Earlier this month, my best friend Shae came down from Boston to visit me. We had talked about this for a few years, so it was so much fun to be a Virginia and DC tour guide for her at last. We spent five days eating lots of food, baking, going to areas for both tourists and locals, and taking hundreds of photos, of course. We took so many that I'm going to split my post into a Virginia post and a DC post that will come soon.
Just a couple hours after picking her up at the airport, we got in the car to drive out to Front Royal, VA. We took the route with the prettier views, passing farms and old estates with the mountains in view throughout the drive. We stopped for apple butter donuts at the Apple House in Linden (which I highly recommend) and coffee at Happy Creek Coffee in Front Royal (which my dad loves), but the primary purpose of our drive was Skyline Drive.
It was Shae's first time in Virginia, so we had to take her out here where you can have beautiful views of the Shenandoah Valley. On this particular summer day, the weather was rapidly alternating between extremely sunny and overcast, and it even started to rain a few times. But no matter how much the weather changed, the mountains and valley were more blue than I had seen them before.
Unfortunately the rain ruined our plans for a golden hour photoshoot at the battlefields, but at least we managed to get some time in at Skyline Drive.
I never get sick of coming to Skyline Drive. I've gone several times in the past couple of years, and we have a season pass, so I know I'll be coming back in the fall when I'm on break.
A few days later, we spent the afternoon in Arlington and Alexandria. We started off at Gravelly Point in Arlington. It is a small park next to the airport, so you can come to watch the planes take off and fly overhead. I had wanted to come to this little park for a while, and naturally Shae was up to go there and take photos.
After that, we drove down to Old Town Alexandria. I actually haven't gone to Old Town since I was little, and my mom and I had been talking about going there for a long time. Shae's visit was a perfect time to finally go down there.
First, we went to the Torpedo Factory, an art center on the waterfront. It is made up on galleries and studios where you can look at and buy pieces of art, but what makes it really cool is that the artists are in their own galleries, so you can talk to them about their work. We had conversations with a few artists, who told us about their process and thoughts on their pieces. After that, we had dinner at Blackwall Hitch, a good and cute seafood restaurant on the waterfront.
We walked off our very filling dinner by exploring the surrounding area. Old Town is such a nice neighborhood with cute shops and historic houses. There are so many restaurants around as well, so I'd like to come back to try out some of the food.
The next day was Shae's last day. We went to Burnside Farms in Haymarket, which has moved to a location that is bigger than the one I went to last year. They have a nice field of sunflowers, cosmos, and gladiolas, so we picked some and took so many pictures.
We went only a few days after they opened for their sunflower season, so the tall sunflowers hadn't bloomed yet and the rest were shorter, baby sunflowers, but I loved it anyway. We took a lot of photos while sweating and squinting in the sun, but of course Shae still looks good. Honestly, stop being so photogenic, Shae.
I'll be posting the post of DC photos soon! We went to several museums, did the required tourist things, visited Georgetown, and walked until our feet were killing us.
