holidays

We drove to Floyd, Virginia, following the Blue Ridge Parkway for some of the way. We stopped at Mabry Mill, an old working grist mill, and had a look around the old restored buildings there.

We had a picnic lunch parked at an overlook and watched hawks flying above the trees below us.
We arrived in Floyd and checked into the Hotel Floyd. We hadn’t booked in advance, and they only had a room for tonight – but helpfully phoned a hotel 1 mile up the road, and let us speak to them to book tomorrow night there. Weekends are busy in Floyd, it seems.
On Thursday nights the Hotel Floyd has a free concert, 5-8pm, on its outdoor stage, which is right outside our room.
We explored the small town of Floyd, population 432. The town is a centre for music in the area. The Floyd Country Store hosts a Jamboree every Friday night – they move the shop displays aside to make room for the audience and dancing. We had a look in a music shop which had some very nice guitars hand made by local luthiers. There were flyers for local concerts in all the shops. A bookshop we went into also sold guitar and banjo strings. The town seems to have music coming out of every pore.

Back at the hotel we watched the concert for an hour (the band were called ‘No Strings Attached’), then walked down the street to Oddfellas Cantina for dinner. The food was excellent. There was a stage and a singer-songwriter called Joy entertained us during the meal. We talked to her afterwards, and she said Friday nights here were good, with a jam session in the Cantina, plus the Jamboree at the Country Store, and musicians playing in sessions out in the street.