Scamp, Travel

Life in the Slow Lane: the Road Trip Part of This Vacation

by stacey

It’s 4:00pm on July 4th weekend, and I am loading the car with what I sincerely hope is the last bag of “stuff-I-definitely-need-but-probably-won’t-open-the-entire-trip.”

I am ready to get on the road. I am ready for vacation to start.

Bike wheels gotta go somewhere.

We’ll be spending 6 weeks perusing the middle of the country, starting with Virginia.

Southern Virginia, which is 12 hours away from where we are and while towing the Scamp, that means 55mph the whole way.

So it’s really 12 hours, plus at least 4 more for coffee, gas, bad decisions about what to eat at the roadside truck stops, and obeying the speed limit.

Despite the fact that I can’t sit still for more than 5 minutes, I do love road trips. 

I love the anticipatory packing, the Tetris-game of stuffing the car, and the subtle changes from New England scenery as we head south and west.

I especially love the giant road-side billboards that pepper the highways every few miles south of the Mason-Dixon line : Are You Going to Heaven or Hell? I want to call the hotline to learn my fate. Or do I?

I love the random lottery that is the gas station bathroom stop. Will this one have a door that locks? Is it clean enough that I don’t have to hold my breath? Maybe this one will have toilet paper? 

Can you see the flies?
Maybe you can’t see the flies. Be glad.

The best part of gas stops is that I do laps around the car and camper while we fill up. On a good day I can get at least 500 steps per fuel break. 

I thrive with a few road trip tricks. Lemme share a few:

  • Google Maps. Not for route finding, per se, but to find all of the things I am missing out on as we zip right by. Just search for “parks”, and BAM, outdoor opportunities abound, wherever you are. Side note: Shank Park?!?
I’m sure it’s lovely but I am going to stay away from “Shank Park”, just in case.
  • A tennis ball to rub out kinks in your back from sitting still for more than 5 minutes. I drove across country twice before I learned this trick.
Muscle saver. Back saver. Time saver since you don’t have to stop to walk around. The humble tennis ball.
  • This Dollar Store suction cup miraculous shade screen. I don’t care where I am in the car; driving, passenger, backseat driving; the sun seeks me out. I fear the sun. My perfect day is overcast and 60 degrees. We should relocate to Scotland, come to think of it.
This screen comes out and stays up until I see the moon.
  • The Stuff You Should Know podcast, which conveniently chunks itself into 1 hour (ish) episodes, so I can count down by episode: “only 3 episodes until we’re there!” Things I have learned on this trip:
  • How the Grand Ole Opry works
  • What a Mycologist Does
  • How Sea Monsters Work
  • Are Good Samaritan Laws Effective?

(I was so inspired by the Grand Ole Opry episode, I bought two tickets for next week to see Sam Bush while we were streaming the episode). Otherwise, mycologists study mushrooms, sea monsters are imaginary (buy I believe in them, so not really) and yes, they are.

That’s good podcasting.

Fast forward 6 relatively uneventful hours later. Well, uneventful except for that moment outside Hazelton, PA, where I sincerely thought the world was going to end.

We watched lightning bolt across the sky and the clouds pile up until it was so dark I thought it was midnight, and watched as people pulled their (non-camper towing) vehicles to the roadside to wait out the torrential rain, avoid the probability of hydroplaning and then subsequent certain death by careening off the road into the construction zones that are, um, everywhere.

I also play the License Plate and Alphabet games. The farthest license plate I saw was Arkansas (so far). And all of the letters of the alphabet (except J) are ridiculously more easy to find now than when I was a kid playing this game in the car.

6 hours to go and we drive right by Hershey Pennsylvania and don’t stop. 

We didn’t stop. 

In CHOCOLATE TOWN. 

Okay, we didn’t detour because we have been there before, and it’s 8:00 in the morning and the world doesn’t open for normal people until 10:00am. But still.

Chocolate.

The rest of the road trip proceeded uneventfully. A few more laps around the gas station. The impossible search for peanut M&Ms in Hershey country. Interesting local talk shows on the radio.

And then we finally passed into LOVE country (Virginia), and decided to Google “breweries” instead of “parks”.

All you need is LOVE.
And oversized novelty signs.

College towns always have good breweries. Lunch stop in Harrisonburg, VA to make sure the local beer is up to scratch (it is), and peanut butter sandwiches are still good (they are). This breaks up the remaining 3 hours nicely.

Liquid Lunch at Pale Fire Brewing

Next up, a pass by Fleet Feet Sports in Roanoke to pick up our race numbers for tomorrow’s 4-miles on the Fourth running race. (Well, running for most people. Self-induced suffering for 40 minutes and counting steps and songs in my head for me).

Maybe if they shot fireworks at me, I could have a decent race time.

A note on Google maps: sometimes I think it likes to take you down obscure back roads that are only one-car wide, and over rollercoaster “highways” just to see if you have the guts to take on the Google overlords and write a review about their suggested directions.

Two double side-banked turns that would make Jeff Gordon proud later, and we have arrived at the campground and set up our home on wheels for the next week. It’s really, really hilly, so we went for a walk because we are really, really tired of sitting in the car.

Not sure what the ranch gate on the top of the hill is for, but it’s certainly scenic.

Now that the first drive is over, it’s a whole week before we get to do it again.

Going to soak up every minute and avoid the car as much as possible.

Happy trails!