A couple of notes leftover from my trip to Bedford three weeks ago:.

If you ever travel to Bedford, and I highly recommend that you do, just know that there really aren’t many good restaurants in town. With the exception of The Forks, there was nothing in the way of excellent local eateries, which forced me to Ruby Tuesday’s one night and Applebee’s the second. The salad bar was at least quite good at the former, but everything at the latter left an aftertaste. And not one of those, “Boy, that was good!” kind of aftertastes. No, it was a “Boy, this makes me want to shave my tongue” kind of aftertaste. At one point during my stay, I asked one of the volunteers at the Memorial where there was a good places to eat and after a long pause, he answered, “Roanoke.”

My accommodations were great, at least for me, but you need an adventurous spirit to stay where I stayed. I won’t mention the name of the motel, because I would stay there again, and a very nice family runs the place. It’s cheap and convenient, and has the best wi-fi of any hotel at which I’ve ever stayed, but it is not exactly modern having been built in the ’60s, by my best guess. I may be off a bit, though. It could have been the 1860s. It was certainly built when people were smaller as evidenced by the accompanying photo of the bathroom. You can stand in one spot and use the toilet, brush your teeth, and shower all at the same time. Ironically, the marquee below the motel sign told people to “check out our new rooms.” Perhaps, the sign intended no irony; perhaps it simply hasn’t been changed since the motel was built.

That little black tab on the sink is actually an old-fashioned door key. Remember how they used to say “Drop in any mailbox in the U. S. A.”? Of course, I had to pull on the knob and push on the frame and disparage the door hanger’s mother before it would actually close well enough to give any utilitarian purpose to the key. Still, the nostalgia of having an actual key rather than a door credit card more than made up for that annoyance.

It’s always fun to experience little things such as these. That’s what turns a vacation into an adventure.