The Road Home…and Food of Course!

Finally…the end of our family road trip exploring parts of the Delmarva Peninsula.  After we checked out of our hotel in Easton Maryland, we needed to take the quickest route back to the Raleigh-Durham North Carolina airport so Laurie’s sister and her husband could catch their plane back to St. Louis Missouri.

As it turned out, the quickest route south from Easton was to take US Hwy 50 north and then crossing the bay over to Annapolis via the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.  Then when US Hwy 50 intersected with I-95/I-495, we headed south, skirting around Washington D.C. and on into Virginia.  By the time we got to the Richmond Virginia area, we realized that we had time to spare so I took secondary highways over to Farmville Virginia.  From there we could drop almost directly down to Raleigh Durham. 

By the time we neared Farmville, it was time for lunch and we’d skipped breakfast except for a muffin and juice.  A quick check on the Internet revealed a restaurant destination that was well rated and which sounded very interesting. 

That’s how we found the “Fishing Pig” restaurant.  Despite being a weekday, the parking lot was quite full.  This was obviously a popular destination.

We quickly discovered that the parking lot didn’t lie.  This was a very busy big  restaurant.  The décor is best described as industrial glitzy but with better lighting than most with this ‘look’.  There was a significant wait for a table so we headed for the bar.  The good news is that the bartender told us that we could order our lunches and eat at the bar…a real time saver for us.  In that second photo, Bonnie and Bill have secured our seats.

When eating at a bar, one feels ‘unnatural’ if one doesn’t imbibe with an adult beverage.  Even I had a Miller High Life.  The others went for Bud Lights, a pint of beer from Three Notch’d Brewery or a Bloody Mary.  It was $5.00 per beer, $6.00 for the pint and $8.00 for a Bloody Mary.  To learn about Three Notch’d Brewery, go to Three Notch'd Brewing Co. | Virginia Craft Brewery & Distllery – Three Notch'd Brewing Company (threenotchdbrewing.com).    

And so we ordered our lunches.  The ladies both ordered Joan’s Catfish Basket. ($13.95 LY/$14.95 TY) To say that this was a generous portion of fried catfish would be an understatement.  The Catfish ‘Basket’ came with cilantro dill remoulade, homemade coleslaw and a southern side.  Bonnie went for the beans and Laurie opted for the potato salad. 

The menu provided 11 different basic sides to choose from as well as 5 others with an upcharge.  The catfish filets were not only huge and numerous, they were also delicious.  Winner, winner, catfish dinner!!  The value was undeniable.

Bill wanted to mix it up a bit so he ordered the Pork and Catfish Combo. ($15.50 still) His pulled pork and catfish plate came with the remoulade, coleslaw, a bun for the pulled pork and he chose the beans as his side.  While he thought that the pork was good, he wished he’d just ordered the Catfish Baskets like our better halves did… In any case, he had plenty of food to eat.   

I do love good pork ribs and it had been a while since I had some, so I ordered a Half Rack of Ribs. ($21.75 still) ‘Grady’s” ribs are slow smoked with Memphis dry rub and they came with the coleslaw and French fries.  The ribs were among the best I’ve had in recent years…not overdone and, as I prefer, they didn’t just fall off the bone, I got to ‘worry’ the meat a bit…like a dog with his bone. 

Despite the fact that I ‘helped’ Laurie with her catfish overload and Bill did the same for Bonnie, we still had plenty of food leftover…and no way to save it with the drive ahead of us.

This was our bar tender/server.  Usually the names are on the receipts but in this case all it shows if ‘SC Bar 1’.  Like any good bar tender, he was friendly and helped us decide what to order.  We gave him an A+ for service.  The food was a solid 4.5 out of 5…with a 5 for the ‘bang for your buck’! 

If we didn’t have a long drive ahead of us, we would have ‘done’ appetizers too.  They range from Fried Green Tomatoes, to Fresh Fried Pork Rinds, to Blackened Ahi Tuna.  The menu at the Fishing Pig is quite large and there is a quite a bit of variety to choose from.  You can check out the menu and learn more about this restaurant at FARMVILLE | The Fishin' Pig (fishinpig.com).  There are 2 other Fishing Pig locations in Virginia.

As we wandered the back roads from Farmville Virginia down to Raleigh Durham, I stopped to take a photo of this deserted and lonely looking structure, probably an early gas station.  I’m tempted to start taking photos of deserted buildings and homes as there is some nostalgia involved as well as a haunting quality related to the past…

After we dropped Bonnie and Bill at the Raleigh Durham airport, Laurie and I headed west on I-40.  We did stop overnight in North Carolina as planned but continued our journey the next morning.  The photo shown above shows our approach to the Smoky Mountains and the pass through them to East Tennessee.

We made one last stop as we neared Knoxville.  This is the Buc-ee’s at Kodak Tennessee…just north of Sevierville, Pidgeon Forge and Gatlinburg.  As usual, it was a very busy place.  From what I could see, there are now more than 60 Buc-ee’s locations, mostly in the south and southeast but one is located in Colorado too.  They are huge family friendly ‘convenience stores’ that sell just about everything, have amazingly clean restrooms, a huge flock of gas pumps and no semi-trucks to deal with.

When we finally arrived home, we unloaded the ‘loot’ that we’d scored at Buc-ee’s.  It was quite a pile for sure!  We had a variety of unhealthy snack foods, a rice crispy marshmallow treat, hot dogs in a blanket, muffins, cookies and more!  To be honest though, although most of it was OK it wasn’t exceptional.  The best of our loot were the pecan brittle, the honey glazed pecans and our dinner for the evening, the brisket sandwiches.  We really did like those sandwiches…

To learn more about Buc-ee’s, go to Home - Buc-ees.

…and so ends the September/October 2023 Delmarva road trip saga!

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

Thanks for sticking with me on this journey and for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave