Last Wednesday I headed down to Page’s farm just outside of Wytheville, VA for a change of scenery and an opportunity to spend time with other artists, paint at least two days and take lots of photos of scenic views for future studio paintings, and talk about some business plan ideas that have been floating about in my head but not yet implemented.  Came home on Saturday.

On the way down, my goal was to stop frequently to take pictures, visit at least one gallery and maybe even stop and paint for a couple of hours. A normal person would be from point A to point B in about five and a half hours barring traffic on I-81 South.  Riding along with me was Brenda Sylvia and her dog, Lucy. We followed the regular route of 360 West to 295 West and then 64 West until we got over Afton Mountain near Staunton. Then we meandered over to Route 11 and followed it most of the rest of the way down only venturing onto I-81 when we had no other option.

We did stop to take pictures  of a couple of farms with really lovely old barns

, cows and bales of hay and also visited Natural Bridge (a first for both of us). The Natural Bridge stop gave us a nice little walking opportunity and ended up taking the place of stopping to paint. We did not come across any galleries on the way down.

Natural Bridge is a pretty amazing experience. Photos do not (probably cannot) capture the immensity of this natural rock carving.

Most amazing to me was learning that Route 11 runs across it! While there we visited the park service’s interpretation of a Native American village and walked to the end of the path to view a really lovely waterfall. As we were walking out it began to rain and I learned a trick from Brenda about covering up my camera bag with a trash bag to keep everything nice and dry.