Our Weather Mojo Failed Us

Before we drove away from the motel in Roanoke a couple days ago I ducked into the lot next to the parking lot and found an old old old African American cemetery on a knoll next to the interstate.  It was amazingly peaceful and I was struck to notice that each and every stone had an artificial flower in front of it.  I wasn't the only visitor either, there was a groundhog munching on the grass off to the side.

Our drive to Huntington, WV was an adventure.  We told Robert, the GPS, that we wanted to avoid toll roads so he dumped us off the interstate onto state highways, still four lanes, that led us twisting and turning through the mountains.  The adventurous part was when we got close to the first toll booth.  Robert sent us off the highway onto a ONE LANE, barely paved road that took us parrallel-ish along the highway but through a "holler" with little houses and trucks up on blocks.  It was pretty but slow and a little gut clenching when we met an oncoming vehicle.  Once we climbed back onto the real highway I reprogrammed Robert so that we didn't have any more "adventurous" roads like that.  Eesh.  All of that to skip a $2 toll.  But the scenery got prettier and prettier as we got deeper into West Virginia and when we passed Charleston there was the capitol building about a block from the highway.  It was pretty and fun to see.

The weather also let us down.  As we neared Huntington the clouds lowered and started snagging on the mountaintops and a little drizzle wet the windshield.  On Thursday morning it was actively raining when we left the motel only to discover that a semi had rolled on the interstate so the nearest on-ramp was closed and the police were dumping all west-bound traffic onto the surface roads with us.  Because it wasn't a real detour there weren't any signs telling us where to go, so we cracked open a map (retro, right?) and followed the crowd.  Before long we had skipped a couple on-ramps and chanced getting on and succeeded.  It was very cloudy and rainy all the way through Kentucky, where we were within 100 miles of DD (Durwood called her to say hi but we couldn't stop *sigh*), and into Indiana.  Once we got into Cincinnati it was only cloudy and the city was pretty to drive into.

Robert brought us right to our motel, I called Aunt G, and we went only 2 miles to their house.  They took us to supper at Gray's which is a cafeteria that Mom was a big fan of, then we went back to their place for homemade apple pie with ice cream.  You're jealous, trust me.

This is our last vacation day.  We're going down for a waffle in the lobby then we'll motor off home.  It's been fun but it's time to go home.  I'm out of socks.
--Barbara