Summer Vacation - Day 3

We all got a great night sleep and woke up ready to move on.  This day was another driving day.  Our destination was Virginia.  But first we had to finish driving through Kentucky and made our way to...



 West Virginia is a memorable state.  Unfortunately, just not in a good way.  The drive through the state is, well, just not pleasant for travelers - horrible roads, miles of construction that appears to be permanent, etc.  There was one notable thing I liked - the Travel Plaza (aka: a huge glorified rest area). 




It had 3 restaurants, 3 places for dessert, a gift shop and a convenient store.  (Quizno's and Cinnabon not shown on the sign.)



Except the Cinnabon rolls we got were horrible.  I thought about calling the company and asking for a refund, but I let it go.  And the garlic butter we got for our pizza was kind of scary.  Maybe I didn't like this stop so much after all.

A good portion of the state is a toll highway - the West Virginia Turnpike.  It seemed kind of pricey at $2 per car.  We thought "Well, at least we'll have nice roads to drive on."  Wrong!  It seems as though they consolidated the worst roads in the country's interstate highway system into this stretch of road.  Just when we thought we were through it, we came to another $2 toll booth.  Wait... didn't we just do this?  Deja vu!

Fortunately, we blew straight through the state and made it to...




 Virginia is nothing like West Virginia.  It has very nice roads, little road construction and is beautiful everywhere you look.  The tall hills turned into mountains and we saw one idyllic setting after another.  We finished our drive on day 3 with a preview of the whole reason we vacationed to Virginia...




 Yup.  A farm.  We drove two days to go to a farm.  Not just any farm though.  Polyface set the standard for beyond-organic, pasture-raised, sustainable, eco-friendly farming.  The owner, Joel Salatin, has written many books on the subject and hosts events to teach others how to do the same.  Day 5 of our trip we spent a whole day at a Farm Field Day event, which they hold every 3 years, to see first hand how they do what they do.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  I still have all of day 4 to tell you about, so hang tight!  I know you're itching to learn more about this "farm of many faces".