After perennially pandemically prevented pilgrimages, (our last documented mid-week outing was May 17th of 2019 to the Bob Timberlake Gallery & Museum in Lexington, NC) a trip to West Jefferson was a welcome diversion.
By Kathy Ahrendt
What do you do if the weatherman says it's going to be sunny and in the 70s? You have an impromptu drive to the mountains.
On March 3 we had really terrific weather so the members of CVBMC that had the day off headed up to the mountains. We met up in Lenoir at the famous Smith's Crossroad. A total of 13 cars of various makes: British (mostly), American, German and Italian and 23 folks including a couple from Shelby driving a TR 250 who saw on Facebook that we were gathering and as they were planning to go to West Jefferson, decided to join us. Then we headed up one of our favorite back roads (Rte 268) through Happy Valley and Ferguson, NC. We took a short cut to bypass Wilkesboro traffic and then traveled up to West Jefferson over some great LBC back roads.
Once we got to West Jefferson we found one of the local restaurants that was willing to take 26 people with no notice. They took it in stride, finding enough tables to seat all of us. The service was outstanding and the food very tasty. It was nice to be able to sit and talk to members after the last few years of canceled events.
After lunch the group split up with some of the members doing a bit of retail therapy in the antiques stores and some of us heading to the Ashe County Cheese story for some provisions. It was nice to be able to shop without many people around.
Hopefully we can do some more of these spur of the moment drives.
