OK, it may seem like we went into hibernation but I assure you, we have been proceeding more or less as planned with our trip. We’re in New York right now after a busy and tiring week in Washington DC.
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Since we’re so far behind in our blogging (we last posted nine days ago), we have a dilemma about how to proceed—do we continue sequentially? or do we tell you about what’s happening now, and catch you up later on what happened in the interim?
For now, we’re going to continue sequentially, and hope that some day we’ll catch up to the present day. But please comment to let us know what you want to hear about—The Way We Were, or What’s Happening Now?
When last you heard news from our intrepid adventurers, it was the end of Day 5 and we had arrived in Seymour, IN. It took us two more days to get to DC from there, so now let us tell you the story of Day 6.
Day 6: Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia
Since we were somewhat behind schedule, we sort of booked through this day (hence, we took few pictures). Well, at least, we made good time after a leisurely breakfast at Cracker Barrel. Sandy had to have grits (an addiction which she blames on Kathy, one of her college roommates) and they have good low-carb options as well. Once on the road, we passed through Cincinnati, where US-50 winds directly through town along the river. It appears to be a really nice city, but we didn’t stop there to find out for sure. We also passed through Chilicothe, the “First Capital” of Ohio, and then drove into West Virginia.
Of all the states we’ve been in so far, West Virginia has had the least to offer in terms of scenery. There were lots of rolling hills covered with tall trees, but the trees were bare, so it really just looked brown and woody. We agreed that the scenery would probably have been much nicer had we driven through in the fall, or later in the spring. We stopped for dinner in Clarksburg, which advertised at its border that it is “becoming an inclusive community.” After driving through some pretty run down areas, we got to Minard’s Spaghetti Inn, recommended by both our travel guides. Minard’s featured decent Italian fare—it’s ranked as one of the top ten restaurants in the state—and more impressively, has been owned and operated by the same family for more than seventy years. But whatever the merits of the food might have been, the most memorable part of the experience was the constant stares from some of the other customers and even one of the waitresses. Was it because we were strangers? because we were the only “people of color” there? You make the call—all I know is, if this is the “more inclusive” Clarksburg, I’m quite pleased not to have experienced it prior to that transformation.
At this point, it was dark and we had the option of staying in Clarksburg or passing through the Appalachians at night. We opted for the night drive, which was probably the right decision but Sandy took the driving shift and it was NOT a fun drive. For much of the drive, the pass was so windy that we slowed to 20 miles per hour or less, or pulled over altogether so others (presumably more familiar with the road than we were) could pass us. All in all, if we were able to pick one state we could just have skipped over on the drive east, West Virginia would have been the hands-down selection.
We made it into Winchester, Virginia that night. That town is known for a few things but (so far as I’m concerned) the most important one is that Patsy Cline lived here as a child, and is buried here. Not that we cared—we drove straight to a Hampton Inn and passed out there.
The Map
Thanks to Tiffany for knowing we were talking to her when we asked for map usage advice. (Tiffany, I accidentally deleted your comment--I'm new at this internet thing.) We now know to create a new map with each blog post. Rather than reusing the old map, we just import the map data to the new map. Anyway, here's the map current to the end of Day 6.
Photos
The home of the mighty Bengals.
That's right, Cincinnati features historic Turkey Bottoms. 'Nuff said.
Owensville, Ohio is another town in which highway 50 is also known as Main Street.
I guess Ohio segregates the guys from the girls?
The cool guys move from Guysville to Coolville.
This scenery is typical of what we saw from the West Virginia highway
The well-known Minard's Spaghetti Inn.
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