Life of Brian

Even though we took seven photos today towards the Motoring Challenge, we only picked up 5 points. This is because nothing is final until I mail off the CD of photos to Moss, any photo taken or posted here is subject to being replaced.

A chance read in the Missouri Travel Guide led us to the photo above of the World’s Largest Rocking Chair on Old Route 66 which is replacing (possibly for now) the World’s Largest Peanut from Georgia. The Popeye’s Picnic one below replaces the lame one we took the other day.

Sometimes the changes happen before we even finish driving for the day. Today’s state of Missouri is one such case. Right after we crossed the Mississippi River there was a nice, but typical, Welcome To The State sign, so we took the photo just to check that objective off. Later in the day as we drove the last stretch of road, which just happened to be Old Route 66, I noticed that the nice little Historic Byway signs had the state’s name in it. We both liked this idea better.

Started in Kentucky in the rain, crossed the Ohio River into Indiana and the sun came out, so the top went down. It stayed down until after lunch in French Lick. It stayed up for the rest of the way to tonight’s destination, Mt. Vernon, IL.

French Lick was not at all like we pictured in our heads. We thought small town USA, but what we found was Disney-esque mixed with historic, mixed with wanting to be a real tourist destination. We ate lunch at a newish place called 33 Brick Street which is trying to play on Larry Bird’s jersey number to bring in the clientele. I don’t know how it’s doing, but judging by the lunch crowd at 12 noon today, not so good as Donna and I were the only customers in the joint and I’m betting our $13 lunch check didn’t even cover the cost of serving it to us.

When I was standing in the lobby of the hotel I noticed what looked like a small replica of the Washington Monument through the door next to I-57/64. I asked the desk clerk what the deal was with the tiny monument and she explained the Washington connection to me, we are in a town that has the same name as the plantation owned by the Father of Our Country, Mt. Vernon. Duh! She said it gets even better, the Ford dealership in town is run from a replica of that plantation home.

After dinner we drove over and took a photo and tried to sort of recreate our real Washington Monument photo from 3 days ago, I’m going to use it as one of my two Sneak Peek Bonus photos for July-Oct.

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: