Well, there was the rehearsal dinner for David and Emily’s wedding on Friday night in Raleigh, see, and then all kinds of prep stuff all day Saturday for the wedding itself that afternoon, and then the brunch on Sunday morning and the drive home, so what chance did we have for hike?
Well, in the particular case of the Mother of the Groom (aka The Greatest Day Hiker Of Them All), perhaps only one: a walk, once we got back to town and away from the inherent franticness of a wedding–especially for one gender–to a nice quiet dinner for two.
This hike, beginning outside our front door in Roanoke, starts with a fairly steep if short descent toward Murray Run, not far from where it pauses for a time to pond up as the centerpiece of Lakewood Park, before resuming its flow toward and into the Roanoke River. The climb from the Murray Run area is fairly gentle, up one of the broadest trails you’ll ever see–often called Blenheim Road. The route is then into the woods on the Murray Run Greenway and then back out onto some fairly level trails that seem to double as neighborhood streets.
Our destination was not the usual notable high point looking out over a piece of Virginia, but rather a 41-year-old landmark of another sort–Luigi’s Italian Gourmet, where gracious hostess Maristane Rocha greeted us as gently as does the breeze on McAfee Knob, for example.
Our delicious meal was made even better by being waited on by an old old friend (not old at all, she, but a friend of long standing), Marilyn.
As is so often the case with destination hikes, we followed the same route back that we used heading toward our pause point.
And hey, four miles is four miles.
Home to a Brambleton landmark and back. 4 miles
How to get there: Well, the restaurant is at 3301 Brambleton Avenue, Roanoke.
