Good Mechanics are hard to come by, and if you dont already know of one, word of mouth is probably your best bet. But if you’ve recently moved, or cant find a good referral you may find it hard choosing where to get your car repaired. One solution to consider is www.cartalk.com. Cartalk is a radio show on NPR that gives out advice on everything auto (they obviously have a website as well). One of the features of the website is a mechanic rating board where you can find repair shops by zip code that have been rated by users. The obvious correlation from the results is that the shops with the highest amount of feedback have the best service. While this theory isn’t foolproof, its definitely a good starting point when trying to make a decision. I’ve compiled a list of shops with the highest rating in the Alexandria, VA area.

Backlick Road Service Station
# Surveys: 33

Sam’s A-One Auto Service, Inc. [owner - Tim]
# Surveys: 26

Joyce Motors
#Surveys: 25

Pham’s Car Care Center
# Surveys: 20

I found this today, the colors are absolutely amazing.

Amy and I spent Memorial Day weekend camping at Big Meadows in Shenandoah National Park. We spent two nights in the park and went horseback riding on some park trails the first day and kayaking on the Shenandoah river the second day. We even had time to stop at one of our favorite Virginia Wineries on the way there. The weather was pretty good with the exception of Sunday. Apparently it stormed pretty bad (hail and all) at the campsite while we were kayaking and we returned to a semi soggy tent. We had just finished drying everything out when it started raining again so we decided to camp in the back of the Pathfinder to stay dry. We saw a lot of deer during our trip and they were surprising pretty tame. Here are a couple videos of some of the deer. Pictures can be found here.