Today is a travel day, but we didn't feel like we had to get an early start, so I gathered the laundry and went over to get that taken care of first thing. I got my 3 loads started, then walked back to the RV to take a shower and discovered more dirty clothes that I hadn't seen in the dark, so when I went over to put the clothes in the dryer, I started another load in the washer -- that delayed the process a bit, but at least I got everything washed and dried. We got on the road just about 10:50, and headed around the East side of D.C. on 495/95. Traffic wasn't too bad and we crossed the Potomac about 11:30 or so, and then we were in Virginia.
We stayed with I-95 as it turned south and eventually stopped at a Visitor's Center just before Fredericksburg. Along this route we passed the turn-off to Quantico, the FBI training center which is mentioned in a lot of the books we read. But we didn't go there.
At the Visitor Center, Joe remembered that we wanted to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway, so we got information and maps, and cut over on Hwy 3 and then Hwy 20 and then Hwy 250 to get on the Blue Ridge at Charlottesville, which is Mile 0. We completely missed the Skyline Drive due to our circuitous route around DC. It was 3:10 by the time we got on this Parkway so we didn't drive it too much today.
We found a campground just 2 miles off the Parkway, unfortunately, it was a zigzag road right off the mountain, but we made it ok. This was Mile Post 27. We got off the road about 4:00 and spent the night at the Montebello Camping & Fishing Resort, a quiet, very woodsy campground. Joe wanted to get off the road early so he could wash the windows since we were carrying bug splatters from 5 states and we hoped to spot some wildlife on this Parkway. So he did that while I fixed dinner, and we had a quiet, early evening. We drove 189 miles today, lovely weather.
The next morning I let him sleep in so we didn't get started until 10:45. We are still a little weary from our marathon days in Boston, New York City, and Washington, so I thought a little extra rest was in order. It was 52 degrees, so a bit nippy. We drove separately back up our two miles, then hooked up the car just before we got back on the Parkway. We encountered a tunnel not too far down the road, but fortunately it was adequately tall and wide.
And we pulled off at a few overlooks, but not many. This one was a very pretty little lake, with reflections of the trees, and we saw a school of bluegill fish swimming right under the pier. We thought about getting out the fishing poles.
We crossed the James River up here, almost on top of the Ridge, imagine that!
The views are lovely from this ridge, you can see for miles and miles at the overlooks.
We exited the Parkway at Milepost 106, taking U.S. 460 and 221 over to Joe's cousin, Marilyn and Ken Stuckey at Forest, Virginia. We fueled in Forest for $1.819 --the cheapest gas we've found on this trip. Joe says it probably the least we've paid in 10 years. Anyway, we filled up the tank for under $100, a real rarity, and we had 320 miles on that tank, so it was getting low (51 gallons it took). We checked in with Marilyn and verified our GPS directions, and found her house shortly thereafter. We got there about 2:30, got ourselves situated in their driveway and hooked up to the electric plug ins they use for Christmas decorations. After we visited for a couple hours, Marilyn fed us an excellent dinner (she drafted Joe into grilling the chicken), and Ken finally got home from work just as we started to eat, so we had a nice visit with both of them and with Julie. We didn't see any wildlife on the Parkway (except a chipmunk and a couple of squirrels), but as we sat at the dinner table at Marilyn's, we watched a doe and 2 fawns play around in their backyard. Joe had seen one deer earlier while he was sitting on the back patio, just before he got drafted into grilling the chicken.
It was another nice day, we drove 120 miles but they were slow miles. The speed limit on the Parkway is 45, and a lot of the time we are under that, as we go around the curves and up and down the hills. Nice scenery, though.
We will spend a few days here -- Marilyn has a bit of sightseeing lined up for us and we will probably go to the Verizon store again and discuss phones. We are looking forward to a few days of rest, so we hope Marilyn doesn't run us too hard. All these miles are beginning to catch up with us.
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