The last leg

Well, dear diary, I'm home again.  Didn't post yesterday but I don't want to lose the experience.  Even though it seems a bit mundane, the last few hours of driving from an outlet mall (essentially) to the place I usually call home, was all part of this particular road trip Peter Pan adventure.  So....

First, now that I have a good connection, I need to upload my photos from the Friday drive through North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.  Wow, did I really drive through 4 states in one day?  Sounds like a movie.  Whatever.

  Pilot Mountain, North Carolina, where the guy was sleeping in his jeep.  At least I think he was sleeping.  There was no blood dripping down from the bottom of the door like you would see in Criminal Minds.  But you never know...

The New Gorge River bridge that I drove across that felt like it was a bridge across the sky.  The first picture is taken from the top of the stairs at the adjoining visitor center (I didn't go into the park, now on the bucket list!) looking toward the bridge.  After descending the stairs, which only go down about 200 ft - the bottom of the gorge is 600 ft down - I took the second shot looking left.  600 ft is a looong way down.

  

Young's Monument, WV, where a scenic lookout provided a lovely non-snowy winter vista, with the sunlight highlighting a distant rise.  

Now for the drive home.  When I left on Dec. 24, it was in the high teens Celsius, and the forecast was for the temps at home to be around the freezing mark.  So I had packed what I thought was enough warm clothes.  But it's cold here (in Grove City), the temperature has dropped (for me) about 25 C in the last 24 hours.  Savannah was hot and sticky when I left early Thursday afternoon, and I had been driving with the windows down and sunroof wide open most of the way to Winston-Salem, where it was about 9 C when I arrived.  That's chilly enough, but now... well, a windbreaker and sweater are just not going to cut it, and as it turns out, I've had a blowout in my favourite gloves.

So it's a good thing that there's an outlet mall just down the street and on the way to the highway, and they have a 75% off sale on just about everything.  Old Navy, here I come.  I find a lovely winter wool jacket for $13.99 (yes, you saw that right), and a warm fuzzy pullover for $3.99 (yup) and a couple of other goodies.  Next stop is G.H. Bass & Co., where I find two pairs of leather gloves at $14.99 a pair.  I know, right?

Off I go up the highway, and it looks like I might even be able to pick up the cat a little early.  At 11 a.m., little miss GPS (have to come up with a name for her, like Queen GPS) tells me that I should arrive at home about 3:15.  Cool.  I can take my time, maybe even stop for lunch, although the hotel included a hot buffet breakfast.  

I-79 North is mostly barren of traffic, or any life at all.  Still haven't seen any snow, anywhere, on this trip, although that's been largely due to the planning of my routes to avoid precipitation.  I'm about 15 miles south of Erie, PA when I start seeing a bit of white, just a dusting really, and still nothing in the air.  Hop on the I-90 toward Buffalo, start seeing a bit more, but nothing serious.  Then about 10 miles out from Buffalo, there's a sign that reads "Lake Effect snow ahead, reduce speed", and it starts to snow.  Not just snow, but sleet.  It's been a while since I've HEARD snow hitting the car, but this snow was downright noisy.  Not freezing rain, little white pellets (not hail either).  And traffic slows.  Good thing I have extra time!

But not really, although it gets worse and worse the closer I get to the city, and at one point I see a tractor trailer across the median, with the back tires of the trailer on one side of the median and the front tires of the tractor on the other side of the median, and not much underneath, and a lot of skid marks.  A bit further on, in the collectors lanes, there are two vehicles smashed into the guardrail, facing the wrong direction.  Traffic slows a bit more.

As I approach the city proper, the weather doesn't just clear up, it becomes almost dry.  Awesome!  The remainder of the trip is completely uneventful, and I have arrived to pick up Simba about half an hour early, and feeling like I've just had probably the best vacation ever.

Next blog post - interesting things seen on the road (that didn't make the daily post), and tips for making a road trip safe and enjoyable.  Home again - and planning the next one already.  Sigh.  

Driving through the mountains

Wow, it was a "bit brisk" this morning, as one of the other hotel guests said at breakfast.  About 5 C, which is the chilliest I've felt for a long time, considering that it was in the high teens when I left home on Dec. 24.  As I drive north, it's not going to get any warmer, I'm sure.  'Twill take a bit of getting used to.  Especially since I really didn't bring any winter clothing.  Good thing I'll be staying close to an outlet mall tonight!

Sooo.....  one last long drive, since tomorrow should only be about a four or five hour run.  Today looks to be about 7 hours, and since I also hope to get a few pics while driving through the mountain, I head out fairly early, before 9:30.  Not long after I hit the road, I see a car in the ditch off to the right - surrounded by yellow crime scene tape.  Yikes!  No cops around, so no worries.

A bit further, and I see an odd rock formation way ahead in the distance.  Look for a place to stop and take a photo, nothing around... wait... Aha!  Scenic outlook up ahead.  Pull over, and there's only one other vehicle, and that's a jeep parked there.  Weird, doesn't look like anyone is around.  Oh well, grab the camera and walk past jeep to get a shot - omg there's a guy sleeping in the jeep!  Well, at least he wasn't driving if he was that tired.  The whole back of the car is full to the roof with stuff, including his cowboy boots stuffed up against the back window.  I hope he's just sleeping - better not hang around too long in case he wakes up.  Grab the shot... (which I'll have to upload later when I have a decent wifi connection - again).

Next cool experience was in driving through Virginia, and there was a wall of mountain ahead of me.  I couldn't for the life of me figure out where the road went - it didn't appear to go up and over, and there was no discernible way of going around it.  As I went around a curve it became apparent - I was going through the mountain.  They had simply drilled a hole through the mountain, and that's where they put the road.  So, feeling a little Lord of the Rings - ish, I went through the mountain.  The song is wrong, she's not comin' around the mountain, she's comin' straight through!

Next up was West Virginia - wow those mountains are big, and gorgeous, and so dark.  Where the road has been blasted through, you can see that a lot of the rock is black, what's that about?  When I stop at the Welcome center to grab a coffee, there's a little gift shop.  Asking for the one thing I could buy that's truly West Virginia, the clerk suggests the little coal figurines - aha, the black rock is from coal!  Never occurred to me before, although it should have.

Not much farther along, I find myself driving across a huge bridge that appears to be floating in the sky that's how far down it seems the bottom is.  What the heck???  Did they just put a bridge from one mountain top to the next?  That's even weirder than tunneling through a whole mountain.  There's a sign on the other side for a scenic lookout - awesome, I need to see this.  And wow, there's my exercise for the day too, because they've built a staircase partway down the mountainside so that you can get a great view of the whole bridge.  There's a river way down at the bottom, I have no idea how far down it is, but there are tiny cars down there.

Suddenly I hear screeches from below on the other side of the gorge and see people in the river - whaaat???  It's like freezing out here and people are swimming?  Oh ya, it's New Year's Day, a polar bear plunge.  They jump in and race right back out again.

Another stop reveals stepped excavation to build the road.  This must have something to do with the geological formation in this area, I've never seen this before but it's easy to see the layers of different types of rock.  The sky is partly cloudy, and the patches of sun dance across the mountains creating really intriguing patterns.

The rest of the drive is mostly uneventful, although the scenery is quite interesting.  Coming around Pittsburgh at dusk reveals a ton of residential building at the top of each rise, ruining the vista.  Although I'm sure someone made a ton of money.

Arrive in Grove City to a temp of about freezing, so it's a good thing I'll have time to do a bit of shopping tomorrow, didn't bring enough warm clothing!  (Haven't needed it yet...)