[Karen] Today we surfed The Blue Ridge Mtns! Whaat? I can hear you say. But that's what it seemed like. We started out from Cherokee and drove north on 441 to pick up the western end of the Blue Ridge Parkway, a two lane highway which is curvy, tree lined road and mountainous at its western end. It took us awhile to reach Soco Gap. We knew we could only drive parts of the Parkway as you cannot drive more than 35 most of this stretch. We constantly drove uphill and then downhill, thru tunnel after tunnel. But no trucks are allowed and I do not know if motorhomes are disallowed also or if they are fearful for the state of their vehicles. I know it would have been a nightmare if they had been allowed as the road is narrow and turnouts occur only for view points. The view points allowing long views showed ridge after ridge disappearing into the distance, which made it look like the peaks of waves in a large ocean. In order to reach our destination in Troutville, VA tonight we turned off the parkway at Soco Gap and continued west on Hwy 19 to I-40 which carried us North and slightly back west to I-81 which was 4 lane (2 each way) and which was chock-a-block with trucks not paying much attention or courtesy to the cars traveling with them. For some reason, trucks are given more leeway in the south than they are in the west. Rarely would a truck pull over to the right lane in order to let cars pass them, some even staying to the left even when they were not passing anything!
We have now come back to our old travel habit of stopping at lunchtime at a rest stop and making PB&J sandwiches and perhaps buying a drink out of a machine at the rest stop. We have a food bag but no ice chest (no room for one!) The foodbag is increasing in size as we add other stuff to it and we have also started to try cooking our own dinner as we are finding few even faintly healthy options in the small towns we stay in. So, to do that you need plates (paper), and silverware. I had already bought some metal knives to spread peanut butter and jelly with, and tonight picked up some spoons and forks at a strange little store which started appearing in east Texas called Dollar General. The stores vary in size from little (about the size of a gas store) to the one we found tonite which was quite large. Frequently, except for larger cities these seem to be the only food sources for the rural population other than Dairy Queen or other fast food options. I have not seen any larger markets in the small rural towns we are driving by on the highway. No Kroger's or Safeway. Just Dollar General.Tonight I am concocting a dinner from a small box of Stouffer's meat lasagna and a bag of mixed vegetables. Kalon is doing something with a box of rice and beans. We bought a bag of salad but will have to concoct a dressing of perhaps red wine and a little bottle of olive oil which I bought.
Sorry, there are no pix tonight. We will try to do better tomorrow!
[Kalon] Route decisions are usually straightforward for us. But today (at least in the morning) felt like a quagmire. We were trying to strike a balance between following the beautiful Blue Ridge Parkway (up and down, speed limit of 45 mph, single curvy lane each way) and actually getting to Troutville in Virginia. So - from my perspective - it was poor harried Karen trying to make sense of our alternatives and Mrs. Know-it-all showing no hesitation in trying to direct us to the interstates. Karen eventually relinquished control so we got to our destination in good time but didn't see a lot of the Parkway.
Tomorrow we head to Harper's Ferry, our 2nd civil war site (although the history of Harper's Ferry begins earlier with John Brown's insurrection there in 1859.)
No comments:
Post a Comment