House and Garden walking tour

This past Saturday I logged around 3 miles of walking throughout South Roanoke while participating in the House and Garden Tour. Although I had visited Fork in the Alley Restaurant, I never realized what beautiful homes are located within a few blocks walk. I think the entire neighborhood looked great with manicured lawns and trimmed hedges. Oddly though, except for the other tourists, I saw hardly any signs of life outdoors. This seemed peculiar since the weather was so gorgeous. I was impressed with the organization of the event. Each home had an attendant in just about every room and it seemed that great care was taken to minimize the effect of many people trekking through the rooms. Not a stray twig or weed was to be found in the gardens and I wondered which owners did their own gardening and which ones hired landscapers. I will look forward to future events as I enjoyed this one very much. As an added bonus, my friend and I had lunch at the new Tony Pope's Restaurant. I love outdoor seating and their porch provided the perfect dining spot. The special being offered was roasted pig and paella. I opted for homemade pasta with wild mushroom and Parmesan cream sauce. It took an extraordinarily long time for us to be served (I guess they had to make the pasta from scratch) but it was worth waiting for. YUM!

As for Monday and Tuesday, I walked the Smith and Wasena park route. I was curious as to the distance so I drove it as closely to the actual route as I could and was shocked to learn that it's about 4 miles! The warm sunshine and singing birds provide enough interest to take your mind off of the distance. I even noticed a lemon-scented fragrance in the air but I couldn't determine which blooms it was coming from. The Blue Heron was keeping cool in the river and I guess he must like Roanoke enough to stick around.

Today I walked around downtown Roanoke. Market Street is sporting the new blue and white stripped awnings. I must say that I prefer the original yellow and white. The upgrade also means that other older awnings look all the worse next to the new ones. There were lots of potted flowers, plants, and herbs for sale today and thought the market seemed busy for a Wednesday afternoon. I'll be back for the Strawberry Festival this weekend as I can't resist the shortcake. Of course that means walking a few extra miles to work it off!