Day 1, 28th October 2000.
In the beginning....
After a later than expected night out with Linda and Turtle we woke up a little later than planned but still managed to get out the door relatively early with, so far, everything that we planned to bring. The first picture is Jef and ZPOWER, we had planned to have all three of us in the picture but the spare photographer was still asleep. Just as we were about to leave the B****** landlord pointed out that creatures had broken into one of the rubbish bags outside and as such the rubbish men refused to pick it up and therefore the first 15 minutes of the trip involved tidying up the bins.
The Journey
Today's journey took us from Greenwich, CT to Staunton VA via five other states (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and West Virginia).
Through Pennsylvania we caught sight of a caravan of Amish wagons on their way
to market. Jef got his first taste of the CB, listening in to the truckers
to obtain intelligence as to the whereabouts of law enforcement (Smokey,
Bear etc.). The first conversation that our little radio captured was
about a 'big ole red truck' which has now become part of our standard
vocabulary.
We
took a slight detour through the scenic Shenandoah National park along the ridge
of the Blue Ridge Mountains. As you can see from the picture an
over-exuberant driver could find themselves on final approach with the bottom of
the valley pretty quickly. While this was an exceedingly beautiful part of
the country we couldn't help but be frustrated by the sightseers who thought
that it would be amusing to potter along at 20mph along the whole route with a
queue of cars behind. We saw hundreds upon hundreds of corvettes and thus
the day was pronounced 'national corvette day'
We only had to refuel once today and we were getting an astonishing 24mpg
(that's US gallons based on the inadequately sized US pint).
Arrival
We arrived in
Staunton in the late afternoon and find some plush digs at the local Econo
Lodge. We were pleasantly surprised except for the problem of not having a
socket to plug the modem into hence the delay in putting the web page up.
Evening entertainment was recommended by the girl at the desk a the Econo Lodge,
telling us that the Texas Steakhouse and Saloon was where her boyfriend took her
for special dates. We couldn't get over how friendly the people here were and
had a good night although turned in early at midnight. Beer wasn't great
but the atmosphere made up for it. Below are some of the interesting folk
that we met.
The lads
with one of the staff, Robin.
Lisa, our barmaid
for the evening.
Two strange
ladies (Randi and Gwen) who insisted they wanted to become famous by appearing
on our site!! Randi is the one without the hat!
After a later than expected night out with Linda and Turtle we woke up a little later than planned but still managed to get out the door relatively early with, so far, everything that we planned to bring. The first picture is Jef and ZPOWER, we had planned to have all three of us in the picture but the spare photographer was still asleep. Just as we were about to leave the B****** landlord pointed out that creatures had broken into one of the rubbish bags outside and as such the rubbish men refused to pick it up and therefore the first 15 minutes of the trip involved tidying up the bins.