Text 475, 88 rader
Skriven 2013-05-22 12:47:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: localAventure w/beef 585
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Lilli had been to Manassas when she was a kid and was unimpressed;
I'd been to Harpers Ferry when I was a kid and was impressed. So
Harpers Ferry (originally with an apostrophe, no longer for some
reason) it was, an hour north through wine country.

It's $10 a carload or $5 a head for those walking. Everyone who
goes into the historic district is supposed to pay, but as far as
I can see there's nothing to prevent someone from parking up in
the modern town and walking down the hill to the park. Lilli has
a senior pass anyway, so it's free (I qualify for one next month
on my own). You park in the big lot and take a shuttle bus to
a dropoff between the factory ruins (three minutes west) and the
rebuilt old town (three minutes east). It was a glorious day,
mostly sunny with some puffy and unthreatening clouds, breezy
and in the 60s, perfect for traipsing about reconstructed shops
and factory buildings; all these have some Park Service-run
museum exhibits, and you can visit as many (there are maybe a
dozen) or as few as you like. We did four, but Civil War or civil
rights buffs might want to visit them all.

Presently it was lunchtime, and we found Secret Six, a restaurant
and microbrew house overlooking the train station (out front it
claims superb views, which might be true, only it doesn't say of
what). Lilli had a jones for a burger rare, so she ordered that
and received the news that as this place was in West Virginia,
state law required all burgers to be cooked medium-well or above.
We decided to just amuse ourselves with liquids.

Rumsey Rock porter was surprisingly hoppy, bringing out the burned
quality of the dark-roasted grains, pleasant to drink, though a
little low on texture; Lost Rhino pale ale was very refreshing as
the sun bore down and brought the temperature up into the 70s.
Lilli had a local West Virginia product, the Forks of Cheat Merlot,
which tasted pre-oxidized and pre-sedimented. Not much fruit, but
more like what you think of as wine if you don't care for wine. Of
course, the stuff might have sat around for a gazillion years
waiting to be rescued, who knows.

We spent a while more poking around the ruins of the factories that
had been the source of the town's importance and prosperity before
the floods in the 1880s ruined it as a manufacturing center, then
went to Charles Town, one of the ancestral haunts of the Washington
family and to which John Brown had been hauled off for trial and
where he had been executed for treason. Being upland a bit, it had
never been ruined and subject to reconstruction by the Park Service,
so it has evolved like your standard small town and has become very
dull indeed, despite its historical significance. It's tried to
spruce itself up, the most notable evidence of which is a big
racetrack and/or casino at the edge of town. We walked around a bit
and, finding nothing to encourage us to remain, headed off rather
earlier than we thought we would.

We had dinner reservations at the V brewpub in Ashburn, but as we
had been denied food, we cancelled those and found the Ironwood
Tavern in Leesburg. Despite its historic-sounding name, this is in
a shopping mall in what could have been a Denny's in a previous
incarnation. Nonetheless, it's done up tastefully and along with
a pleasant (though kind of slow) staff and decent food, I guess it
deserves to live long and prosper.

Here Lilli got her long-desired cheeseburger rare, which was quite
good, though the bite I got was a bit medium. Good meat, the usual
accompaniments fresh and of good quality.

I ordered a ribeye rare, and it came as ordered, also good meat,
in a mustard red wine demi that was pleasantly low on the mustard
and red wine. Garlic mash and green beans were good as well.

What was on draft? Rumsey Rock porter and Lost Rhino pale ale,
of course, plus other offerings familiar from the list of the
other place. Same booze distributor, I guess. We had a bottle of
the house red, Cortijillo Tempranillo 11, instead. This is a
value-priced Rioja, rather softer than one would expect from the
origin, but not cloying in that child's introduction to wine way
that most offerings at this price are. It was kind of licoricey
and plummy in a good way, fairly easy drinking, nice with beef.
$14 for the bottle; at one of the hotel places described above
it could easy have cost that per glass. But here we were in
Leesburg. The whole tab didn't set me back much, which was
gratifying as well.

It was still daylight when we got back to Reston, or wherever
the airport hotels are, but as we'd had plenty to drink we
didn't let the Sheraton soak us for any extra this night.

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