A Wintergreen Anniversary

Ms. B. and I wanted to have a getaway of some variety for our fifth anniversary, primarily just the two of us because she's had to be gone so much to Michigan to look after her folks (not to mention on various arts & crafts long weekends). Last year, we enjoyed two lovely trips to Wintergreen in the mountains of Central Virginia, so we decided to return to it for our anniversary trip. Five years ago on October 19, we we were married in Venice, Italy; Wintergreen isn't exactly Venice, but it surely is a beautiful area, with lots of wineries/distilleries/breweries/dining. Yep, just the place.

Sunday, October 18, 2026
During the morning, we packed up the car, and precisely at noon, off we went. Our first stop was lunch in Gretna, a little Mexican joint called El Cazador. The food was good, and they hit us with some extra-jumbo margaritas that were delicious. After all that had settled, we moved on and arrived at our lodgings in Wintergreen precisely at 4:00 p.m., our designated check-in time. It's a lovely AirBnB at the Wintergreen Resort — although, for a brief time, we wondered if we were going to be able to get inside, for the door code did not work. I messaged our host, and, happily, he saw it immediately (it was quite chilly outside). He was able to reset the code remotely, so in we went. The place is the perfect size for the two of us, cozy and fairly romantic for an anniversary stay.

 

Once we settled in, we popped over to the nearby market, where we picked up a few staples, and then we trucked over to The Edge for dinner, which is right on the ski slopes and offers some beautiful views. Right now, the fall color isn't quite at its peak, but it's getting there. Last year when we were here, conditions were similar; we saw minimal color, and then one morning we woke up, looked outside, and found that autumn had exploded. Perhaps we'll be so lucky again this year. At The Edge, we both had excellent mushroom & Swiss burgers. And they do make a damn fine martini.

 

Afterward, we returned to our place and settled in to watch Tales of Halloween and an episode of Cabinet of Curiosities, which satiated our craving for some Halloween-themed entertainment, accompanied by a smidgen of wine. Then off to bed.

Monday, October 19, 2026
I got up bright and early, had coffee and a cinnamon roll, and hoofed it to a nearby geocache — one I'd been unable to find on our previous trip here — called "Exploring Wintergreen #5: Ski Fever" (GC29P8R). This time, I managed to turn it up in short order, so that was most gratifying. It was cold out there, I can tell you.

 

Brugger was awake by the time I arrived back at our lodgings. I worked on the blog a bit until lunchtime, when we set out for Three Notch'd Brewery & Craft Kitchen, which looked like a happy place from the info online. And indeed it was. Their hot honey chicken wings about sent me over the moon, and they make a dynamite Bloody Mary.

Then we rode up to Pollak Vineyards, between Waynesboro and Charlottesville, which we hadn't visited before. It's a nice spot, with several very decent white and red wines. They had a Petite Verdot that was as good as any I've ever tasted, so I picked up a bottle. From there, we headed a few miles eastward to Chiswell Farm & Winery, our favorite of the numerous wineries we'd visited on our last trip. It's a beautiful old mansion with sprawling grounds and scenic views. Plus they have very good wine. Ms. B. has turned to drinking mostly whites, so she tried a flight of whites, and I had a flight of reds. Here, I liked the Meritage marginally better than the Petite Verdot, so my favorites were flip-flopped from Pollak's. And again, a lovely experience; Chiswell is probably my favorite winery that I've visited in the Eastern U.S.

Those stops took us till dinnertime, so on the way back to Wintergreen, we found dinner at Blue Mountain Brewery, which we'd visited on previous occasions. I killed a very good pulled pork sandwich, with potato salad, and I hoped I wasn't overworking the stomach today — on trips like this, healthy eating is a rarity. Back at our place, we watched Cabin in the Woods and, after a little while, zonked out.

 

And that was how we spent our fifth anniversary. A truly lovely day for both of us. I love you, Ms. B.!

Lunch at Three Notch'd Brewery

The tasting room at Pollak Vineyards

Chiswell Farm & Winery

Wine flights at Chiswell

Tuesday, October 20, 2026
First things first: geocaching! There was a cache about a mile down the mountain — "Top of the (Wintergreen) World!" (GC2KJWT) — on the Devil's Knob Trail — and the rather foreboding name is quite apt. The long descent by road from our place to the trailhead was steep, to be sure, but the trail... wowz. It's steeper than steep, rocky, narrow, and slippery in places, with a couple of plunges on one side that would prove fatal should one take a bad step. The terrain rating is 4 out of 5, with 5 being the most difficult, and I'd say that rating is spot-on. It was less than a quarter mile from the trailhead to the cache, but that trek took twice as long as the mile down the mountain.

I spent a good while searching for the cache, as ground zero was a target-rich area. In the end, the coordinates and hint ("Just hanging out") proved very good. Also... that last step to reach the cache was a doozy. It was one of those long "plunges" one does not want to make. In the end, I awarded the cache a favorite point on geocaching.com for its enjoyable placement and the challenging hike.

View from the overlook at the trailhead

A couple of views of the trail

The cache is down there...somewhere.

L: Living on the edge at GZ; R: That last step could be a doozy.

Having survived the Devil's Knob Trail, I hoofed it back to our place. Brugger and I got ourselves fit to be seen in public, inasmuch as that's possible, and drove down to the nearby market where they have a deli with really good sandwiches. We had a couple for lunch, and then set out on the day's winery tour. Our first stop was Flying Fox Vineyard, which we'd visited last year when we came to Wintergreen with friends Terry & Beth. Their wines are okay, but what I most appreciate is their four varieties of vermouth, since one isn't going to find any comparable spirits elsewhere in the area.

Then we went a short distance up the way to Veritas Vineyards, on Afton Mountain. Veritas was the first vineyard in this area we ever visited, well over a decade ago, with friends Elizabeth Massie & Cortney Skinner (whom we plan to see tomorrow). The wine here is excellent, and the facility is huge — it has expanded considerably since our first visit. We very much enjoyed our return.

Next on the docket was another visit to the Blue Ridge/Crozet Tunnel, also at the summit of Afton Mountain. We went last year when we were here and quite enjoyed the experience. It's a mile-long railroad tunnel, now part of a nice rail trail. It was cold and damp in there, but we didn't mind a bit. And at the far end, a geocache awaited, which I found with ease. Last year, we encountered a good many folks along the trail, but this time, the tunnel and trail were almost deserted. We passed only a scant handful of humans on this outing, which made it all the spookier — and thus fun.

We needed some dinner, so we found it at Devil's Backbone Brewing Company (there's a shit-ton of places with "Devil" in the name around here). It's a huge establishment, and we found the food, drink, and service quite good. I ordered fish & chips, and Ms. B. got a huge plate of roasted brussel sprouts, so we ended up sharing dinners with each other. Good stuff!

For our evening entertainment, we watched As Above, So Below, a cool horror flick we'd seen some years ago. Still very enjoyable. It's one that made me glad we had gone caving before watching this, rather than after. Since we have a fireplace and plenty of firewood, I built a fire to make things nice and cozy. Another excellent evening for Ms. B. and me!

Wednesday, October 21, 2026
It wasn't exactly the crack of dawn, but I got up before Kimberly so I could have coffee and some scrambled eggs, work on the blog, and go geocaching. It wasn't a terribly restful night; my sinuses are succumbing to fall allergies, and the vast change in diet/drink over several days gave my stomach a few fits. And it ain't quite over. Anyway, about the time Ms. B. roused from bed, I set out on the mile-long downhill trek to a cache called "Sparkledust Fairy Village" (GCBR33H). It really was a little fairy village, nestled amid the trees and rocks in a small green space between the main road and one of the housing developments. It was a clever, imaginative hide, and it took me a little while to find the correct address amid the fairy houses. I liked it.

Then... the mile-long return trek up the mountain. It was nowhere near as taxing as yesterday's rugged hike, but the inclines here are nothing to laugh at, I can tell you.

Once back, I cleaned up, downed some more caffeine, and wrote in the blog. Then Ms. B. and I mounted up and drove to Barren Ridge Vineyards between Waynesboro and Staunton. It's another winery we had visited on a trip to see Cortney and Elizabeth — back in 2014, I believe. It's a beautiful location, and the wine is very good, particularly their Touriga and Petite Verdot.

The view from the terrace

Having completed the first phase of our mission, we drove to Staunton, about twenty minutes up the road. Our plan was to meet friends Cortney Skinner & Elizabeth Massie at Accordia Wine Bar, but when we arrived, it was closed, much to our surprise. Apparently, they're always closed on Wednesday, but their Google listing did not reflect this. Happily, a quick search indicated that Yelping Dog Wine Bar lay a short block away. About that time, Cortney & Beth arrived, so we settled at Yelping Dog for a great afternoon of catching up with each other's exploits.

 

For dinner, we chose the nearby Depot Grille. The restaurant is in the old train station, and I recalled seeing it last year while I was geocaching in the area. What a great choice it was: beautiful ambiance, great food, and excellent service. I killed one of the best bison burgers I've had anywhere — and I do love me a good bison burger. Plus they make damned fine martinis.

 

On a more ridiculous note, all of us neglected to take a single photo while we were together, which was... well... ridiculous. I reckon we're all old and were so busy chatting that we never reached for our phones. Alas!

The impressive bar at Depot Grille, Staunton

After we parted company with Cortney & Beth, Kimberly was craving ice cream, so we hoofed it to the nearby Split Banana Ice Cream Parlor and killed a couple of cups of the cold stuff. Yep, it was delicious.

 

We drove the dark, winding backroads back to our lodgings in Wintergreen, a truly dark and eerie route, at times reminiscent of the opening scene of Professor Harrington driving away from Lufford Hall in Night (Curse) of the Demon. Needless to say, I loved this.

 

We watched 2014's Ouija, which we enjoyed. We'd watched the 2016 Mike Flanagan prequel, Ouija: Origin of Evil, a couple of weeks ago; Flanagan's is a better film, but taken together, they are both quite entertaining.

 

And then... lights out. G'night.

 

Thursday, October 22, 2026
This was the last morning of our Wintergreen anniversary trip, which made us a little sad because we've had an awesome time (except for the possible onset of a creeping crud for both of us; hoping it's allergies, but this is pretty ugly). We packed up and headed out right at 10:00 a.m. We stopped for gas in Lynchburg, and lunch at cool coffee shop called The Pod in Gretna. Quite delicious, and a fitting close to another fantastic Brugger-Rainey outing. Kimberly, especially, has needed a break from the stress of dealing with her parents and trying to gain new clients for her freelance work. Our AirBnB was fantastic, and we'll be looking forward to a return to this area next year, assuming AI hasn't gained sentience and sparked the Rise of the Machines.

 

I'll be back.

A Durham Mini-Con

Early Friday afternoon, Brugger and I loaded up the Rodan Mobile with my books, her art supplies, and a few of our personal items, and then sallied forth on a course for the Millennium Hotel in Durham, NC, the site of Triangle Terror Con. We had a reasonably pleasant, two-hour drive, including a stop for a fun geocache at Shangri-La Stone Village along Hwy 86. It's a fun, intriguing location — a miniature village made of stone — which I've visited a few times before while hunting caches. It was a successful hunt and the only cache I went after on this trip. Time was a bit short.

 

We had decided to make it an overnight trip, so we could do a few Durham things other than the con, and the Millennium made for excellent lodgings. A very comfortable room, a nice bar, and very convenient to I-85 as well as numerous local attractions. We checked in at the hotel, set up my books in the convention area, and then sought refreshment at a somewhat quirky wine bar called delafia. It's located in an old barber shop, and, unless one knows better, you'd think it is a barber shop, since all the original signage remains out front. Go figure. But inside, it's cozy and attractive, and the selection of wine is impressive (they have normal "by the glass" wines, "Weird Shit" wines, and "Unicorn" wines, the meanings of which I'll leave you to figure out). Kimberly and I settled for a couple of the regular "by the glass" wines, and they were danged good. They also had "Big Beans" for snackies, and damn if they weren't a bowl of big-ass beans. And tasty. We recommend them highly.

This is the place.

Big beans

Inside the place

After delafia, we headed to dinner at Bleu Olive, a nice Mediterranean restaurant a short drive up the way. I started with a Greek Mojito, which was tasty and refreshing. Then Brugger and I split a trio of appetizers for our meals — grilled octopus (well, that was for me; the lady didn't care to partake), dolmathes, and spanakopita, all of which were delicious.

 

Once back at the Millennium, we decided to visit their very pleasant bar and have a couple of drinks. This took us until pretty late, so we eventually headed back to our room and crashed.

 

This morning, come 10:30 a.m., we plunked down at my vendor table, ready with a passel of horrific titles to foist on the unsuspecting. For a while, things were slow, then they picked up, and I moved enough books to make the whole day worthwhile, especially since one gentleman had come to the con specifically to meet me and pick up copies of almost all the books I had on hand. Sweet — and most appeciated. Brugger worked on her art for most of the day, and she was kind enough to pick up both breakfast and lunch for us so I could man the table.

 

I did meet actress Linda Miller, of King Kong Escapes fame, and we had a nice conversation. Carl Craig, who starred in Gamera vs. Viras when he was a wee lad was also there, but he was otherwise occupied when I stopped by, so I didn't get a chance to talk with him.

 

Things turned slow during the afternoon, so it felt pretty danged long. At least Kim finished a piece of art she'd been working on for a while, and we both took enough breaks to get in all our daily steps and then some.

 

At 5:30 sharp, we broke down, packed up, and headed to dinner at Hillsborough BBQ Company, which has long been a favorite geocaching lunchtime destination. Their brisket is always wonderful, so I tore into some this evening. Ms. B. went for the pulled pork, which is also incredible.

And then, we headed on home. I'd been a little leery because my informed mail delivery notice showed something from the IRS, and how good can that ever be? Turned out to be a notification of a new fund-matching program, and nothing to get stressed about. Thank Yog for little favors, eh?

 

So, at the end of the day, Triangle Terror Con proved worthwhile, and we enjoyed our various Durham activities, but I don't know that I'll return to the con next year. This looked to be a big weekend for scary events all over, so I may decided to look for something else apt for the season next year.

Linda Miller and Carl Craig at Triangle Terror Con

Ms. B.'s finished piece of art

The Daring Adventures of Diefenbaker and Damned Rodan

Ms. Brugger went to another artsy-craftsy retreat this weekend, so friend and longtime geocaching partner Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott) came up from Newbern, NC, for a long, bachelor-oriented geocaching weekend. He arrived early Thursday evening to find a rack of slow-cooked pork ribs with corn on the cob and cole slaw I'd made waiting for him. He brought with him some marginally fiery ghost-pepper infused vodka and a bottle of mezcal; I introduced him to my version of the Botanic Martini, which I had originally experienced at Nord Social in Midland, Michigan, last month. There may be a new convert to the cause. We sat out on the back deck with massive quantities of food and drink until quite late, and enjoyed the required, semi-inebriated phone conversation with Ms. B., which happens whenever we have one of these get-togethers. Fun was had.

Early Friday morning, after a breakfast of bacon and eggs, we departed for a long day of it on the geocaching trail, beginning with Rocky Mount, Virginia, at Bald Knob, a unique rocky, cactus-crowned ridge that rises above the town. I'd been there numerous times over the years (see "Number One and Driving High" for an example), but a new trail system was completed this past May, and several new geocaches awaited our attention. We found them without difficulty, but I also took Scott to an older cache I had previously found, and negotiating the intense terrain to reach it from where we departed the trail left us just about spent by the time we returned to the bottom. Silly me, I took no photos during the hike, but here's an older one:

A view of Rocky Mount, VA, from Bald Knob's summit

From Rocky Mount, we drove eastward to a spot along the Pigg River in Franklin County. During my days at Ferrum College, I spent a lot of time at the Pigg River (though much closer to Ferrum), frequently in search of various altered states, which I usually found. This time, there weren't any altered states, but we did find a very creative geocache.

 

From there, we drove on to Gretna, Virginia, for a quick park & grab hide. Then down to Danville, where we found a late lunch at the fairly new 301 Tavern on Craghead Street. The braying country music was a bit loud, but the food and drink (cheeseburger, fries, and Pernicious IPA) certainly hit the spot. Then we roved around Danville for a bit to complete the stages of a nice Adventure Lab cache created by friend Skyhawk63 (a.k.a. Tom, with whom I've recently shared some awesome geocaching adventures).

 

It was a lot of driving (about 150 miles) for a relatively small number of caches, but damn, it was satisfying. After returning home and making ourselves reasonably presentable, we headed over to Hamlet Kitchen, which is a regular hangout for Kimberly and me, but on this day, I had to make do with Scott. Hey, no complaints from this quarter. We had a couple of glasses off wine and then ventured over to Yamato Japanese Restaurant for sushi. As we wandered in, we ran into friend Anne, with whom Ms. B. and I had enjoyed a fantastic Thai dinner (along with Anne's sister, Mary), a few weeks back. She joined us for dinner and some very fun conversation, and then Scott and I (after a brief liquor store stop) returned to Casa di Rodan to test a few spirits. I'd say they tested satisfactorily.

 

Interestingly, as we sat out on the back deck in the dark, something big, heavy, and quite angry-sounding went thumping and huffing through the woods right at the edge of the driveway, just beyond our line of sight. We have tons of deer, foxes, and coyotes in these woods, but whatever it was, I've never heard such a thing before. Wampus cat, I'd say.

 

Another shared call with Ms. B., and then... a good night.

A theme, perhaps?

An interesting view from my phone camera, facing upward to the underside of our deck umbrella

The view on our side of our phone call with Kimberly

The view on Kimberly's side of our phone call

Saturday morning, Scott and I got up early again. I made blueberry pancakes, and then we set out for very long walks on a couple of different legs of the roughly twelve-mile-long Dick & Willie Trail. Many of the caches along this trail belong to either me or friend Fishdownthestairs (a.k.a. Natalie), but since Scott had never found these, I was happy to go along and offer either help or heckling, whichever I figured would be more entertaining at the time. We put in about six miles of it, and then found lunch at Don Pepe's, a Mexican restaurant that's been here for a while, though I'd never tried it. Damn if it didn't turn out to be excellent—very authentic. We ended up having a mellow afternoon (I mostly worked on the blog) before I cooked up some BBQ chicken wings, which turned out better than satisfactory, I'd say

 

For the evening, we again sat outside, told stories, listened to music, and waited for our big huffing friend to come stomping through. It never did, though a rather cute little possum wandered by. We had a brief, enjoyable chat before he waddled off again.

L: A couple of wacky gentleman on the trail; R: Diefenbaker trying to extricate himself from the depths of hell

Chorizo street tacos at Don Pepe's

Scott and Rufus engaged in a serious tête-à-tête

And, at last, Sunday morning, I made coffee and some very good egg bites for breakfast, and then Scott hit the road to return home. What a nice weekend all-around, though I certainly missed Kimberly, as I always do when she's gone. Scott's hoping to have us both down to their place in Newbern in the not-too-distant future, and to me, this sounds like a winning plan.

 

To old friends...

A Happy 250th

Kim, Mark, Kim, Mark

For Ms. B. and me, our social calendar for the July 4 weekend was pretty full. On Friday, we met our friends, the "Other Mark & Kim," at Gioia dell'Amore Cellars (formerly Autumn Creek) a short distance down the road in North Carolina. The winery and tasting room is beautiful, though the wine is mostly kind of meh. Their Meritage is pretty good. Kimberly and I have hung out many times with Mark & Kim in the company of several of our other NC friends, but I believe this was the first time we've gotten together as couples. We did have a great time.

Yesterday morning, on the Fourth, we met friends Bob & Yvonne at the Forest Park Country Club swimming pool, where I spent many days as a youngster, especially on Fourths of July. Also a lot fun, and we fortunately had a tent to protect us from the sun, as it was 100°F out there. We all spent a lot of our time in the water. To keep ourselves refreshed, we drank — brace yourselves — Claw Tails (a variant of the ubiquitous White Claw). You know, the stuff that is often described as "drinking TV static while someone yells the name of a fruit from another room." Yeah, that. I'm kind of embarrassed to say that I liked it. And so did Brugger. My God, what have we become? Anyway, the club provided burgers and hot dogs fresh off the grill, and I had a really tasty burger for lunch.

 

We spent the afternoon back home, largely de-sweating ourselves (this took some effort). Then late in the day, we headed back over to Bob & Yvonne's for a very enjoyable Fourth of July party. Lots of nice folks in attendance, all of whom we'd met on other occasions, including friends Scott & Jamie, with whom we sometimes do karaoke at one venue or another. We managed to drink a bit more without getting too toasted. Not Claw Tails this time.

Anyhoo, it was all good company, with good food and good drinks. So, here it is — Happy 250th to the USA, and fuck anyone, inside or outside (especially on the inside), who tries to hijack our ideals and our heritage. I have spoken.

Yvonne, Bob, Brugger, Old Dude

Fred, Bob, Jamie, Scott

Yvonne, Brugger

Magda, Old Dude, Stefan