Vacation Day 1–Staunton, Virginia

Our first day of vacation found us rolling out of bed at 5:30 in the morning at hitting the road right after 6:00.  We drove and drove and drove and then drove a little more, to finally make it to our destination spot – Staunton, Virginia – essentially just a layover local to have us close to the Shenandoah National Park for our plans for the next day.  Upon driving through our layover town, we discovered a delightfully old quaint town.  So we decided to take a walk through the historic part of town:

It was filled with fun little shops and cafes.  And churches.  So many many churches.  I loved this old Pentecostal church.

With it’s quiet graveyard and grave sites dating back to the 1800’s. 

And beautiful stained glassed windows,

And ornate fencing.

Then we came across this Catholic church that looks like a castle…

And just so many old and fun sites.  Seriously a photographers dream.  Anyone want to go back there for a photo session?  We would get some GREAT photos!

And I loved this beautiful old Presbyterian women’s college.  Wouldn’t it be fun to go to a college that looked like that?

In between our wanderings around town, we stopped in at this local restaurant,

and had one FANTASTIC meal.  I had a roasted vegetable strudel with pesto sauce and Nathan had grass fed local steak.  My food was so good that I had been at home eating it, I would have picked up the plate and licked every last crumb off of it!!!!

For dessert, we stopped by

for some fresh homemade ice cream.  I had peach ice cream that the girl behind the counter told me her dad had gone out only the day before to pick the peaches to go into it.    So yummy!

And so ended the first day of our adventures!