It’s funny how the terrain can change in just a few hours of driving.
When I started out Tuesday AM, I was UP on the Blue Ridge Parkway, checking the blog and making sure it was ready!
When I ended the day, I was speeding through the rolling farmlands of Southwestern Ohio.
Both beautiful in their own way.
The Timberlands of Virginia gave the settlers wood for fuel and homes; the farmlands of Ohio, food for the nation and the world.
I left Buena Vista about 6 AM.
This town tells it like it is, and I think I met two of them while I was there.
They don’t have one of these…
So I had to drive to Lexington and get coffee and breakfast.
On the road….
Some things I saw along the way…
Wild and Wonderful West Virginia…
The ride is different than it was when I was a kid some eons ago. The WVA Turnpike, the only toll road in America that never earned enough money to pay for the interest on the loan, has become one with Interstates 77 and 64, and one no longer sees the old sites or goes through the old tunnel.
As kids, we looked forward to the tunnel and badgered Dad to honk the horn all the way through.
He did sometimes.
The old lady selling Chenille bedspreads is long dead, and I never got the huge king-sized one with the big purple butterfly that I wanted.
Maybe that’s a good thing.
The travel plazas sell Starbucks!
And have Burger Kings!
The Road we used to follow was US Route 60, now called the Midland Trail. A beautiful and exhausting drive, it’s truck free. Back then, hours could be lost if we got behind a log truck or any other semi. Now, they whiz by at 65 and 70 miles an hour on the pike.
They still charge on the turnpike though!
I passed by signs instead of towns. We used to see Hawks Nest and Gauley Bridge and Alloy and Cheylan, but now we see exit signs telling us how far from the exit they are…progress…maybe…but, I’m not sure.
I stopped to get gas, and the lady behind the counter was kind enough to wait on me after she finished balancing her check book. But, really, it’s all good, I wasn’t in a hurry!
I waited patiently until she finished her phone call too. But, again, no rush.
Off I-64 and onto US 35, my never UPdated Garmin went crazy trying to figure out just exactly which road I was on. It finally did, once I hit the part of 35 that’s “old” in Ohio. Garmin woke UP, and we were both on track!
Then on into Ohio.
The Silver Bridge fell in November of 1967, several people died.
And apparently, I see too many Richard Gere movies, because he was in the Mothman Prophecies, which is VERY loosely based on the real life tragedy.
The new bridge…
…is taller, wider, and safer.
That was the first year we didn’t go home for Christmas, Daddy hadn’t found a new way. But we had to go in January because Grandpa died.
Once I crossed the Ohio River over the Silver Memorial Bridge, instinct made me look for a Frisch’s Restaurant!
…where I a Swiss Miss Sandwich and French Fries…
…quite the international meal for small town Chillicothe!
I passed the Bob Evans’ Farm…yes, there really is one. All that sausage at the grocery store may not come directly from there, but Bob was a real man, had a real farm, and put Rio Grande (pronounced RYE-O Grand), Ohio on the map.
Along 35 through that part of Ohio, it’s town after town, farm after farm, and field after field. Trippies is gone, The houses have changed, and the New 35 goes over the Hog Farm that held UP it’s progress for so long.
Through Dayton, Kettering, and into Miamisburg on i-675, it’s all suburbia…
…but you cross the Miami River head UP the hill, and a left on route 4…Germantown is just down the hill.
More on that on Thursday…it’s time for dinner with Mother and Daddy.
Just a note to the Honorable Governor Strickland, that 2 speed limit thing, one for cars and one for trucks, “what UP wid dat?”
