Home at last

We packed things up and headed back toward home on Wednesday morning. The weather promised to be better and we figured to make it a two day trip on the way home. Our preferred route was to come down I79 to Rt. 19 and then to I77. Coming that way takes us over the New River bridge, so we stopped at the visitors center.

This bridge is the highest bridge east of the Mississippi and is closed to pedestrian traffic. Except for one day a year when it closes to vehicles and is opened to pedestrians. This year it's October 15th. It's called "Bridge Day" and is another local spectacle with vendors and food and arts and crafts. But the thing that makes it special are the BASE jumpers who jump off the bridge and try to land on a target below. I just can't imagine it. Why would anyone jump off a perfectly good bridge? But, they do!

From the bridge, we traveled on down to Beckley and to Tamarac, which is billed as "The Best of West Virginia". And it certainly is in terms of craft articles. They have furniture, books, textiles, pottery, wooden ware, wine and much more. The prices reflect the quality so we looked and bought a cookbook and then moved on.

We wound up for the night at Wytheville, on I81, at a Cracker Barrel. It was a good stop with a pretty good place to park until the morning delivery truck rolled in and ruined the rest of the night. Oh well.

Thursday morning we left early and headed down I77 only to get off at Fancy Gap so we could cruise the Blue Ridge Parkway for a while and stop at the Blue Ridge Music Center. This museum of country music is quite new and they have done an excellent job of illustrating the origins and growth of early country and bluegrass music. If you like Bluegrass at all, this is the place to go to learn about the "Crooked Road", a music trail that winds through the mountains.

We kept on the parkway until Boone, a distance of about 80 miles, with a quick stop at the Northwoods Trading Post and the shops at Glendale Springs. Then it was down Rt. 421 to I85 and home.

Our trip took us a total of 2445 miles and we managed 11.3 mpg on fuel. We never paid for a night of lodging, either boondocking at a store or staying in the yard of relatives. We saw lots of neat things and spent valuable time with our relatives. And, of course, we ate our way across the northeast. We can't wait to do it all again.