Windshield Time

Day 242
Sevierville TN- Fort Chiswell VA

Up and out bright and early. Our east coast tour is starting to hit it's stride. Today we will be racking up some miles as we cannonball 200 miles north to a one night stop over in Virginia. Hills on the highway are long and rolling. We make good time and get to the RV park fairly early. Before 1 pm, Penny is parked and set up. Lunch is out of the way and the dog has been walked. This stop over point I picked out was a strategic decision. The goal of the trip was to see every state and every national park. We already missed a couple of parks when we were out west, but I'll be dammed if we are going to skip an entire state.

Eli hops into Shirley and Katie takes the wheel. The highway takes us a little bit on a backtrack south before we turn west and head for the border. Forty miles from the RV park we get to a tunnel that is our sign of success. On the other side of this lies the great state of West Virginia. 

Katie turns off the highway looking for a spot to snap a picture of Eli (third goal; dog pic in every state). A sign on the side of the road points at what appears to be a gravel driveway. West Virginia had this labeled as County Highway 318 and said the town of Ada was down this way. A prime example of why you should always tow a 4x4 behind a motor home. The road turned to a single track soft gravel lane with 100 ft drop offs. Think I'm exaggerating? Check out this switchback on the way down. Yeah... a county highway.

Pulling off the road for the first few miles was not an option. Here we took the opportunity to snap a pic of the dog. I could hear a rumbling in the distance. A tractor with a man showed up and pulled over. "Ya'll ok?" was the first thing he said to me. A rough looking 40 year old with plenty of tattoos and a cigarette in his mouth looked back at me. I told him why we were there and that we have been traveling the country. The man proceeded to let me know that he owned all the land between the highway and the town we were going to. Apparently the county granted him clemency of the road and he was on his way to put in a gate. "Just make sure ya'll are out of here by tomorrow night. I'll be putting in gates on both sides and ya'll will be locked in". I let him know we were just passing through and he reassured me we were welcome here until tomorrow and there was no reason to rush. Welcome to West Virginia.

An hour drive back home brought us to the rolling pasture land of Virginia. We had a couple more walking miles to get in for the day and needed to do it before the rain came in. Virginia is a beautiful place. Reminds me of home.