Left Peggy’s about 1pm. Blew an hour trying to find the AAA office in Wheaton. If I wasn’t addicted to AAA maps I would blow those suckers off. Their whole routine gets more and more shabby every year as far as I’m concerned. Well, I guess they did pull my ass out of the grass when I got stuck in Vermont, so I guess they’re still OK…
Anyway, here I am heading out for 2-3 hours of driving with 2-3 hours of daylight left, again. I must be doing this on purpose since I do it every day. Even though my official stance is that I should get to the new places I’m going early enough to explore them and enjoy them … sigh.
It is a very simple 4.5 hour drive to Chapel Hill south-southwest on the interstates, but that’s not for me. I drive due west on I-66 to Front Royal, and after a couple of unproductive turns I cross the Shenandoah Mountains and take I-81 down the middle of the Shenandoah Valley, a very beautiful drive, especially this time of year. The leaves are past peak here, but I do get a few more days of good leaves as I keep heading south.
My destination is a $10 National Forest campground near Buchanon VA, right off the interstate . As I get near I have a few things on my mind:
- I’m running out of gas.
- I’m out of propane and it’s going to be cold tonight so I will have no heat (how spoiled we get!)
- It is game five of the World Series, the G’s could potentially close it out and I would hate to miss that.
So I do a drive-by on Buchanon to look for hel on these three issues. One out of three ain’t so good. Three miles out of town the wrong direction I find diesel, but a big FAIL on the other two. Interacting with the locals was a little creepy – these folks are very backwoods-y. I saw two confederate flags in the five block-long town, and I got some serious stinkeye from a couple of Gomer-looking dudes sitting at the “Burger King” when I hopped into a quickie mart to ask where the diesel was. I kinda felt like I was in the movie Deliverance. … and I’m not even in the deep south yet!
I found my campground (thank you GPS), with all of about 40 minutes of non-darkness left (wouldn’t really call it daylight), then I hunkered down and froze my ass off. Oh yes, with “No Service” on my iPad, so I couldn’t even follow the Series on the web. If I had known the G’s were gonna win it all tonight I would’ve stayed somewhere a little more connected … maybe another exciting night watching tee vee at the Applebee’s and sleeping at the Walmart. I need a third Applebee’s to confirm that the female bartenders are required to display their boobs as company policy.
Tuesday
I had kind of a headache all day, which reminded me that I had kind of a headache all day after I froze my ass off one particular night on a previous trip. Maybe my aging constitution can’t recover like it used to from that chilled to the bone for ten hours s—t.
Driving out of the Forest, and up the hill to the Blue Ridge Parkway the autumn hills were awesome. But they were also very steep and rugged and remote-looking and reinforced that whole Deliverance feeling. I’m not sure I’m ready for the South or the Appalachians.
My route (SR 43 to US 29 to SR 86) takes me on five miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway, for which I am happy! That is really an excellent drive if you ever have occasion to be in this part of the world. I stopped at the closed for the season Visitors Center and took a nice little hike through the woods.
On the other side of the parkway, I am back in suburban white Virginia, as opposed to redneck white Virginia. Nice houses, nice lawns, rolling hills and prosperous farms, rather than unpainted shacks with rebel flags in steep tree-covered “hollers”.
Uneventful drive from country back to city, and the edges of the Tri-Cities traffic jam. Got to Ekim’s about 5:30. He gets the Baseball Channel, and they replay the G’s game – woo hoo!
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