|
Oakville, ON to Staunton, VA |
 |
|
.. |
 |
|
.. |
 |
|
.. |
 |
|
turning south at Erie, PA, if we wished to hit the Atlantic south of Washington, D.C. .. |
 |
|
.. |
 |
|
Our first
"mistake": Navigator Al was caught napping and
missed a turn to the east just after Pittsburgh. "No
problem," he assured Marc, "we'll take Hwy 250 which is
marked as a relatively major road, and looks like it
may even be a bit shorter." Famous last words!!
.. |
 |
|
|
 |
|
.. |
 |
|
we stopped at this deserted-looking garage in the middle of nowhere. .. |
 |
|
|
 |
|
.. |
 |
|
|
 |
|
.. |
 |
|
|
 |
|
.. |
 |
|
Things were going swimmingly until about an hour
later when darkness fell and the road began to wind
and wind to the right as we slowly ascended the first
of several mountains. For variety, the endless right
turns and ascents alternated with dizzying descents
along a never-ending series of switchbacks. But this
wasn't too bad. Our beloved VW Golf with 360,000
km. on the odometer purred right along at
the speed limit except for 15 mph in the worst of the
turns. Then we hit fog at the higher elevations.
Progress sometimes being a curse, we no longer have
the option of driving with parking lights only. This
would have been perfect here, where the bare road
would have a nice black in contrast to the snowy
verges! And then...
|
 |
| ...
the
snow began! In order to
commemorate the event in pixels (above), we pulled over in one of the few
spots where the road had a shoulder. Continuing on, we
were soon chafing behind a local who was crawling along
at under 10 mph. After the latter had lost sight of the
road, crossed the double yellow lines and nearly gone
off the cliff on the left, he stopped. His passenger
stuck an arm out the window to wave us by. It was then
that we began to realize just how difficult it was to be
in the lead in these conditions: we couldn't see 10 feet
in front of the car what with the fog and snow! Al
hunched over with his nose to the windshield and tried,
with varied amounts of success, to keep track of the
double yellow line on the road beside his front wheel.
Very fortunately, the road was still bare and relatively
dry! Marc meanwhile, was doing navigational duties with
shouts such as: "You're going off the road/into the
cliff/into the guard rail!!" After what seemed like
hours, the road descended back into stretches of mere
fog and then, lucky us, clear stretches. After we
repeated this whole procedure on a few more of the
Allegheny Mountains, we were relieved to reach Staunton,
Virginia - and surprised to realize it was only about 9
p.m. We grabbed the first motel we found, an aptly named
budget-type inn. After taking possession of our room and
unhitching SHADES, we ravenously rushed out to a
near-by Italian restaurant which had great food, a
friendly, helpful proprietor and was clean. Back at the
motel we quickly used the spartan shower facilities,
tried to get used to the cheap motel smell, and hit the
sheets which were nice and clean. The last thing Al
heard before passing out, was Marc saying: "Whatever you
do, don't look under the bed!" I didn't. Marc didn't
sleep as well as I did, muttering something about hourly
changes of occupants in the rooms next to ours... ...
|