Turnabout Is Fair Play

Yesterday’s route was scheduled to include about 30 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway from east of Lexington, VA to end up in Waynesboro, VA. The parkway is a great little drive if you are not in a hurry, at least that is how I remembered it, but the road surface has deteriorated since our last forays onto it and this time it seemed kind of boring.

After about 10 miles into the drive I mentioned that I thought this wasn’t nearly as much fun as I thought it would be. My always on the ready Navigator started looking for options. She spotted one. We needed to get off at VA-56 and head south and east until we found VA-814 where we would start heading north where we would pass under the parkway until we found County-644 that would take us directly into Waynesboro. So a few miles later I got off.

The beginning of VA-814 was a lot further than expected, especially following the slow moving traffic on the windy 2-lane road. When we got there, fortunately, none of the 3 or 4 vehicles ahead of turned let onto it. As soon as I turned left we found out why, there was a yellow diamond shaped sign that read “Pavement Ends 2 Miles Ahead.”

Using our calibrated eyeballs we figured it was only 3 miles total ’til the road crossed over or under the parkway, so I said, “What the heck, how bad can it be?” We headed back up the hill. Sure enough two miles later it turned to gravel. As we rose into the woods, the road narrowed some and there were some pretty decent washboard sections on the switch backs, about 2 miles later we popped out right back at the parkway. Across the road was a sign for VA-814 and we said if it was paved we’d go. It was and we did. It was a nicely maintained road on this side of the ridge and it took us close to where we wanted to be to find a Moss Motors Distributor.

Today after ducking into DC and finally figuring out how to escape the clutches of suburban sprawl that surrounds our nation’s capitol city we found some great rural roads paralleling the Potomac River that took us to the western panhandle of Maryland. We got to I-70 and Donna volunteered to take the helm for a while. Well, she lasted about 10 miles of that before wishing she was not involved with the amount of and the varied driving speeds and skills of drivers around her.

I checked the state map in my lap and suggested she try a bit of Historic US-40 that runs closely parallel to I-70. It worked out great the day before with the same configuration of US-11 and I-81 in Virginia. She got off the Interstate and turned onto 40 and was instantly met with the crappiest pavement we had driven over so far the whole trip. Matter of fact there were a couple of places that felt worse than yesterday’s trip up the unpaved VA-814. At least, for both our sakes, a few miles later the surface of the road returned to a more normal condition.

Today’s Motoring Challenge Photos: