Grove City to Sandston

I think Harvey chased us out of Grove City.  The skies were grey and windy when I woke up. 

I drove through Wayne National Forest on my way out of Ohio. 

Once I crossed the Ohio River into West Virginia, the rain had caught up to me. All through West Virginia, over the Appalachians, the rain was steady in that it didn’t stop, but not steady in that it was increasing and lessening in intensity. And it was pretty windy most of the day, too.

Babe passed a milestone that I was able to capture on camera as we had stopped at a stop sign. 

In West Virginia i really enjoyed driving over the Midland Trail aka US 60 through places like Falls View, WV and Hawks Nest State Park. The winding road goes alongside the Kanawha River with many access spots. The drive itself is through a lush ivy covered forest; breathtaking green. It was WOW country. I definitely would love to come back through here again when I can stop. 

But today I had no time to spare. I even had to scrap an ambitious (ridiculous, actually) plan to drive a seven hour day AND fit in a visit to a National Park. Ha. I can barely handle a seven hour drive by itself, let alone a major attraction like Shenandoah. It was a favorite of ours when we went last year, but this time it was raining, and I didn’t feel like arriving at our final destination near Richmond in the middle of the night, so we skipped it. I drove straight through; stopping at convenient places along the highway to eat a sandwich or poop in a bush. I’ll let you wonder who did which. 

We passed through the George Washington National Forest somewhere along the way, too. It was a very scenic day of driving. Probably my favorite on this trip, so far, despite the length.

Once I passed from eastern West Virginia east into western Virginia, the Midland Trail gave way to the Purple Heart Trail, which wasn’t quite as picturesque. Also, this trip officially became coast-to-coast if you measure by state. From Washington to Virginia, my easternmost point.

As it was, we arrived at the motel in Sandston around 8:30pm so I’m glad we didn’t stop and do Shenandoah. We got a great room next to parking. If I arrived here at midnight, I’m sure I’d be on the second floor. 

The rains pounded down on us as we loaded from the car into the room, but I was glad to be getting wet because it meant we were in an outdoor corridor motel. After getting safely inside the room I opened up my ice cooler/luggage to get an avocado, and it felt sticky and gooey. At first I thought it was overripe and mushy soft, but I thought that was nearly impossible since it was inedibly hard just last night. Upon closer examination I saw that it was covered in peanut butter! … As was everything in the top section of my ice chest because the lid came off my brand new full jar of peanut butter. It was nearly emptied and the oily, salted, crunchy, organic contents were all over my foodstuffs and the inside of my bag. It was a horrible poo poo mess; enough to put me off of peanut butter (not really). But yuk. I was so glad I decided to buy those paper towels, (which I never use). I got them out of the car and put them to good use.