Steve and Tara's Power Tour Adventures: HRPT 2019- Day 3: June 10- Martinsville, VA to Bristol, TN (178 miles)

Art on the hotel wall claiming Virginia is for lovers.

We loaded up the cars this morning and headed into the drizzle and fog towards the Mabry Mill Restaurant, our chosen breakfast spot. It's near Meadows of Dan on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and was just off the official Power Tour route.

It's really exciting when you can't see the curves

The Mabry Mill (next to the restaurant)

Words cannot describe this...

Once we finished breakfast we headed back to join the route and meet up with Russ at his hotel a few miles further along, but first had to let a deer cross the road.

I interrupt this car blog to bring you more nature.

Today's route was one of the best we've ever driven. Once again we had cool weather, the high was supposed to be 73 degrees, but most of the drive was definitely in the 60s. The driving route pretty much followed highway 58, also known as The Crooked Road, Virginia's Music Heritage Road. It wound up and down the mountains and hills. There were no big cities and very few traffic lights.

Show cars as far as you can see

We went through the city of Enterprise were folks were all out waving as the cars went by.

Even the police were stopped to watch the Tour roll through

After passing through Enterprise and some other towns, it was mostly a scenic drive through the Jefferson National Forest. The road twisted, turned and rose and dropped. It was an absolute blast to drive. In the Acadian, taking a 15 mph curve at 35 or so is certainly exciting. I tried to see how many curves and twists I could take without touching the brakes. I was doing pretty good, but caught up to a 1970 Skylark in front of us, so I had to slow some. My dad had a little easier and faster go of the curves in the Corvette.

Wheeeee!

I NEED this 1970 440 6 pack Road Runner

How do police call this plate in??

Along the route, we passed some Christmas tree farms and you could smell the trees. As we approached Bristol, our weather luck ran out and it started pouring.

Hot Rod Shower Tour

Impressive entrance

Fortunately, the shower was short and once we got parked, it stopped raining long enough to punch our credentials, pick up our swag and check out a few cars before the rains came back and chased us away. Because of the weather, we were not able to do the parade laps around the Bristol Speedway track.

Vendor midway on the infield

Goodbye Thunder Valley

I had to wait for a family of geese to cross the road before I could back into my parking spot at the hotel.

"Your car's from Canada? How weird, we're from Canada too!"

On the plus side, our hotel, The Hotel Bristol, is a unique modern boutique hotel. Tara was thrilled with the corner room and a view of our cars.

We got checked in, dropped our stuff and spent a few hours hanging out with our friends at the hotel bars. First we had drinks with Ken and Kathy and Jake and Meghan at the downstairs bar. Our friends Paul and Kerri Berman met us for drinks and dinner and told us about how their hotel gave their room away to a couple named "Beaman." Lucky for them, they managed to find another room at another hotel. We all ate dinner at the hotel restaurant, Vivian's and it was excellent. I had pasta Bolognese with smoked brisket and Tara pulled a "When Harry Met Sally" over her butternut squash ravioli.

After dinner, we went up to the rooftop bar and had some more drinks. We caught up with 2 other friends from Orlando, TJ and Juney who are on their first Power Tours and, from the sound of it, having a good time as well.

View from the top

Outside the Country Music Museum (next to the hotel)

Before calling it a night, we walked a block over to a bakery that is open for 116 straight hours a week (6 am Monday to midnight Saturday) for pastries and ice cream. I've now got a pre-breakfast snack.