Day One; cupcakes and sandwiches

I made a huge blog post when Jamie and I returned from vacation last summer and although it was one of my favorite posts, it did not do the trip justice. While driving back to Atlanta today, I decided that this time, I would post about the trip a little different. Each day I am going to post about what Ashley and I did on vacation until I have covered it all. That way, there will be more pictures and more detail, something I wish I had done last year.


Day One.

Just to set the record straight, Ashley is not vegan but would not let me look for any food options as we planned the vacation. She was excited about the idea of surprising me with tasty vegan options through the week. It worked out very well and we had some great food. I am not sure where she found such awesome vegan options in such rural areas but it was an outstanding part of the trip.

The anticipation for Friday, day one, was high but the day was expected to be uneventful since we were going to spend over 8 hours driving from Atlanta to Charlottesville Virginia. The driving was an experience since the car rental place did not have the car I reserved and we ended up driving a huge boat of a car, a Grand Marquis. We were rolling hard!



We did get to stop for lunch in Charlotte North Carolina. The first stop was at The Blushing Bake Shop, where I was surprised with some vegan cupcakes. We had a few chocolate peanut butter cupcakes and some red velvet. This was a very cute little place and they had some awesome looking treats. The cupcakes were a great first stop on the trip. They were unexpected and fantastic, not to mention, we got six and I had a bedtime snack!


Then we were off to ZiZi's Take Out to grab some sandwiches. They only offered take out which was disappointing since we did not really have a place to eat. Eventually we had to pull over on the side of the road and eat in the grass because the sandwiches were messy. They were decent but nothing to sing home about. I got a chicken parm-less, Ashley got a Bufallo chicken sandwich and we shared chicken nuggets. It was a tasty but I was mildly disappointed that the same nuggets that we had as an appetizer, were in my chicken parm-less sandwich. I understand the economical aspect of this for a business but it is still nice to be able to mix it up. It still resulted in a solid vegan lunch spot and a nice opportunity to stretch the legs.



The real highlight of the day came in the form of a reservation that we made for Sunday night. I have some great stories from that day but they will have to wait.

Charlottesville was a bust. The vegan options were mainly limited to a massive chain natural foods store. Oh well, you can not win them all and in all honesty, this may have been the only bust on the entire trip. They night was spent in Charlottesville in preparation for Shenandoah National Park the following day.