On Oct 27, 2008, at 10:08 AM, shag wrote:
> As for the 'real' virginia stuff, are Staunton, Swoope and
> Waynesboro not
> the real VA? What about Boyd Tavern, Rugby, Hebron, Shadwell,
> Fisherville?
>
> Waynesboro looked completely down and out.
It was "real" back when I used to visit there. You could get some very fine barbecue there. Charlottesville and much of its surrounding county, Albemarle, was pretty unreal in my day, but even parts of the county were pretty real. (In Virginia, cities aren't part of their surrounding counties, and there was often a big diff between the "city" and the "county.") Can't imagine what it's like now, but from reading the NYT travel piece on C'ville, it's gotten pretty boho-ized. And Barboursville, a pretty hickish but very beautiful place which was the last place I lived in Virginia, is now home to a pretty snazzy winery and restaurant:
<http://www.barboursvillewine.net/b/>.
I'm guessing that this sort of thing is part of the reason that Obama's 8 points ahead in Virginia. That's a big change from 1976, when it was the only southern state to go for Ford over Dixie boy Carter.
Doug