The slow road

This is Rich reporting from the road tonight.

2010 will go down in history as the "Summer of Road Construction". From one end of our trip, to what is too soon becoming the other end, road construction has been the most consistent aspect. Not even the heat has lasted as long. Today was another beautiful day, just as yesterday was. Sunny and comfortable.

We started in Asheville, NC, driving around downtown and visiting the Mast General Store. What a neat place to shop, or just poke around. If you ever need some candy from your youth (assuming you are over 30), this is the place to find it.

We next drove through Winston-Salem, then left the Interstate, and started our northward journey on a State Highway. Now we know why they built the Interstate system. We got behind every slow driver, truck and construction delay you can imagine. We even got stopped at 4:45 (middle of rush hour) while someone decided to string new cables across the highway!

We are spending the night in Harrisonburg, VA, in the heart of the Shennendoah Valley. The next town over is Bridgewater, the home of both Bridgewater College, and Lauren's friend Nick Picerno, the Chief of Police for Bridgewater College (long story, nothing bad). Very nice town, nice campus.

Dorrie had a flashback to gradeschool as we were driving around Charlottesville (yes, again). After much hard work and thought, she remembered all of the main characters from the Walton's, even the sisters who made the 'recipe'. Does anyone remember who the man was that they both liked? We took a side road looking for Walton's Mountain, and the Walton's museum in Schuyler, but gave up before we found it. Time was running short, and the road was still long. Besides, we had to leave something for next time.

It was about this point that it dawned on us that we weren't going to be able to take the slow road all the way through Virginia. So, in Charlottesville, we found ourselves back on the Interestate, this time heading west into the Valley.

Tomorrow is a day to make time. A straight shot up the highway to Gettysburg, lunch with Lauren then onto the Berkshires.