Eccentric Flower:199812/names food and ski madness

twenty-two december (retroactive)

names, food, and ski madness

Wanted to go to lunch at the deli I'd been to before while in DC, but couldn't remember the name of it, so I didn't suggest it. No consensus on lunch. Rejected a number of ideas. Had already driven past the deli when Nonelvis said, "Hey! We could go to _____" (name of deli I still cannot remember). Well, shucks. Nice that we're in synch; wish I didn't have to turn the car around.

Got back to her parents' house and realized I only had one headlight. The other had been working the night before. Much cussing. Off to get a new headlight, growling about delays to get on the road, etc etc, even though this is the short leg - only four hours or so to mid-Virginia, where Nonelvis' parents have a house in the mountains.

Interstate 66 between DC and Manassas gets crazier every year. I thought the business of letting people drive on the shoulder during rush hour (honest) was temporary until the HOV lane was finished. But the HOV lane now goes all the way to Manassas, and you can still drive on the shoulder in rush hour.

Passing through Charlottesville, the nearest town of any real size to where we will spend the night, we note that it keeps getting bigger and bigger. The chain restaurants are moving in - always a bad sign. It's become a haven for young and not-so-young professionals who keep second homes in the mountains, or who keep farms in the Virginia countryside just to kid themselves they're rural, and who go to C-ville to do all their shopping and dining. There's something hypocritical there, but staying in someone else's mountain home for the night, I don't think I can cast stones.

As we are about to reach our destination and climb old Devil's Knob, we turn off and wind our way along the back roads to Rowe's, a fine restaurant serving fine Southern home cooking. Since our last visit to Rowe's, a Cracker Barrel has opened, a little ways up the service road. I like Cracker Barrel OK - we'll surely eat at one along the trip, it's better than most roadfood - but who would eat at a Cracker Barrel when Rowe's is right next door? People who don't know better, I suppose. Well, you know better now. If you're at the intersection of I-81 and U.S. 250, just north of where I-64 heads east from 81, don't bother with the Cracker Barrel. But get there early - Rowe's closes at nine in the summer, eight in the winter, and seven on Sundays.

I occupy the drive along pitch-black roads to the mountain (good thing I replaced the headlight) by grousing about pronunciation. Rio Road, in C-ville, is pronounced RYE-oh. Buena Vista, a little town down I-81 a ways, is BYOOna Vista. Staunton is Stanton. Can't these people talk? Of course, my first tendency is to give names the Cajun French pronunciation, which gets me weird looks sometimes. Oh, well.

The mountain house adjoins a ski resort. We go down to the lodge to get a late-night hot toddy. They're making snow, as ever - there hasn't been a real snowfall yet this winter there - and the high wind conditions I fought all the way up the mountain are causing the snow spray from the machines to turn into an ice storm. It's like being hit with needles. Surely the skiing can't be great in these conditions ... yet a few crazed skiers and snowboarders are out there, under the giant lights, hurtling downhill through clouds of snow spray. I don't understand extreme sports. Then again, I don't really understand skiing either - on snow. I tried it once and it seemed like a good way to get injured.

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