Here’s a folo up. The best food to be had in Wytheville is ice cream. I was waiting on friends to finish a bike race when I spotted a woman walking down the main drag carrying a HUGE ice cream cone. There is a little store called King’s Country Produce that was just loaded with local goodies and coffee and all kinds of ice cream cheap!

For our fancy meal we ate at the Log House. Thumbs down. It looked promising but the food was lacklustre and the service was indifferent. Sadly, Wytheville has fallen prey to the chain restaurants. This may have been helped along by the Log House’s owner, who was a little bit odd – ie giving Jesus lectures and health food advice to folks who just choked down planks of overcooked steak.

We didn’t stay in Wytheville and instead opted for Max Meadows to the north. The state park there is fantastic, so beautiful. The outlet mall is dead. I used the parking lot as a running track.

Another thing that impressed me about Max Meadows was a wonderful grocery store called Food Country USA. From the looks of it I thought it was going to be more like a small-town IGA. Was I wrong! We loaded up on fresh-cut fruit, magazines, the elusive Cheerios snack mix and other goodies for an impromptu cookout.