Happiness is the Perfect Pecan Pie

Friends, greetings from Charlottesville, Virginia, from your good friend Sarah, who is one day closer to her flight home.  I will only be home for a whole 12.5 hours before flying to Brazil for a week, but still, it will be home, and it will not be a Hampton Inn, clean and welcoming though it is.  Happiness.

 

Here is a lovely sunrise from Winchester, where I drove from yesterday.  A good sunrise even makes a Hampton Inn parking lot look good, doesn’t it?  Yes.

The drive through the state of Virginia is one of my favorites to do.  I love the blue mountains in the background, the hard gray rocks lining the cliffs, the green farms and millions of beautiful trees.  Here are a couple pictures of the views, from the spot where someone flew by sailplane for 4 1/2 hours, waaaay back in the day.

 

Now, mind you, when driving through Virginia, one cannot help but hear country music and sing along to John Denver’s, “Take me home, country roads, to the place I beloooooong, West Virginia, Mountain Mama, take me home, Country Road.”   I did that, I sang along as I saw the semi trucks hauling the trailer park homes along 495 and 64.

I sang along to Johnny Cash, I sang along to Patsy Cline, I sang along to Tennessee Ernie Ford, just like my grandpa used to do on the tractor as he combined the fields of corn and soybeans when I was a little girl.  I love these drives, these quiet, beautiful drives all to myself.  I stop at each and every scenic view, and I sing the whole trip long. Finally, after a 2.5 hour drive, I arrived in Charlottesville, Virginia, home of the nearby vineyards that Thomas Jefferson planted.  Here are some pictures of the Downtown Mall, where I shopped and shopped and shopped.

Charlottesville is a strange mix of upscale politicians, French, Cajun, and Asian antiques and dumpling shops.  Then there are the hippies and bookstores that smell like incense and give me an asthma attack, like some episode of Portlandia.  I dig it, though, and I found a ton of cool things, including this food truck.

 

 

And then, in the Downtown Mall, I found the pies de resistance:  I found a place called the Old Whiskey Barrel, and I found an outdoor table of my own.  Happiness!

 

 

I had the most perfectly cooked pecan pie (pronounced PEE-CAAAAAAAAN, like nyahhh-nyahh-nyahh since we are in the South now).  It was perfectly toasted on the top, had a beautiful brown sugary inside that was lacking all those nasty Karo syrup lumps of pecan pie in the Midwest, and it had a perfectly buttery/lard-based crust that was not too thick.  This, right here, was my dinner.

I spent the night shopping for a few hours, finding several perfect hats (because your good friend Sarah LOOOOOOVES a good hat), some cookbooks, and an early birthday present for Raymond, who has the best style of most people I know.  I cannot wait to surprise him!  I found a honey made of sourwood that tastes like maple and spice (yay!  A new honey!) and I found warm toddy cocktail books, which I will use all fall and winter and I take good care of you all in my cozy little loft in Minneapolis and my soon to be temporary apartment in New York.  It is a happy, happy day here in Charlottesville, and while I miss you all very much, I sure do enjoy a little day to myself, to do all the things I love best.

Happiness today includes just enjoying some time driving through the country singing, some perfect pecan pie, and doing some shopping in the mom and pop stores of Charlottesville.  Wishing you a day of these lovely things wherever you are today.  Sometimes the simple joy of doing all the things you want to are the very best day ever.

 

With lots of love from Charlottesville, soon to be DC, Detroit, then Minneapolis,

Your Good Friend Sarah