Day 5 April 10 continued.

After stocking up with victuals for the ensuing trek we decided that this was a day to make some time so we stayed off the back roads and headed down the I-81. Now this is a serious highway! There are no sightseers here. Anyone on this road is in a hurry – 4 lanes of American steel hurtling on in random and unannounced lane changes just to see if you are really paying attention.

I have never seen so many 18 wheelers. Literally there were times when we had transport trucks in front, behind and next to us – sort of like a steel and rubber coffin rolling along at 65 miles per hour. At one point I had to turn on my high beams to compensate for the lack of sunlight.

When you pull off in traffic like this you are faced with the onerous task of re-entering the flow of traffic using what have to be the shortest merge lanes in the world. Firstly you wait for something that you might jokingly call a break in the traffic, that means any space that is slightly more than one of your vehicle lengths. Let me take you through this from the driver’s seat. First, having spotted an approaching ‘break’ you abandon all reason and put the accelerator to the floor – right to the floor! The BRT lurches into action and pushes you back into your seat – a feeling that I imagine is somewhat akin to a space shuttle launch. At this point I am grateful for every one of the BRT’s ten cylinders that are now sucking on my gas tank like a crew of drunken sailors at an all you can drink beer fest. My navigator is shouting ‘bogie closing in at your 6 o’clock Maverick’ and I respond ‘ I see him Goose’. I check my rear view camera and the screen is filled with the chrome bumper of some eighteen wheeled laviathan that has a hood ornament the size of a VW beetle. in hindsight it may very well have been some misfortunate VW that misjudged it’s re-entry trajectory. Suddenly warning lights are flashing on the dash, Scotty comes on the com ‘ Captain, I kenna hold her, she’s starting to break up’. ‘Divert power from the shields I bellow, she’ll take it’. And sure enough we merge with traffic and assume orbit with the rest of the fleet. Just another day on board the BRT.

My absolute favourite parts of the drive were the areas marked ‘road work in progress’. Theses were the areas where single lanes were set up with the creative use of Jersey Barriers, a lot of really, really big Jersey Barriers, 6 feet tall and set apart seemingly just 6″ wider than the Dumboesque mirrors on the BRT. This constraint didn’t seem to dissuade the truckers from maintaining their same speed, they are tall enough that their mirrors are above the barriers. Now I must admit I am still smarting from my close encounter with the A. MacKay bridge at home so feeling the pressure of the rigs behind me to maintain speed, the experience was what I imagine luge racing to be except that a slight misjudgement in course doesn’t scrub seconds off your time, it scrubs bits off your RV.

Our journey took us across the Mason Dixon line, which was cause for a bit of redecoration on the beast. At our first pit stop over the line I peeled off the Greenpeace bumper stickers and replaced them with my NRA decals. I also stuck on a couple of those fake gunshot hole decals – just so everyone knows this isn’t our first time down South.

We made it to Front Royal at the start of the skyline trail but since none of the federal campsites were opened we spent the night at a Virginia State park called the Andrew Guest State Park. It was a great park with both water and electrical hook ups so we could finally set up camp and be self sufficient. The weather is amazing. Driving these last couple of days has been like fast forwarding spring and we have hit a couple of record breaking days, temperature wise. The mercury hit over 90 degrees today and we had to turn on the A/C to cool the RV down. Leftovers from our Italian meal of the day before made for a quick and tasty supper with Jane and Ike and we had a great campfire and ukelele singsong before turning in for the night.

 

Day 6 – April 11

Before we managed to have breakfast we got a visit from the campsite ‘host’. This is a volunteer position and the role is to make sure you have paid (after hour entry is on the honour system) and to offer whatever information they might think useful. Forty- five minutes later we had a complete copy of his family tree as well as a clear understanding of the challenges of the bathroom door operation in his RV – his wife smacks him in the face when she opens the door. Such is the life of a campsite host. Clearly a people person, he loves to talk and made us feel very welcome in Virginia. He advised us of a nice campsite a couple of hours away and after a hike alongside the Shenandoah River, in the 90 degree heat we had a refreshing shower and headed off down the Skyline Highway.

The Skyline runs through the Shenandoah National Park and the winding two lane roads are in beautiful condition. Miles of lovely stone wall offer some comfort that you are not going to careen off the road to your death in the valley below and numerous pull-offs provide opportunities to take in the great scenery. Trees are in full blossom here. The dogwoods, magnolias, forsythia and cheery trees are spectacular in their spring colours!

The southern leg of the Skyline was closed due to a planned burn – part of their forest management so we had to leave the Skyline and rejoin it further south where it merges into the Blue Ridge Parkway. Now the Blue Ridge Parkway is a state road and unlike the Skyline Highway does not have either the same quality of road or the same deference for safety. One miscalculation on this road would put you several hundred feet down a cliff. The Blue Ridge also didn’t blow its yearly budget on signage, which resulted in a great deal of extra work for Diane today as she was the designated navigator. However, by 8:00 we pulled into our sites at Sherando Lake Recreation Area.

Diane fired up the oven, threw in the pizza stone and with the addition of some pillsbury dough and toppings from Jane we had a great supper.

Day 9 – April 12

We had a heavy rainfall overnight and yet another RV learning lesson – even windows left open a little bit will let in a substantial amount of water. We have some cushions to dry out today but the rain had subsided to a few rain showers with signs of clearing by 10:00. As Family # 1 and Family # 2 held a planning session in the BRT we were joined by a small bird that flew in through a 6″ square sliding panel in our screen door. Opening up the windows in the front doors provided an easy escape route.

We drove on through the Blue Ridge till mid afternoon when lack of fuel for the vehicles and ourselves forced us off the parkway into Bedford Virginia, a pleasant little town where we had a late lunch in a bakery and got this wi fi connection. We haven’t decided on where to stay tonight but think it might be close to Roanoke.