Welcome back everyone, Its ya boy, Warren. Coming to you live from Virginia…..only not really since I didnt have time to write this until I came back to Texas.
Anyway given that I am a Virginia native, and we were staying in my home town, I wanted to take Melanie to a few of my favorite places. These weren’t really planned, but fun none the less.
The first one we went to was a place I used to go all the time for exercise, and if I needed to get away for a bit, it was the place to go. That place is Green Hill Park in Salem. On the weekends its typically pretty busy but, if you want some peace, go on a weekday (minus any times school is out). My favorite places to go there are either follow the trail and sit by the Roanoke river, or if you want a good view and little to know foot traffic, the top of green hill is the best place. If you have mobility issues its not recommended to go up there unless you go up through the equestrian area. That way is still steep but no thin trails or trees to crawl over. Below is one of the trails (with Melanie booking it back down haha).
If you do make it up there though, it is very peaceful. The spring time is great since all the leaves are in and the sounds of nearby Salem are dampened.
Melanie had to push her self to get up there. So again not recommended if you have mobility issues like she does. But I suppose if you take frequent breaks and don’t mind sitting on dirt you should be fine. Otherwise the river is a great place to sit by and just listen to. Or stick your feet in, just watch out for the occasional crawdad (snip snip!)
For dinner that night we ate at one of my favorite places, Mac and Bobs. Its in downtown Salem across from the court house. My go to is the calzone! One of the best in town. Come with an appetite, they will definitely feed you. The calzone is massive but good:
They have a smaller one though if you don’t want something that big. I didn’t get this big not eating though so obviously I opted for the larger one.
After that I decided to take her to the local duck pond. Usually its pretty busy but at night, its quite peaceful. You can feed the ducks or even fish if you want.
I used to go to fish rodeos and sit out there all the time to think. Everywhere there is very accessible regardless of mobility issues. If you are in town and want a place to relax, that’s the place. Just go around sunset or a little after dark and it will be pretty empty. Traffic will be pretty light as well.
Finally, our last mini trip was always a child hood favorite. They used to do haunted house/caves there too. Though to show my age a bit, the tour guide said they hadnt done the haunted house event in almost 14 years! The place I took her was Dixie Caverns. If you go or went to school in the area, its definitely had a field trip there.
They still do tours though. Its the only truly open to the public cavern in the area. That being said, if you are the adventurous type, the area is very cavernous, and you can find quite a few caves that connect to the caverns. Just beware of bears and bats. For legal reasons I have to say do not seek them out, and go to one(s) open to the public! This cavern though, definitely is not handicap accessible. And if you have mobility issues, you definitely will be put through your paces. If you cant handle a lot of stairs and slick surfaces, sadly I cannot recommend.
Melanie had to really push herself on this one. But according to her, it was worth it. Not sure if that is because of some of the awesome sights, or finding a few hibernating bats (probably the second one), but if you can make the trip it is worth it.
The tour guides are very informative and will keep the pace slow if needed. They dont allow video recording in there but you can take plenty of pictures. Here are some that we took:
It took us about an hour to go through the whole system. It was really fun. Fun fact though if you have a mold allergy, not a great place to go. Luckily Melanie’s reactions are mild. Either way she had a blast! Hopefully she will talk about it some in her blog/vlog. And with that our mini trips come to an end.
I plan on doing some of these on each of our trips to kind of break things up from the larger stops. Let me know what ya’ll think! I’ll leave ya’ll with a picture of a tiny bat sleeping. Bye!!!!
