Natural Bridge, VA
Jun. 16th, 2005 10:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunrabFREE wireless access! Not even a fee to get a password! Even though this kampground is more primitive than the others! (Our space is full hookup, but it's not paved, and the driveway and roads in the grounds are unpaved.
Natural Bridge is a half hour north of Roanoake. Tomorrow, to Elkridge, should be 3.5 hours.
Cindy bailed in Nashville this morning. Luckily, the airport was on our way back to the highway; we dropped her off at an airport hotel, where she was going to get a few more hours sleep before arguing with the airlines to trade her Baltimore-Austin ticket for a Nashville-Austin ticket.
As best we can tell, the state motto of Tennessee is "Lane Shift Ahead" because there are little orange signs that say that all across the state. In fact, on interstate 40, I don't think there was a single mile that didn't have little orange signs of some sort. Every single mile. Reduce Speed Ahead. Road Work Ahead. Shoulder Drop-Off. Uneven Lanes. Shift Lanes Ahead. Zig-zag symbol for lane shift ahead. Road Work 1/2 mile. Reduce Speed Ahead. Shift Lanes Ahead. Every single mile...
When we finally turned north on interstate 81, we were already mountainish, in the Smokies; in VA, these turn into the Blue Ridge Mts. It has been lovely scenery all day. VA is a bit bizarre: interstate 81 has, as best we can tell so far, NO billboards. Every single state route that crosses over the highway seems to be labelled 600-something: for several hundred miles, it's been Route 606 and Route 690 and Route 683 and Route 611... Finally, here at Natural Bridge, we get Route 11 - twice in a row, at mile 175 and then at mile 180.
Lunch today was nothing in particular, just someplace in between Nashville and Knoxville. Supper was at a small chinese restaurant in a strip mall in Wytheville, VA, an hour or so south of Roanoake. Roanoke itself seemed to be much smaller than it looked on the map.
The highway here in VA is also covered with law enforcement signs - making up for the missing billboards, I guess. Warnings of minimum fines, warnings that speed limits are "enforced by aircraft" - which I doubt; they may be monitored by aircraft, but I doubt that there are gunners in the helicopters ready to strafe the roads ahead of us in order to enforce the speed limit. On the other hand, maybe there are. We'll stay under 70 just in case.
The chinnies are awake and eating the evening fruit treat. We are, as usual, trying to locate stuff we know we saw earlier. The toothpaste is IN HERE SOMEWHERE. Sounds like our house, doesn't it? We've made this RV right homey right quickly!
The car shippers called- our car has finally been picked up and will be delivered to Elkridge on Monday or Tuesday. Which means we're going to have to rent a car, because we'll undoubtedly need to run out and get all sorts of supplies once we're moving in, and we have to return the RV Saturday morning, and it's not a great vehicle to run local errands in anyway.
Although it was terrific to have Cindy volunteer to help us, in some ways it's a little easier to manage without her; S and I know what makes sense to us without having to discuss and explain it and without having to talk Cindy out of trying it her way. I don't have to keep rescuing my towels, which Cindy kept giving to the cat or using to cover the bird cage. Am I too picky, preferring a towel after my shower that does NOT have cat hair all over it, or bird food and feathers flung onto it?
Enough for now. We're almost there!!! Wheeeeeeeeeeee! (And it's supposed to go below 60 degrees here tonight!!!)
Natural Bridge is a half hour north of Roanoake. Tomorrow, to Elkridge, should be 3.5 hours.
Cindy bailed in Nashville this morning. Luckily, the airport was on our way back to the highway; we dropped her off at an airport hotel, where she was going to get a few more hours sleep before arguing with the airlines to trade her Baltimore-Austin ticket for a Nashville-Austin ticket.
As best we can tell, the state motto of Tennessee is "Lane Shift Ahead" because there are little orange signs that say that all across the state. In fact, on interstate 40, I don't think there was a single mile that didn't have little orange signs of some sort. Every single mile. Reduce Speed Ahead. Road Work Ahead. Shoulder Drop-Off. Uneven Lanes. Shift Lanes Ahead. Zig-zag symbol for lane shift ahead. Road Work 1/2 mile. Reduce Speed Ahead. Shift Lanes Ahead. Every single mile...
When we finally turned north on interstate 81, we were already mountainish, in the Smokies; in VA, these turn into the Blue Ridge Mts. It has been lovely scenery all day. VA is a bit bizarre: interstate 81 has, as best we can tell so far, NO billboards. Every single state route that crosses over the highway seems to be labelled 600-something: for several hundred miles, it's been Route 606 and Route 690 and Route 683 and Route 611... Finally, here at Natural Bridge, we get Route 11 - twice in a row, at mile 175 and then at mile 180.
Lunch today was nothing in particular, just someplace in between Nashville and Knoxville. Supper was at a small chinese restaurant in a strip mall in Wytheville, VA, an hour or so south of Roanoake. Roanoke itself seemed to be much smaller than it looked on the map.
The highway here in VA is also covered with law enforcement signs - making up for the missing billboards, I guess. Warnings of minimum fines, warnings that speed limits are "enforced by aircraft" - which I doubt; they may be monitored by aircraft, but I doubt that there are gunners in the helicopters ready to strafe the roads ahead of us in order to enforce the speed limit. On the other hand, maybe there are. We'll stay under 70 just in case.
The chinnies are awake and eating the evening fruit treat. We are, as usual, trying to locate stuff we know we saw earlier. The toothpaste is IN HERE SOMEWHERE. Sounds like our house, doesn't it? We've made this RV right homey right quickly!
The car shippers called- our car has finally been picked up and will be delivered to Elkridge on Monday or Tuesday. Which means we're going to have to rent a car, because we'll undoubtedly need to run out and get all sorts of supplies once we're moving in, and we have to return the RV Saturday morning, and it's not a great vehicle to run local errands in anyway.
Although it was terrific to have Cindy volunteer to help us, in some ways it's a little easier to manage without her; S and I know what makes sense to us without having to discuss and explain it and without having to talk Cindy out of trying it her way. I don't have to keep rescuing my towels, which Cindy kept giving to the cat or using to cover the bird cage. Am I too picky, preferring a towel after my shower that does NOT have cat hair all over it, or bird food and feathers flung onto it?
Enough for now. We're almost there!!! Wheeeeeeeeeeee! (And it's supposed to go below 60 degrees here tonight!!!)
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no subject
Date: 2005-06-18 05:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-19 03:00 am (UTC)I will post more about the Virginia-to-Elkridge drive as soon as I have full-time internet access.