A RIDE INTO OCCOQUAN, VIRGINIA

We were looking for a place that I had read about recently. More on that in another post. I am putting the cart before the horse as we visited that and went to the town afterwards. (I have provided links all the way through giving more information.) Today's post is from the town. By the time we got there we were hungry, and we had a late lunch.

We were actually looking for a favorite sandwich shop, but sadly it was out of business. Not too far away was the restaurant we had enjoyed several years ago, now under new management. A yellow easter bunny greeted us.

The Maitre d' asked if we would like to sit on their open patio but it was a bit too chilly for us, even with the overhead heaters provided. There are also tables at the riverside. In the warmer weather that would be lovely. We fully intend to go back and do just that.

We opted for meals on the regular menu.  Our appetizer was corn fritters.

I ordered the grilled flounder stuffed with crabmeat and shrimp, with onion rings and French fries. Gregg had fish tacos which I forgot to take a photo of. No dessert today. Gregg had a coca cola and I had a glass of water, but the waiter mentioned Bailey's Irish Creme Coffee and I was sold. Dessert! It was a very good meal, and we certainly didn't need any more to eat that day!

I found these interesting to look at.

We had a very nice time as it has been a while between restaurant visits. 

Of course, there has to be some kind of plant that I took a photo of. This is Cherry laurel, also known as English laurel, Common laurel, Laurel Cherry and Versailles Laurel. Its botanical name is Prunus laurocerasus. These were in front of one of the private homes we passed by.

We both agreed that we could very happily live in one of these homes.

There are two rows one behind the other. In the above collage, in the photo on the left, the second row can be seen on either side at the end of the narrow road. Those are the homes on the river.

We continued walking. 

There are a lot of reflections but I think you can see what is on display, for the most part.

The word Occoquan is from an Algonquian Doeg word meaning "at the end of the water". The area that is Occoquan today was long occupied by the Indigenous People. Even though the Doeg Tribe split up into several sections across Virginia, they were still one Village of people.

The historic town of Occoquan, Virginia, stands by the river that bears its name in Prince William County, Virginia, 25 minutes south of Washington D.C.

In July 1608, John Smith of Jamestown sailed into the Occoquan River and was welcomed by the Doeg Indians at their settlement, Tauxenent. Just a little bit of history. The links will give you a whole lot more.

We are on the other side of the street now.

The red building used to be an all-year-round Christmas shop called The Christmas Goose. One of the places I would go to when visiting the town. I always enjoyed buying a couple of ornaments, either for gifts or for our tree. Another business was in there, but I couldn’t quite make out what was in the windows.  I will take a closure look next time. At this point we were making a bee-line for our car.

We had walked all the way on one side of the street and down the other. There are many side streets with other shops we didn't explore. It was time to cross over again as we had parked our car in a lot next to the bridge. The building in the following photo has shops on two levels, though we only browsed by the ones on the ground level. We were ready to go home. 

I used to sell my ornaments to one of the shops in my craft show days. That's a story for another day.

I wanted to make a point of saying that there are some parts of the town that have uneven sidewalks. From someone (me) who has a klutzy, oh-look-at-that-while-not-looking-at-where-I-am-going personality, do take care!

One last photo as you probably know by now how I like to take photos on our drive back. This time it is one of the local school buses.

That's all for today. The next one I will share about the place that interested me so much, and discovered it was only a short drive away from Occoquan. I don't want to talk about it until the day of its post. It was something different, nothing too exciting as I want to manage expectations, but interesting. Tomorrow I will be getting my birdfeeder chatter post out, and hopefully on Sunday I will have the next one ready.

Thanks for looking and have a great weekend!