Big Blend Radio
Jo Clark - Four Blue Ridge Mountain Towns
We're going to the Blue Ridge Mountains on this episode of Big Blend Radio's JO GOES EVERYWHERE! Podcast with travel writer and photographer Jo Clark. From beer and moonshine to museums and rock churches, hear about Riner, Radford, Roanoke, and Rocky Mount. They are all an easy day trip from each other, with the Blue Ridge Parkway nearby. Read Jo's article about these historic towns here: https://recipestravelculture.com/4-rs-blue-ridge-mountain-towns/
Jo Clark is a travel writer and photographer based on South Carolina’s Grand Strand. She has a thirst for knowledge, history, great food, and wine! Her Big Blend Radio podcast "Jo Goes Everywhere!" airs every 2nd Sunday at 7pm EST. Follow the show on YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/yfkjm8sd
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Duration:
- 39m
- Broadcast on:
- 15 Jul 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
Welcome to Joe Goes Everywhere, a big blend radio food, wine, and travel podcast, featuring award-winning photographer and travel writer Joe Clark. Let's find out where she's taking us today. Welcome everybody, it is July and we are going to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and Joe Clark is going to take us to Reiner, Radford, Roanoke, Rocky Mountain, before ours. And of course, you can keep up with her at haveglasswilltravel.com. But on her other website, recipestravelculture.com, there is a article all about the four Rs, which is what we're the places we're going to talk about today. And so that link is in the episode description, so just check the show notes and link directly from there. So how are you doing, Joe? I'm doing great. It's a good time to go to the mountains. It's 90 plus degrees here, and the fields like is in the triple digits. So it's a good time to go to the Blue Ridge Mountains, need to cool off. Yeah, you know, the first time we went to Roanoke, we were driving from Asheville, North Carolina to Peachtree City, Georgia. I said, "Oh, we got a little time. Let's do the Blue Ridge Parkway as a scenic drive." And I went on one, the wrong exit. The wrong way. And the wrong way, and almost ended up in Roanoke. But we have been to Roanoke too, just in Virginia is beautiful. It is gorgeous. So Roanoke is pretty much the biggest city, right, when we think about Virginia. Compared to most of them, yeah, especially on the southern side of this, southwestern side of the state. If you talk about Richmond and the Alexandria, some of the places closer to D.C. are much bigger than Roanoke. Roanoke's big, but in comparison to the other three that I'm going to be talking about, Roanoke is, well, metropolis. Yeah, yeah. And you know this area pretty well, because Virginia is your birth state, right? It is, and I was born and grew up in Martinsville, which is an hour from Roanoke. I went to college in Martinsville for my two-year degree. I did a four-year degree with Mary Bowen, which is not in these four areas, but my master's is from Radford. So I went to college in Radford. I lived in a little town called Snowville. And you and I have talked about, we've talked about Brown Hill in the past, because we talked about my great grandfather and his neighbors, who did a little bit of preserving of corn in jars. We like that kind of preservation. Yes, well, we're going to be talking about it again, because Rocky Now is basically where he was. And that was the distillery land, right? There's a distillery. There's a distillery. There's a distillery. Wait a minute. Big easy. There's a distillery in Radford that has just recently, a month ago, found a forever home over in Blacksburg, which is about 15 minutes away, but they grew up, they hatched the idea, and they were in a little business incubator in Radford. And Reiner is where a couple of friends of mine raise Buffalo and have a Buffalo and more restaurant. That's why Reiner made the list. You got to go through Reiner to get to Radford when you leave Mars. Okay, well, there you go. And now where are the rock churches? The rock churches are all along the Parkway. They're around Floyd and there's one called the Mayberry Church. It's near Mayberry's Mill. It's on the Mayberry Mill Road. He was, if you've ever read the book or heard of the man who moved a mountain, it was written about the preacher who built these rock churches. And one of the funny stories from the book and in the tales that people tell in that area, a little boy and his father were passing by a church. And some comment was made about the church. And the little boy said, "Well, that's not one of his churches." And he said, "How do you know that?" And he said, "Because he'd rocked it by now." Well, there you go. It's a white church. It's not one of those churches. But that's cute. That's cute. So you've got, you know, that's the thing, the whole Blue Ridge Parkway area and Virginia history is really part of it, right? And then the natural beauty. So there's museums to visit. There's, obviously, we'll get into food and everything, but museums, there's attractions, and then there's the outdoors. Like, you can go kayaking on the rivers and all of that. You can go kayaking and canoeing down the rivers. There's a boat landing in, I think it's actually in Henry County, but you get to it from Franklin County, from the Franklin County side, Phil Pot Lake. And they have concerts, outdoor concerts, which lots of places have outdoor concerts. But this particular one, you paddle up to in your boat. Well, there you go. That's my style. You know, that's what Louisiana, they go up to, you know, the fish houses and the oyster shacks on their boat and get their food and get back out fishing and, you know, have a brewski. And I was like, this is kind of cool to watch all the fishermen come out, you know, that kind of thing. So it's kind of like that too, huh? On these rivers. I think that's one ridge marina that has the outdoor concerts and people just paddle up in their kayaks and float around out offshore and listen to the music. Were you singing Redford, which has made what one of the 13 best small towns in Virginia to retire in, that this is a birding destination as well. It is. I know there's been more than 200 bird species that have been noted in Redford. The new river comes right through Redford and Redford is actually the only town on the water of the new river in Virginia. Wow. Can't speak to West Virginia or North Carolina. They may have slipped a town in there, but Redford's the only one on the water in Virginia. Wow. So, okay, so Redford, you can go out and what about, you know, so the outdoors when you get to like Rocky Mount and is that more food? Well, you got a train station there. That's history, right? Yeah. Yeah, there's train station in Runout. There's train station in, well, all these little towns, Redford, Christiansburg had a, right next door to Redford, had a really nice train station that they turned into an artist guild. The train station down in Runout is a transportation museum. They have cars and it's one of the few transportation museums you'll go to that have airplanes hanging from the ceiling and have trains inside and out. Wow. Yeah. So, pretty cool. Pretty cool. It's a half a day or more to visit and they have an entire room filled with toy trains and displays with the model train set up. So, it's a really unique museum. That's cool. Now, when you look at, so history got museums, you got the outdoors. So, this is, you know, two big things on people's list. Bird watching is a big deal, right? I know you want to talk about food and we're going to talk about drinking and all that good stuff because there's shine. If wineries are nearby, as I've heard, yes. Several wineries near Redford and, again, you leave Redford and go through Runout or to get over to the Blue Ridge Parkway or you can hop on the Blue Ridge in Runout and go right down the Blue Ridge Parkway and get back off just outside of Floyd. There is Villa Appalachia, which is an Italian style winery and Chateau Morissette, which is more of a French style winery. And if you can't find something at one of those two that you like, then get some food and just listen to the music. Okay. They had everything. What's it like lodging wise? Are there bed and breakfast and that kind of? There are. There are bed and breakfast all over the Parkway. I mentioned a couple near Rocky Mount. Rocky Mount has two, the Clayborne Inn, which is an old white frame house. It was built in close to the turn of the century. I can't remember the exact date. But the man who built that had a lumber company. So he had plenty of lumber. So he was able to build a gorgeous house, beautiful insides, beautiful stairways. And then there is the early, as in Jubal Early of Civil War fame, but Jubal Early, the early Inn is also in Rocky Mount. It just happens to be walking distance as in across the street from Twin Creek Distillery, which is all about a block from Anastasia's, which is the speakeasy that we'll talk about. So it's very convenient. You get to most of these places and once you check in, you can walk most of the places that you want to get. I like that. Yeah, because you're going to eat well, you want to work that off a little bit, stretch your legs, you know, especially if you're driving the parkway and you know, and it's got to be good hiking out in this area too. I mean, off of the parkway, there's lots of hikes, lots of green or greenways. There are the old railroad lines that have been turned into hiking trails around Roanoke. Oh, rails to trails. Yeah, the rails to trails. There's one outside of Redford that you can take horses to if you're traveling with your horse. All kinds of, all kinds of places that you will find to go and walk or hike or climb mountains. That's cool. And then I was going to say, getting back, let's go to the distilleries. So this is all whiskey distilleries or what are we looking at? Yeah, when you talk distilleries, you're talking whiskey. So moonshine whiskey, rye whiskey, rye and the one, let's say I'm trying to think what the one in Rocky Mount, we'll talk about that one first. Rocky Mount is twin creeks distillery and they have crilemons and the hatchers that made moonshine and they were neighbors of my great-grandparents and my grandparents. So that was out in the brown hill area that we've talked about before. And we've heard a lot of rumors about my great-grandfather. Don't know that he was ever arrested, but he was in the right neighborhood and I'm sure he helped his neighbors. He was a friendly guy. He was a friendly guy. He probably dabbled and helped him a little bit. But they have, they make a lot of different things. One is the peg hatcher whiskey and they make what's neat about them, what I really like about this distillery. I mean you can go to any distillery and have little shot glasses of their samples and you can there. But they also have a blackboard and every month it's like the July drinks and they'll have three or four or five concoctions like a banana split drink and they use their moonshine, their whiskies in this and they make mixed drinks using their products and they're like desserts. I mean you'll see in the pictures that I post with the article that they make some beautiful little drinks. They're just very entertaining to watch them making the drinks and decorating them. So they have all kinds of different flavors. So this is the two at the Rocky Mountain. Okay this is the Rocky Mountain. This is twin creaks. Yeah okay I've got three trees distilling stuck in my head that's actual. Yeah we have two creaks not three trees. I know trees and now I'm like is it two trees now I'm like all messed up. But anyway there's everything distilled and happy. But this is really cool and then you know I love that you know about the cocktails too. That's really cool. Yeah the cocktails are neat. That's just a really, It's a fascinating art. It is, it is. And to make one that tastes like a banana split. I mean that takes talent in my eyes. Yeah I agree and to consume it as a talent. I have that talent. I do too. And easy one. Yeah really. Then up in Radford the distillery that started there actually started during the Covid days. They wanted something good to come out of Covid. So they started a distillery. But that's good. Yeah really. But it's a banker that he the two guys grew up together and went into high school together 30 years ago. And they're both named Jason spelled a little differently and their last names both began with an H. So they ended up I said it's like the punch line to a joke or the start of a joke. A banker walks into a bar and talks about the money. Yeah really. But the banker and bartender get to talking and they decide that that the area needs a place a club for drinking and they needed to come up with a good name for it. And so the JH is both of their initials Jason H and they came up with bards bourbon and rye drinking society. Oh a society. Oh now we're going to church. Yes we'll go to church in a minute when we get back into Radford. But that's a beer. Yeah we'll go to go to church for beer. JH bards distillery grew out of that idea that there should be a whiskey and rye drinking group. And they needed some really good whiskey and rye that we're going to sit around and call themselves a society and drink. So they started a distillery and it has grown in Pulaski County Innovation Center which is sort of an incubator for businesses. They started there. I think they've been there. I think they ended up being there just about four years. And now they've blown the coop. They've moved over into Blacksburg closer to Virginia Tech and they have a new home there. Hmm so not quite far but next to Virginia Tech that's smart marketing right there. That's right. There are apparently a lot more drinkers of whiskey in Blacks college. So the girls were in Radford and the boys were at Virginia Tech when it was DPI. Okay. You know that Pepper's Fairy Road was a hot little road back in the day. Things went on. Boy then it comes to Radford to find girls. Oh the Radford I've touched on about Radford. Okay. There's a story, a true story about Mary Draper Ingalls who she and another woman were kidnapped by the Indians and taken to Ohio, present day Ohio, but that was where the Indians were from, that took them, the Shawnee Indians. And they managed after several weeks. I'm not sure how many three or four weeks but they did manage to escape. But then there they were in Ohio and trying to get back to Radford. So they had about an 850 mile walk and they did get back home. What? Yeah and so there is a a play was written about this and it was an outdoor drama and it's actually Virginia's historical outdoor drama for the state, the Long Way Home. So that's where the name the Long Way Home comes from because they you know it was a long way home from Ohio back to the New River Valley. So when these guys started the brewery there was a church available, a small church, beautiful little church. They named their brewing company Long Way Brewing and they said it was sort of the same thing. It was a long way from the idea to the first bottle. So long way brewing and and it's a long way to heaven and really early and and a remarkably enough they are a part of a group of breweries throughout the United States that preserve and repurpose former churches. You know you have to look for these churches that have been turned into breweries because apparently they're everywhere. I've stayed in a bed and breakfast that was a church. That's me. I've had restaurants. Yeah, yeah. I think there's something really cool because it's actually preserving some history. You know what I mean? And drinking did happen and does happen in churches depending on the religion. And I mean Jesus turned water into wine. That's why I always say don't don't mess with Jesus. He did that. But the long way brewing we're going to get emails for saying that now aren't we? Probably. Sorry folks. It is because of the acoustics Long Way Brewing says that it's the perfect place for musical talent. So they have a stage and they have live music quite frequently. They have beautiful stained glass windows and their logo is actually kind of the gothic arch window outline. And that's part of the Long Way Brewing logo. So that this is this neat because then the hotel you were writing about the Highlander. See it's kind of got this and you know the region has a Celtic history like you do. Right. So there's a Celtic connection there through Appalachia. Right. There's it is. Definitely. So going the Highlander just kind of fits right there. Right whiskey. Now do you have it with a white and E or you know E in the whiskey or not? Absolutely. Absolutely. Oh you do have any in there. Okay. And and the Highlander is as you say. I want to meet me a Highlander. I'm a Highlander because I went to Redford and you know other other I said other colleges are like you know the the taggers or the fighting bears or something. We're the Highlanders. So we're the Scottish Highlanders in Kiltz and our school colors are played. I mean do you know anybody else that when you say what were your college colors they say play it? I did it but not in this country but yeah. Uh-huh. We had skirts like that. Yep. Yep. So but that's our school colors played. And so when you go to the Highlander it's really neat because the Highlander really took into consideration the the history and the neighborhood they were moving into. They're right next door to Redford University. So the carpet in the hallway is played. Some of the rooms that you go in have plaid wallpaper. It's just really neat. And our college yearbook was called the Beehive. And that is our logo on even on the tabs on my graduation gown has a Beehive on it. So did you all have Beehive hairdos? That was way back away. No but that might it would have been. Where was that? That was in the 40s or 50s. Yeah that was six times. Highways would have been 60s 50s 60s and the Beehive was named I think in 1925. So the Redford Beehive came first. Okay. But the Highlander uses the Beehive as one of their logos. And they are looking at I don't know if they've succeeded yet but they're looking at maybe having the flowers and herbs on the rooftop on one end of the building and having some beehives there. So that would be cool. Oh that's really cool. That's cool. I mean and bees are so important and that's a good way of having some education you know. Okay so now what about the Italian Sal's Italian restaurant? You know whenever you hear the name Sal and it's connected to a restaurant you feel like you know it's gonna be good. It's gonna be good but something's gonna happen. I tell you what Sal's had specials and I would leave college and I was in grad school and I was good. I'm gonna get that out. I was an adult about 38 actually quite adult and I lived out on a farm outside of town. So when I would leave school and I worked on campus so I'd leave school especially on Friday I would go the long way home so that I could go by sale. The long way. Yeah the long way home and I would stop at Sal's to get Cal Zone to take home and it was so good even when I would go out if I had a date I would I would always say let's go to Sal's. I love their food and you know how it is you talk about a place and it's 30 years ago and you think boy that was just such a wonderful place to eat. I love eating there and you talk about it and you think I'll take I'll take my friend there. So when my friend Audrey and I were in Redford for a week and we I said I can't wait for you to go to Sal's we've got to go to Sal's and then I thought oh what if it's not as good because sometimes you'll take people after you've bragged it out of place. Sometimes you wish you never went back. Yeah yeah this is not that place. It was even better. Wow So now Audrey says when can we go back to Redford we need to go to Sal's and have Cal Zone. Oh a good Cal Zone is a good I mean there's nothing like a good Cal Zone. No it's not and they make everything fresh they buy all the canned local but they do bring their tomatoes canned tomatoes from Italy. So they are making their Italian sauce out of Italian tomatoes. Oh well that makes sense. I love that and you know that's interesting because we did an interview with Fabrizia which is a lemon cello and it all started with their family. You know they had this lemon grove in Italy well now. Is it make lemon you know what do you do and they swear that it's important to have it come from Italy versus you know and I know they grow things out here too but you know what I mean that there's a thing there it's a difference. There's a difference. I mean it is probably part of that is the soul and part of that is the the climate. I don't know I mean well I think their top soul may be better than ours over what we've done over the years you know to our land is a little bit different but all right so Sal's you got to go to the Sal's and there's a museum and gallery oh wait a minute we can't leave out the gallery in the museum. The Glenco Mansion is it's fully decorated it's filled with family pieces so you sort of see how the Wharton family lived when they lived there but then they also have history exhibits and geology. But the Wharton's? Do you Wharton's? No I don't think so these were the Rayford Wharton's. They were not to be confused with the other Wharton's. That's right. There's well I mean there's a Wharton's you know business school yeah yeah there's all kinds of Wharton's. Wharton's and they're probably you know when they do their family training. Are you related to the Wharton's? Are you related? No Wharton's in your blood. No Wharton's in my background but I know okay and I'm just trying to put my back. Yeah we know she's addicted to family history but so so the museum that but you know that's the thing I love to go to local museums and see yeah it makes sense when you see the buildings and you can imagine where you're walking. You just have. You see how they live back then you know. Yep you kind of appreciate the the men and the women when you come in the front door there's a parlor on each side so that the men could go in there and close the door and they can drink their scotch and have a cigar and the women would go in on the other side and probably have their little glass of of wine or sherry. Yeah absolutely you can you can make sure they're having tea and like you know come on I bet you tea totties were happening back in the day and they just never said it. We know what was in their cup. Yeah yeah yeah mine's coffee today I'm sorry I need coffee I don't have anything fun in my cup I need to come see you. Well I'm ready. I'll tell you. Oh you got your have glass. Some of my have glass. What is that? What a color what is that? This is the last unfortunately of my one from the Azores. Yeah I was gonna say it looks kind of porto kind of. It's porto kind of because it's from Portugal so it's it can be called port it's from Portugal um but oh my goodness that looks good what a good color okay. I know just the smell makes you smile. Oh I like this all right so the museum I'm gonna go back see we've got all over the place and and to finish up with the museum beside oh yes the the history of the family and their furnishings derailed on Wayne. Yeah we did that happens to us a lot even when we're not drinking it we get it right. Yeah I know well um there's the coffee. They also have the the history of the area exhibits and they have an art gallery so they rotate in and out uh different artists local artists so you may see that's crazy art or you may see landscapes you never know what you're going to see in the art gallery portion of the Glenco Mansion. I gotta show you this I seek dead people I do genealogy that's what's on my cup what's inside is boring but I do like a good cup of coffee. We'll pretend there's something good inside that. Well you know what you could do you know now if you go to the distillery they know how to hook up you can you can hook that coffee up but from the distilleries they know they know how to do it you know. They do but so I'm interested in this coffee. I just rather have mine. That's great. What's going on Joe? How could you not like coffee? It's not it's the bed. It's a balancer to wine. We have wine at night. You know water is going to you got to have water throughout the day you have wine at night coffee in the morning. This is my this is my water. Oh that's a big good thing of water. We have a full of water probably two of them a day. Wow see look how we derailed. We started talking about water. We're talking about Jesus again. See she keeps going. Jesus here's my water fix it fix it fix it fix it. I'm on that yeah I'm well on that. I want to I am dying to know about Anastasia's speakeasy. I think speakeasies are so cool tell you I mean tell us. Well I will put a picture with my article and you'll have to tell me and you've seen the picture so can you tell me in that little barber shop how to get in the speakeasy? You bring a razor blade? No it's behind the cigarette machine. You open the cigarette machine and that's the door to the speakeasy hidden and behind. Yeah that is so cool. Yeah it is. It's really cool and Anastasia's has they have really really good food. They have a prime rib slider that is so good. So they have all kinds of good food and they have lots of fancy drinks with foam and flowers and different things. They have one that I had that you get the drink and it's covered with a bubble and you're supposed to bite the bubble or something and it pops and that's how you get to your drink. I kind of think of the name of some of those drinks. I'm going to have to look those up and make sure that I mention them by name in my article. That's you know but those, this sounds some mixology and the arts. I mean this is happening. This is happening. I'm liking this. So Anastasia is now the Old Town social house. I mean we were in it. I mean we were just at you know at a church serving beer. Now this is like a car place. The Old Town social house is in an old car dealership and some of the pictures that I sent you, I know you looked at those and thought this is some dirt cellar. Why is she sending me this? And then there's this mangled piece of metal. Well the story is that they had the cars, of course, inside of a car dealership lined up and there was the garage behind the showroom which also had cars in there and somebody, I don't know who, I think that's in the article that I read, but somebody came in a little hot in a car that might have had some illegal transportation going on in its trunk. And it caught fire. Oh and just suddenly somehow. And blew up and it blew a hole in the car dealership garage. The floor collapsed, the car that had the illegal moonshine in it went down first of course and several new cars came in on top of it. So I don't know if they reported it at the time. I can't remember that whole story. You'll have to go to Old Town and ask for the story. But they essentially they put a floor on top and just kept on going with business. So all these things were still in the basement. So when these folks took over the dealership and turned it into a beautiful wine bar and it's filled with gong with the wind lamps and Victorian loafers and you have little little groupings and seating areas all throughout and you have a separate room that has a pretty nicely whitewashed brick wall and they show old films. So it's a lot going on in this little place. They wanted to expand and they were thinking you know if we had a basement you could have kind of almost a speakeasy kind of place but with beer on tap and live music and it would open out into the backyard. So they started kind of looking through the cellar and trying to figure out what was possible and that's when they discovered that all these cars that were burned and trashed were still down there. So they had a lot of cleanup and a lot of digging out to do but they've done it and that has now been named the alley cat and they have beers on tap and they have a sure food and wine is available because it's available upstairs and it's just filled with interesting history and interesting people. You meet interesting people everywhere you go in Rocky Mail. Yeah Rocky Mail, have you heard that you've got really good hot dogs? There's another Blue Ridge Farm Museum so museums are really cool out at Farron College. Yeah. Yeah so but Bowlings you say the best hot dogs period period. Yeah yeah you got you stop at Bowlings for a hot dog. I don't care what time it is you just gotta stop Bowlings. If you're on the way from Rocky Mount out to Farron College to go to the Farm Museum that it's right on the way. You can't miss it. It's a little teeny tiny white building. I think it's probably got two booths and maybe six stools. Most people come in Bowlings and get it and go back out but if you're tourists like me then you sit down and have your hot dog inside and if you do that it's nice because if it doesn't fill you up you can get a second. This is sounding good. It's sounding good. Yeah I'm a ton of ready for a hot dog. I want some mustard. Yeah I want some mustard. Yeah that sounds good. Sounds like a fun area to go spend time in and all the towns. You could probably spend like a decent week exploring you know. At least I think you could spend a week in Roanoke and we haven't even talked about Roanoke. A lot. You've got the Mill Mountain Zoo. You've got the Transportation Museum. We did talk about that. You have the History Museum. You have Hotel Roanoke which is a museum in and of itself. It's a fabulous place and you have to eat there because you have to have peanut soup. Oh it's a member. It's an order. You have to go to the Hotel Roanoke and have peanut soup. It's just you can't live without it. Wow and you've got Dixie Caverns because you're in the mountains. So you've got caverns. Caverns and caves. That's the other part of it. Well yeah there's a cave leading into it and then it goes down and down and down into a cavern. So amazing place. Amazing. The Grandin Theatre. There's an old neighborhood in Roanoke and they have a 1930s movie house that's been completely renovated and it's absolutely gorgeous. Man, lot's going on. And if you're re... Sorry. I was gonna say this is an area that you really do need to plan to spend some time or just keep going back every weekend or something if you can. Yeah if you're close enough you could go for a long weekend once a month. And should Adela Park isn't far in neither is Smoky Mountains National Park in a way. They're both close. In Roanoke if you're remodeling a house or if the bug bites you and you are remodeling something, an old building, an old house, there's a place called Black Dog Salvage and they used to even have a TV show, Black Dog. So they have got everything from doorknobs to purgolas and kupolas to put on top of your house. If it can be taken off of an existing building that's being demolished, Black Dog has it. Wow. Wow. So everyone you've got to go to Joe's article on recipes. Oh and let me go get this correct. I want to make sure recipestravelculture.com and also keep up with her and have glass bowl travel.com and she is here every second Sunday at 7 p.m. Eastern time. So tune in and follow the shows. Also she's on biglandradio.com and next month we're going to Africa. Apparently to Southwest Africa we're going to Namibia. So that's going to be fun to talk about. Yep, I can't wait to go back to Namibia when I start preparing for my podcast. It's like I'm reliving the whole trip again. Awesome. Well Namibia is beautiful. It's beautiful. We've been on the Kalahari Desert side of it and it's absolutely stunning. So everyone stay tuned and tune in on Sunday. Thanks Joe. Thank you. Bye. Enjoy your wine. Thank you. Cheers. Cheers. Thanks for joining us. Keep up with Big Blend Radio. Joe goes everywhere podcast on bigblendradio.com. Keep up with Joe's adventures. Go to have glass bowl travel.com and recipestravelculture.com. [BLANK_AUDIO]