Our 10 Year Anniversary Weekend in Abindgon, VA

I've been wanting to recap our many adventures in 2022. First up, our weekend in Abingdon to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary in November!

The main activity for this trip was biking the Virginia Creeper Trail.  The trail is a fairly easy 35-mile bike trail from Abingdon to White Top, Virginia. I had this trail on my radar for a couple of years and was originally planning to take Cam, since I figured he would enjoy it. In hindsight, I am really pleased we made this a non-kid trip for our first time biking the trail.  It would have been less enjoyable for me if I had to worry about Cam biking the long distance (though it's mostly downhill), plus it had some steep drop-offs.  That said,  I do think he could have managed it at seven years old, but it would have likely lessened my own experience. 

We headed out late morning on a Friday and Abingdon was about a 4 hour drive from Raleigh. Cam happened to have the day off of school so it worked out well that my parents could keep him through the weekend while Brian and I went on our anniversary trip.

Originally I had wanted to stop at Grayson Highlands State Park for a quick hike to see the wild horses there, but ultimately we decided to go straight to our airbnb to get settled in. The house was super cute and directly on the trail. It worked out well for us location-wise, but it did lack privacy as it was literally right beside a main pit stop on the trail. There were about 20+ bikers hanging out in the parking lot when we pulled up Friday afternoon, making it a little odd. Thankfully it ended up not impacting our weekend overall, but I would probably pick a different place the next time.

On Friday evening, we headed to downtown Abingdon. It was such a cute mountain town! Lots of shops and restaurants, however most were closed by 5pm. We ended up walking to Wolf Hills Brewery and there was a band setting up for a concert.  We had a drink and bought tickets for the concert that was happening later. We headed out to dinner at The Tavern which turned out to be amazing! The food and service were top-notch.  After dinner, we walked back to the brewery and caught the last hour of the concert. The band was Sam Burchfield & the Scoundrels and they were so good! I felt like we got very lucky they were playing the night we were there. 

Saturday was our biking day. I had originally booked us the shuttle to White Top at an early morning time, but due to some light rain in the forecast, I switched us to an 11 AM start time. We headed into Damascus -- another nearby mountain town -- to have coffee and breakfast before picking up our bikes at Sundog Outfitter. Again, this little town was so quaint and outdoorsy. I loved it! 

After being shuttled to the top of the trail, we biked almost 30 miles, which took about 2.5 hours. We would have likely done the whole trail, but my pedal on the rental bike started coming loose and almost fell off! Brian was able to tighten it and we turned around to head back to Sundog to return our rental bikes. 

There was a cute little area near the bike rental in Damascus that had a restaurant (Wicked Chicken), bar, and ice cream shop all housed together with a great outdoor setup.  There was live music on the porch and it was a lovely afternoon to sit outside with a beer and relax after the bike ride.  We headed back to the rental house for a bit before dinner and then went back into Abingdon for our final night out. We had BBQ at Bonefire Smokehouse (again....live music!) and then headed out for a late night drink at a bar we had walked by earlier in the evening called Foresta. The atmosphere was spectacular! The lighting just made this place dazzle and the cocktail I had was amazing. We had our drinks outside by a fire table and it was just a lovely night altogether.

We left on Sunday morning to head back to Raleigh. I was so delighted with how the entire weekend turned out. I really loved all of it so much -- the town, the biking, and just getting to spend lots of time with Brian.  

It was a simple trip without much planning or itinerary and it ended up being one of my favorite vacations!