I got up and took photos this morning (see earlier post) and then got packed, had breakfast and checked out. Breakfast was quite pleasant. I ordered an 'all american' breakfast which is a bit like a full english but without any black pudding. Or mushrooms.
I was informed that they could do my eggs however I wanted. I was tempted to asked for them to be poached, or devilled but I explained that I was foreign and asked the waitress what that meant. Turns out that the eggs come fried, but I can choose to have the yolk anywhere between runny and hard. Glad I asked. Breakfast was tasty.
Never mind, today took me about 340 miles up I64 to Staunton and down I91. All the way from Virginia Beach in Virginia, to Dublin in Virginia.
Leaving Norfolk. Look out, here comes another one of those bridge tunnel things!
Excellent restroom facilities, and not a £9 plastic sandwich in sight!
No sir, I was not taking photos of your Johnson.
The road got a bit more interesting after Richmond as I landed in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains.
Next stop was for Gas and lunch at a Wendy's in Waynesboro.
Fighter Jets operate in this area!
Given the military presence in Virginia, the threat of aircraft enforcement of speeding violations sounds quite serious. With the threat of being shot up by a GAU-8 or deployment of a runway cratering system I didn't speed, I drove at the speed limit or thereabouts all the way. However that didn't stop absolutely everyone, including the trucks, pickups, RVs and scooters overtaking me, until we got to a hill where the trucks all put their hazard lights on and drive a bit slower, but then make up their average speed by doing a bajillion miles per hour down the other side.
Coming from a land where trucks by law aren't allowed to do more than 40 on a lot of roads or 60 anywhere else and are almost universally electronically limited to 56mph anyway, the speed of the big 18 wheeler trucks is one of the most bemusing parts of the driving experience for me.
This is OK here apparently.
This one appears to have altogether too many wheels.
No, it's not tailgating, although that does go on here too. The car is being towed by that rock
concert tour coach except it's not a rock concert tour coach, it's a piddly little
(by local standards) triple-axled campervan. At 80mph.
It seems you're allowed to hitch an articulated lorry trailer to your steroid enhanced pickup too.
I love the massive signs - but then no clues as to how to actually leave the road and get to the premeses.
The weather isn't particularly great, but the sky was interesting today.
Beautiful big curvy Interstate.
Some place names make me giggle. This one isn't even rude!
I stopped again at another excellent rest stop, did some stretches, got some funny looks, didn't take any photos in the gents toilets this time and then carried on.
View from the window of tonight's Motel
Inside the room of tonight's Motel
Outside of tonight's Motel.
Upon check-in tonight I was informed in a beautiful, musical southern drawl that because of my accent and the presence of alphabetical characters in my Zip code (which some hotel check-in systems won't accept), I must be from Canada. There were squeals of delight when I informed the ladies there present that I was not Canadian but from the nearby UK. They were very friendly and told me about the one time they had a British guy staying with them and how they loved his accent too.
The room is comfortable and has a bed which might actually be wider than it is long. However the bath is ankle deep again and someone has half-inched the bath plug. Shower from a dribbly showerhead tonight. )c:
Saw my first Skunk today.
I went out for a little drive to see if I could find a sign that told me I was in Dublin, VA so I could park Camry next to it, take a photo and make some witty comment about the town being founded by Sir Alex Guinness but there isn't one.
So, instead of that I will just reinforce some stereotypes. There are several trailer parks within a mile or 2 of here and I saw this dead Skunk on my travels. As I gently bimbled around it at the posted 45mph, the pickup truck that had been tailgating me down the twisty road suddenly performed what might possibly be described in the deep-south highway code as the 'emergency arms-crossed lock-up swerve-brake manouvre' into the middle of the road in order to avoid running it over. I turned off a short while later and went back on myself to park up and take this photo.
Skunks smell bad. I totally understand why pickup guy didn't want any part of it on his car. I genuinely smelled this one a long time before I saw it. Blech. Looks like they do less physical damage than Badgers.
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