May 23-25, 2008 - Roanoke, Virginia Memorial Day Weekend Hub Tour
Friday, May 23rd ~ Meet & Greet
After arriving at the historic Hotel Roanoke, get settled in and enjoy seeing old friends and meeting new ones at our “Meet and Greet”. Dinner on your own at one of the wonderful downtown restaurants just steps out the lobby door.
Saturday, May 24th ~ Lexington, Virginia
Enjoy the morning visiting the Virginia Museum of Transportation featuring significant Norfolk & Western Railroad Engines. Our caravan of motorcars will travel the short distance to Lexington, Virginia. There we will enjoy lunch, take tours of historic Lee Chapel and Washington & Lee University as well as the George C. Marshall Museum next door at Virginia Military Institute. Enjoy the rest of the afternoon touring the area on your own. Here are but a few Lexington attractions...
Campbell House
Cyrus McCormick‘s Farm
Downtown Lexington
Hunter’s Raid Civil War Trail
Lexington Carriage Company
Museum of Military Memorabilia
Rockbridge Historical Society
Sam Houston Wayside
Stonewall Jackson House
Stonewall Jackson Grave site & Cemetery
Virginia Military Institute
George C. Marshall Museum at VMI
Wade‘s Mill
Sunday, May 25th ~ D-Day Memorial & Poplar Forest
A morning drive along the Virginia countryside will take us to our first stop at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia. Deliberately sited to rise above the community that experienced this country’s severest per capita losses on D-Day, the National D-Day Memorial has four components that represent the sweep of D-Day. From the early planning and preparation for it, through the Channel crossing and landing in France, on to the Allied victory and consolidation on the beaches and beyond Normandy into the landscape of postwar Europe, the Memorial reminds all who enter it of the heavy price that heartland communities have paid for freedom.
After lunch, we will drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway to the little known retreat of Thomas Jefferson - Poplar Forest. It is not Monticello -- and, actually, that was the whole idea. To Jefferson’s annoyance, his Monticello retreat attracted guests, sometimes by the dozens. So he constructed a refuge from his refuge: an Italian-style villa near Lynchburg. Intricate in design and exquisite in its symmetry, it also was built deliberately so that large numbers of guests could not be accommodated.
On the way back to the hotel, Natural Bridge, once owned by Jefferson, is just off the Parkway. The remainder of the afternoon is “on your own” for touring the many sites in the area or head back for a nap before our delicious dinner together Sunday evening at the Hotel Roanoke.
Join us for a leisurely weekend of American history, nature’s wonders and miles of smiles...it will do you and your car good!
Contact RRBMC with any questions info@rrbmc.org or 1-888-OK-RRBMC (657-7262)
Friday, May 23rd ~ Meet & Greet
attractions...
A morning drive along the Virginia countryside will take us to our first stop at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia. Deliberately sited to rise above the community that experienced this country’s severest per capita losses on D-Day, the National D-Day Memorial has four components that represent the sweep of D-Day. From the early planning and preparation for it, through the Channel crossing and landing in France, on to the Allied victory and consolidation on the beaches and beyond Normandy into the landscape of postwar Europe, the Memorial reminds all who enter it of the heavy price that heartland communities have paid for freedom. 
On the way back to the hotel, Natural Bridge, once owned by Jefferson, is just off the Parkway. The remainder of the afternoon is “on your own” for touring the many sites in the area or head back for a nap before our delicious dinner together Sunday evening at the Hotel Roanoke.