Up The East Coast
Oct. 8th, 2021 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waitingmanSouth Carolina to Washington DC... 2012
Oct. 7 Sunday – Charleston to Christiansburg
We staggered downstairs to the breakfast buffet somewhere around 9ish & once again aroused the curiosity of nearby diners with our tube of Vegemite. Tastes good on toasted bagels, not that we could convince anyone else... Coffee wasn’t too bad & almost made up for not having a Nespresso that morning. Checking out, it was tome to see what this historic town looked like in daylight & for our first stop, we headed back to Fort Sumter, to discover it was a grey blob on the harbour horizon, not the building we found, which had been closed last night & the next ferry to the actual Fort would leave in about an hour. So we went into the information centre & read all about how many times it had been blown to pieces over the last couple of hundred years & by whom. The tone of the descriptions of Civil War events was very pro-Confederate, especially when it came to the issue of slaves. Given that the site is run by the National Parks, I found this surprising & it left me with the impression there’s still, after one hundred & fifty years, a lot of resentment bubbling away under the surface of what was described in the USA Guide to Lonely Planets as “the most courteous city in America”. It also made it sound like, if the citizens of Charleston had their way, there would still be slaves in the South
This kind of put us off the whole place, especially since the African American people we’d encountered at our motel, on the front desk & doing room-service, had been so friendly to us. So rather than head into town for a historical wander, we programmed Jeeves Navman for the journey to Virginia & left. We had a six hour drive & a dinner at 6.30pm, so we had to get a move on anyway
A long haul through South & then North Carolina, until the northern end of the Appalachians appeared on the horizon & the temperature dropped about twenty five degrees in ten minutes. We crossed into Virginia & began the climb into green mountains with tendrils of mist clinging to them crying out to be photographed, but there was nowhere to pull over. Once into the dales & vales on the other side, I saw three red barns in the space of five minutes that were exactly what I wanted to get pictures of... only we were still on a busy motorway & there was, once again, nowhere to stop safely. I may have become a bit audibly upset about that at this point...
Arriving at the Christiansburg Quality Inn at, surprise, surprise, around sunset, we just had time for a change of clothes before heading to Due South – a southern BBQ joint which had been recommended by a friend of Julia’s who lives nearby. Jeremiah, his partner Laura & their nine-week-old child Lois were waiting for us when we arrived, as were Chris & Jo, who we’d last seen in San Francisco. Jo lives & works in Virginia & this weekend was conveniently Chris’ turn to visit her. Jeremiah & Laura turned out to be quite friendly & chatty, Lois obviously wasn’t, but she lay quite happily in her carry-basket, occasionally sucking on Jeremiah’s fingers & drifting in & out of sleep. A large, but tasty amount of food later, Chris & Jo suggested a drive to Frosty Parrot, a frozen yoghurt place in the nearby town of Blacksburg. We all concurred, even though it was cold enough outside already. I can report that chocolate flavoured yoghurt goes really well with Froot Loops. I know it sounds weird & maybe a bit wrong, but it’s true...
Plans were made for the seven of us to meet for breakfast tomorrow, then into our respective cars & off to our respective homes, or home-away-from-home in our case
Oct. 8 Monday – Christiansburg to Washington D.C.
A bit of a sleep-in this morning, as we weren’t meeting up with anyone ‘til about 11am. So, back to Blacksburg & a table for seven at the local Waffle House. We three couples were in various stages of wakefulness, with Jeremiah & Laura having been awake longest, but also being most tired due to Lois having various shots this morning. But Lois was asleep for most of breakfast & only woke shortly after we’d finished eating & just before we said goodbye to her parents, then the remaining four of us headed down the road in quite brisk cold to a coffee house that Chris & Jo promised did good espresso coffee. And they did – the soy mochas Julia & I had were a bit too hot immediately, but once they’d cooled, were almost like being back home except for the large cup size (even small is big in the USA). More farewells, saying goodbye to Chris & Jo again, after having already done so once, back in San Francisco, but this time for sure... we won’t see them again this trip. Back to Steve & we programmed Jeeves to take us to West Virginia & on to Washington D.C.
Rain again, occasionally heavy enough to reduce road vision to not very much at all, which made the mountain curves & truck-dodging that much more fun. Towards the top end of Virginia is the Natural Bridge – an arch cut through limestone by a river in much the same way as Jenolan Caves & others back home. This was another example, like Lookout Mountain in Tennessee, of the Land of Opportunity taking the opportunity to fleece travellers $20 each to look at the arch, but justify the money by including a Wax Museum, tawdry Indian Village, Toy Museum & a butterfly display room
After seeing & photographing the Bridge, which was quite impressive, we bypassed the waxworks, museum & village, but stopped in at the butterflies, which were alive & fluttering around a humid room full of plants, tourists & a damp, bored-looking junior Ranger. One of the larger specimens landed on my arm & hitched a ride around part of the room, flying off just as I managed to line up a photograph one-handed. All very nice, but not worth the $40 paid
Back on the road & a convoluted route that took us off the highway, through a small town, then back on the same highway & eventually we crossed into West Virginia... Mountain Mamas & all that... Beautiful scenes of clouds crawling over the high hillsides, more picturesque small towns & a surprising number of ‘Gentlemen’s Clubs’ on their outskirts... all of which seemed to be housed in converted sheds or barns & none of which we were tempted to stop in at. After a while, we crossed back into Virginia for about half a mile, then crossed the incredibly photogenic Potomac River at a place where no photos could be safely taken (we’re getting begrudgingly used to that by now) & into Maryland as the sun went down somewhere behind the rainclouds
Looking to tick another food chain off the list, we went in search of Chick Fil-A, as immortalised by Ben Folds in his song ‘Army’. The one we found was in the middle of an entertainment complex, but relatively uncrowded. The burgers, or ‘sandwiches’ as they called them, were pleasant enough & quite filling, the sauces were full of HFCS (Why America, why??!!) & the staff was friendly & tolerant of two foreigners who’d never been in their store before. Meal done, we headed for the Lincoln Memorial (Julia: “The Lincoln Memorial... that’s the one with the giant statue of George Washington isn’t it?” Me: ... silence... Julia:”Oh god... just forget I said that...”). After some confusion between where Jeeves wanted us to go versus we could actually go, then finding another way to go where we wanted to go, we arrived at the Memorial which was crawling with people even at 9pm, including a rather large & loud school group who didn’t stay long, but long enough for us to have our tempers frayed a little
Some tripod shots of Honest Abe, then down the marble stairs for some pool reflection shots of the Washington Monument & the Capitol Building, before heading off to find our motel. Some more Jeeves confusion over which ‘New York Ave’ the place was on, took us to a private residence on the opposite side of town to the avenue we wanted, before we turned him off, took out Julia’s i-Phone & Google-mapped our way to the Quality Inn
Miles driven to date: 6400 : States visited: 20
Oct. 7 Sunday – Charleston to Christiansburg
We staggered downstairs to the breakfast buffet somewhere around 9ish & once again aroused the curiosity of nearby diners with our tube of Vegemite. Tastes good on toasted bagels, not that we could convince anyone else... Coffee wasn’t too bad & almost made up for not having a Nespresso that morning. Checking out, it was tome to see what this historic town looked like in daylight & for our first stop, we headed back to Fort Sumter, to discover it was a grey blob on the harbour horizon, not the building we found, which had been closed last night & the next ferry to the actual Fort would leave in about an hour. So we went into the information centre & read all about how many times it had been blown to pieces over the last couple of hundred years & by whom. The tone of the descriptions of Civil War events was very pro-Confederate, especially when it came to the issue of slaves. Given that the site is run by the National Parks, I found this surprising & it left me with the impression there’s still, after one hundred & fifty years, a lot of resentment bubbling away under the surface of what was described in the USA Guide to Lonely Planets as “the most courteous city in America”. It also made it sound like, if the citizens of Charleston had their way, there would still be slaves in the South
This kind of put us off the whole place, especially since the African American people we’d encountered at our motel, on the front desk & doing room-service, had been so friendly to us. So rather than head into town for a historical wander, we programmed Jeeves Navman for the journey to Virginia & left. We had a six hour drive & a dinner at 6.30pm, so we had to get a move on anyway
A long haul through South & then North Carolina, until the northern end of the Appalachians appeared on the horizon & the temperature dropped about twenty five degrees in ten minutes. We crossed into Virginia & began the climb into green mountains with tendrils of mist clinging to them crying out to be photographed, but there was nowhere to pull over. Once into the dales & vales on the other side, I saw three red barns in the space of five minutes that were exactly what I wanted to get pictures of... only we were still on a busy motorway & there was, once again, nowhere to stop safely. I may have become a bit audibly upset about that at this point...
Arriving at the Christiansburg Quality Inn at, surprise, surprise, around sunset, we just had time for a change of clothes before heading to Due South – a southern BBQ joint which had been recommended by a friend of Julia’s who lives nearby. Jeremiah, his partner Laura & their nine-week-old child Lois were waiting for us when we arrived, as were Chris & Jo, who we’d last seen in San Francisco. Jo lives & works in Virginia & this weekend was conveniently Chris’ turn to visit her. Jeremiah & Laura turned out to be quite friendly & chatty, Lois obviously wasn’t, but she lay quite happily in her carry-basket, occasionally sucking on Jeremiah’s fingers & drifting in & out of sleep. A large, but tasty amount of food later, Chris & Jo suggested a drive to Frosty Parrot, a frozen yoghurt place in the nearby town of Blacksburg. We all concurred, even though it was cold enough outside already. I can report that chocolate flavoured yoghurt goes really well with Froot Loops. I know it sounds weird & maybe a bit wrong, but it’s true...
Plans were made for the seven of us to meet for breakfast tomorrow, then into our respective cars & off to our respective homes, or home-away-from-home in our case
Oct. 8 Monday – Christiansburg to Washington D.C.
A bit of a sleep-in this morning, as we weren’t meeting up with anyone ‘til about 11am. So, back to Blacksburg & a table for seven at the local Waffle House. We three couples were in various stages of wakefulness, with Jeremiah & Laura having been awake longest, but also being most tired due to Lois having various shots this morning. But Lois was asleep for most of breakfast & only woke shortly after we’d finished eating & just before we said goodbye to her parents, then the remaining four of us headed down the road in quite brisk cold to a coffee house that Chris & Jo promised did good espresso coffee. And they did – the soy mochas Julia & I had were a bit too hot immediately, but once they’d cooled, were almost like being back home except for the large cup size (even small is big in the USA). More farewells, saying goodbye to Chris & Jo again, after having already done so once, back in San Francisco, but this time for sure... we won’t see them again this trip. Back to Steve & we programmed Jeeves to take us to West Virginia & on to Washington D.C.
Rain again, occasionally heavy enough to reduce road vision to not very much at all, which made the mountain curves & truck-dodging that much more fun. Towards the top end of Virginia is the Natural Bridge – an arch cut through limestone by a river in much the same way as Jenolan Caves & others back home. This was another example, like Lookout Mountain in Tennessee, of the Land of Opportunity taking the opportunity to fleece travellers $20 each to look at the arch, but justify the money by including a Wax Museum, tawdry Indian Village, Toy Museum & a butterfly display room
After seeing & photographing the Bridge, which was quite impressive, we bypassed the waxworks, museum & village, but stopped in at the butterflies, which were alive & fluttering around a humid room full of plants, tourists & a damp, bored-looking junior Ranger. One of the larger specimens landed on my arm & hitched a ride around part of the room, flying off just as I managed to line up a photograph one-handed. All very nice, but not worth the $40 paid
Back on the road & a convoluted route that took us off the highway, through a small town, then back on the same highway & eventually we crossed into West Virginia... Mountain Mamas & all that... Beautiful scenes of clouds crawling over the high hillsides, more picturesque small towns & a surprising number of ‘Gentlemen’s Clubs’ on their outskirts... all of which seemed to be housed in converted sheds or barns & none of which we were tempted to stop in at. After a while, we crossed back into Virginia for about half a mile, then crossed the incredibly photogenic Potomac River at a place where no photos could be safely taken (we’re getting begrudgingly used to that by now) & into Maryland as the sun went down somewhere behind the rainclouds
Looking to tick another food chain off the list, we went in search of Chick Fil-A, as immortalised by Ben Folds in his song ‘Army’. The one we found was in the middle of an entertainment complex, but relatively uncrowded. The burgers, or ‘sandwiches’ as they called them, were pleasant enough & quite filling, the sauces were full of HFCS (Why America, why??!!) & the staff was friendly & tolerant of two foreigners who’d never been in their store before. Meal done, we headed for the Lincoln Memorial (Julia: “The Lincoln Memorial... that’s the one with the giant statue of George Washington isn’t it?” Me: ... silence... Julia:”Oh god... just forget I said that...”). After some confusion between where Jeeves wanted us to go versus we could actually go, then finding another way to go where we wanted to go, we arrived at the Memorial which was crawling with people even at 9pm, including a rather large & loud school group who didn’t stay long, but long enough for us to have our tempers frayed a little
Some tripod shots of Honest Abe, then down the marble stairs for some pool reflection shots of the Washington Monument & the Capitol Building, before heading off to find our motel. Some more Jeeves confusion over which ‘New York Ave’ the place was on, took us to a private residence on the opposite side of town to the avenue we wanted, before we turned him off, took out Julia’s i-Phone & Google-mapped our way to the Quality Inn
Miles driven to date: 6400 : States visited: 20
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Date: 2021-10-08 02:15 pm (UTC)