will be posting one a day for the next 6 days (day 8-9 were driving home days with no real interesting sites).

Today we begin our Asheville and Atlanta roadtrip.  It will be from June 13 - 21.

Day one consisted of us visiting two points of interest before finishing at Front Royal, Virginia.  Interestingly while driving down from Toronto, we passed New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia.

Our first stop was Kaffe Sol for lunch.  It is a good stop for sandwiches.  We didn't try the soups since they didn't interest us.  We thought the sandwiches were pretty good and very inexpensive at roughly $8 per sandwich (the chips are included).  The chips weren't finished by either of us so we took it to go along with a cinnamon roll that cost us only $1.75!

Our lunches at Kaffe Sol.

A short ten minute drive later is Kinzua Bridge State Park.  It is a State Park which turned a tornado torn bridge into a tourist attraction.  It is a short walk from the parking lot to see the site.  When we arrived, we actually walked into a wedding (didn't know you could have your wedding at a State Park).  The site itself is not very large if you are just here for the bridge, it will probably take you maybe 20 minutes (walking to the end of the bridge, taking pictures, walking back to the car).  If you like, you can walk down to the bottom to see it from a different perspective.  Round-trip to the bottom and back took us roughly 35 minutes but the trail is fairly steep.  The park is free to visit.

Side-view of the bridge.

While on the bridge.

Tornado 1, Bridge 0.

After that is a long drive to Gravity Hill in New Paris, Pennsylvania.  It is a hill where your car will move up the hill automatically when you switch it to neutral! It was neat although the hill wasn't very big.  Ended up going up to 8mph.  Allison told me that there is a magnetic hill in New Brunswick that was like this one but a lot cooler (but also more touristy).  This one, only we were there and you had to find the awesomely spray-painted road to know where you are.

Us standing by the start of Gravity Hill.

Dinner was at Jean Bonnet Tavern in Bedford Pennsylvania.  We both had salads and they were okay.  Oddly it lacked a lot of salad since it had a lot of chicken and other ingredients. Somehow my salad came with french fries in them!  I wouldn't recommend coming here for the salad, but there was an endless supply of customers at this restaurant, so the entrees must be good.

Our salads at JBT.

On the way to our hotel in front royal, in the park area we saw some more fireflies (first time I saw them was in the Amazon, this is the second time).  What a nice way to end Day 1.

Tomorrow, we go Dinosaur Land, drive through Shenandoah National Park and part of the Blue Ridge Parkway with us ending in Lexington Virginia for the night.