Come Drive with me, Come Drive, and Drive, Let's Drive...

Being a complete nerd with my new-found picture-taking and within-text posting skills, I got this idea on Sunday, deciding to take you all along with me on my 600+ mile roundtrip to Virginia. C'mon, it'll be fun, just like (almost) a roadtrip we're all taking together!

I play mental games when I drive, constantly figuring where I am, how long it will take, subtracting the miles and the hours, readjusting the math with each new chunk of mileposts. I break up the journey into fractions (never percentages!), like one-third there, half-way done, only one-quarter to go.

Hour One - Rogersville to I-81 in Bristol, TN

The first hour of driving is all country "four lane," watching for stupid drivers in big, over-compensating trucks, as they misjudge the flow of traffic and pull out onto the highway from a dead stop, usually right in front of me. Or even better, crossing in front of me and swinging into the left lane. Sheesh.

Kingsport is just a big 10-mile strip-mall along the highway. Sorry I didn't take a picture, but you already know what it looks like, because every small city in America now looks the same--Subway, McDonalds, Lowe's, Home Depot, gas station, tire store, Office Max. If you really want to know what it looks like, go to your own local "main drag." It looks like that.

VA border to Marion - First Hunnert Miles - 1/3 done

Ah, bucolic bliss. The four-lane enters I-81 about a mile or two before the Virginia border, and it's smooth sailing through Bristol, VA, then Abingdon, then...a whole lotta nothing. But look, here comes Marion, (milepost 45-47)! That means we've gone 100 miles and we're one third done! Echo sighs in the back and starts to settle down for the long haul--she's finally realized we're not going to the dump or the post office. Time to open another bottle of water and search for a decent radio station. Just keep pushing that SCAN button--there's got to be a station somewhere out here!

Back in 1991, I took the kids to Birmingham, Alabama to celebrate Christmas with my brother's family. We drove from our home in Corinth, NY to Washington, D.C. the first night, did a little drive-by sightseeing on the mall, found a parking space (will wonders never cease!) and tromped around the Capitol, before setting out west to pick up I-81 south. It was full-dark and the back seat noises were getting cranky when I pulled off in Marion, and crept through the town looking for a cheap place to spend the night. We found a Mom-and-Pop Motel. And that's all I remember about Marion.

Hour Two - "Rest Stop" at Rural Retreat, VA

This is one of the saddest Rest Stops you'll ever see. It is a mere dimple in the highway flow, a hair-raising 65-to-10 mph deceleration that must be accomplished in about 20 feet, belching you into a confused parking lot (angled-in spaces around the tiny perimeter, double row of angled spaces in the center, like an old downtown shopping street). The dog walk is a patch of dirt and a tree. Your picnicking options are this bench, sitting next to the trash can and overlooking the scenic panorama of the cars jockeying for position in the wacko parking lot:

However, this is the two-hour milestone, and both human and dog bladders shall not be denied.

Bill and I stopped here on our first trip up to UVA, when I was less than a week diagnosed, and I had yet to process any of it. Someone complimented Echo, saying "Nice dog, where are you headed?" and of course the first thing out of my motor-mouth was "UVA Medical Center, because...I have breast cancer!" Rest stops are like airplane rides though, where you can get away with saying anything to anyone, because you'll most likely never see these people again. Still, now I cringe at what a mess I was back then.

Echo and I share a container of Yoplait:

(This means I ate what I wanted and gave her the remainder--I wasn't swapping spit with the dog, OK?)

Through the mountains - Blacksburg to Roanoke - Half-way There

After the pathetic little stop at Rural Retreat, it's time to make our way through the mountains to Christiansburg and Blacksburg, home of Virginia Tech. They have the oddest mascot ever, the "Hokie," pronounced Ho-kee. (Ok, the "Saluki" of Southern Illinois U is pretty weird, but the Hokie is my personal pick for the strangest). On our first trip up, Bill & I kept seeing car decals of Three-Toed Chicken Feet and Rooster Heads with Garish Combs, all in that oh-so-chic color combo of orange and purple. "What the...?" we'd say to each other. I tried to get a picture of a car tricked out all V-Tech for you, but my taking-pictures-while-driving skills are still in their infancy. Here's the mountains, instead:

Traffic picks up as we come into Roanoke. Speed limits drop to 60, then 55 (which everyone ignores) and the volume of trucks require maximum driver attention.

Hours Four & Five - More of the Same - Shenandoah Valley to I-64

You've got your big power lines, high plateau valley, Blue Ridge to the east, Appalachian Mountains to the west. Cows. Lots of cows. Rest stop in 33 miles, can I hold out that long? Can Echo?

Oops, I forgot, I won't go far enough to ever see that Rest Stop, further on down the I-81. I am all about not missing the turnoff for I-64 towards Richmond, Exit 221 (meaning 221 miles from my TN-VA border crossing this morning). Now it's time to congratulate myself for having come so far! Wow! Only about 30 more miles to go, and that doesn't make for a nice tidy fraction, does it? OK, it's sort of 9/10 of the way there, how's that?

I-64 to Crozet Rest Stop & Charlottesville

Now for Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, a big climb up over the mountains and a snaking swoosh of a decent on the other side, down into the valley where Charlottesville is nestled. Many scenic overlooks, Virgina DOT memorial sites (apparently, being a Virginia highway employee is a very dangerous job--this place looks like The Wall in D.C. for the number of names on it). I, however, am hell-bent for the rest rooms, which are almost at the bottom of the big hill. Echo is in the back, crossing her legs too.

See, how snarky I am? I can even type text next to the photos, just like I knew what I was doing! The Crozet (pronounced Cro-zay) Rest Stop is really nice, a big patch of green for Echo to sniff to her heart's content, and find the perfect place to leave her masterpiece. I avail myself of the indoor facilities, wander the spacious picnic area, and generally kill time, because ONCE AGAIN, I am about an hour-and-a-half earlier than I said I'd be.

(Why do I think this drive takes 6 hours? Because 300 miles at 50 mph is 6 hours? No one drives 50 mph, even with bathroom breaks)! Sheepishly, I cell phone everyone I can think of to chat with, postponing the inevitable--calling Mark & Jo to tell them that I'm early. I use the excuse of asking if there's anything I can pick up in town before heading out to their semi-rural abode, but they always say "No, just come on ahead."

As I drive the last 20 miles or so, I picture them throwing on clothes, stuffing socks under couch cushions and exclaiming to each other, "Why does she always show up so EARLY!?!"

La Casa de Goldberg:

Destination at last! Mark & Jo completely renovated this 1970's contemporary house with high-ceilings & triangle windows up by the roof line. I love their house. It is my dream house. Fill it with two of the most generous and fun friends in the world, and you have a little slice of heaven.

Mark & Jo know who they are dealing with, but they break out the fabulous 1997 La Mistral anyway, for cocktail hour. Funny how I always time my arrival for that "sun's over the yardarm" time of day, isn't it? Seeing as how the kitchen garbage seems to be the center of this picture, perhaps I should work on my photo composition skills? Later. Let's open another bottle of wine, shall we? Just to make sure all those 1990s vintages haven't gone bad.

Travel-weary, and a little libated, I get a chance to be Dogs' Best Friend. Kona is the best-behaved dog EVER, and I keep hoping Echo will emulate this paragon of dog-virtue, someday. I call them Light Brown and Dark Brown, but they don't pay attention to that at all, probably because in their visual world, they see each other as Light Gray and Dark Gray. And why would dogs understand the whole concept of color anyway? Nevermind. The doggies--they love me.

All is right with the world.

And since this was so much fun, tomorrow we'll do the return trip. It's shorter, because the weather was really pretty bad, and who wants to just look at the southbound side of the highway (since the northbound was so edge-of-your-seat exciting)? I can offer some twists however--the return trip includes a stop at the Dixie American Cafe, and a scintillating description of my lunch.