Day 51 Pine Grove Pa to Roanoke Rapids NC 385 miles

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

We thought that by the time we drove more than halfway through Pennsylvania we’d break through the cold front and rain. Wrong. It was cool and rainy when we left the KOA at Pine Grove Pa.

The rain, not good for travel, has certainly blessed this agricultural area. The area is beyond lush. The streams and rivers are full and the crops look good. I don’t think I’ve ever seen greener corn….it’s not too tall yet, but green! There are so many valleys between the mountain ridges and the farms are plentiful. The , old stone farm houses over a century old, if walls could talk…

We knew we were to run into some heavy rain today. It seems hard to believe, but this is the first heavy rain we’ve driven in. The only other severe storm was during the night in Hot Springs at the beginning of the trip. Although the clouds were thick and menacing, the heavy rain period lasted less than an hour.

We traveled I81 through the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, through a small portions of Maryland, and West Virginia and finally Virginia. We like to take a route to get over to I95 and avoid the dreaded Beltway around Washington DC. A few years ago we began to take I66 at Front Royal VA, which runs east/west from I81 to the Beltway. We take it for about 20 miles, then drop down to US17, avoid the Beltway and emerge on I95 just below Fredericksburg VA. This one hour drive is absolutely beautiful, through rolling pastures and thick forests. The farms are from the Civil War period. You can almost imagine Union or Confederate troops marching over the next hill. And avoiding the Beltway is good for the nerves too!

The clouds and showers traveled with us to the border of Virginia and North Carolina. I may go blind when I see bright sunshine again. We are staying in a new campground in Roanoke Rapids, NC. Once here, we started trying to decide exactly where we want to end this trip. We were thinking Hattaras but it’s so far out of the way and the weather is iffy…if we want head home, it’s a long drive. Then we thought of Morehead City, which is very nice, but still a good drive from Charleston. Thought of Wilmington, then finally Myrtle Beach. That’s only two hours away from home. Jim was REALLY pushing Myrtle Beach. They have huge camping areas there but it took several calls to find one that had an open spot. This is the first time on the entire trip that we had to make more than one call for a site.

After all this time and all the different campgrounds I found a couple of ticks on the dogs. Actually, I think it was from the place last night, there was a wooded path at the dog walk. Of course, I should have not mentioned it to ‘city boy’ because he immediately started to swat imaginary insects all over his body while driving down the interstate. Sheesh.

We had a simple take- out meal here in the RV. When we went by the plaza near here to pick something up, we noticed the Applebee's was closed. There were several flower bouquets at the front door. We were told that the 29 year old female manager was found dead inside on Tuesday morning, apparently she was murdered late Monday evening.

Tomorrow we head to our home state…we’ve made a pretty big circle, eh? Hopefully, we can get some beach time in before we return to the real world!