The River Road

I had this idea to follow the Ohio River since it’s in my book of scenic drives and passes through stops I had to make. So I picked it up in West Virginia and have followed its banks thus far to Evansville, IN (including the stop Cincinnati). It’s been a pretty nice drive. I am glad that time is not such an issue. I wouldn’t take the river road if I wanted get anywhere specific. I’ve hit turns in the road that are a little over a 180-degree turns. So…driving speeds are kept to about 40 mph or less. The road passes through rolling farms, forest, and over many bluffs. And for someone who doesn’t like writing description that’s enough for me. Here are some pictures.

This is a view of the Ohio from a bluff in Indiana.


The woods in Ohio/West Virginia…and yes this picture was taken while I was driving. It’s pretty interesting to see where you’re going through a digital camera screen.


I thought it would be rather appropriate to listen to Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn while I drove along the Ohio River. It’s the wrong river I realize, but it’s close enough. I’m heading out again tomorrow and just to complete the story tour I’m going to pass through Cairo (pronounced in the book K-row) the town Huck and Jim miss to go north so Jim could be free. And to round it off I think I’ll stop in the Mark Twain National Forest when I get to Missouri.

I now need a new book to listen to…

Gas in Evansville : $2.89

Cincinnati, OH

I have some catching up to do. I wrote this update a while a go, but was not able to post it. I’ve been down for the count with food poisoning, which if you’ve never gotten it is a nasty business. I just have to say, if it had to happen, I’m glad it happened while I was in a place with a bed and bathroom near by. Getting food poisoning while in a campground would have to be in the top ten worst things that could happen.

Anyway, I drove from West Virginia to Cincinnati along the Ohio River – a very winding, but pretty road. I was in Cincinnati for my dad’s family reunion. Now the fact that my dad is from a rather large family only makes things more interesting. I think the last time I actually saw all my relatives on that side (well that’s an exaggeration because I don’t think I have ever seen all my family in one place, that would be a ridiculous amount) I was 10 years old. So really in my knowledge, I have never been in a room with so many people I was related too. In all, it was pretty fun to see people I have haven’t seen since I was little – or I suppose that would be meeting them first time.

This is the house where my dad grew up and heard many stories that made me wonder how all his brothers and sisters lived to adulthood…setting the house on fire, stealing gas from gas stations at night, building carts with an engine and running them down a main street only to have the wheels fall off and the cart go careening down the hill in a mass of sparks, or throwing knives at each other. And really all I can say about all those stories is that my parents can have nothing to complain about. They had it so easy with my sister and I.

The motley Greve clan (the immediate brothers and sisters)…


I had other things planned for the time in Ohio, but alas the time was spent in bed. So I am off to Indiana.

Gas:
Cincinnati - $2.95

Mountain Driving

So... I am in Ripley, WV right now. I drove a lot today, all on two lane roads that were very twisty and turny. My little eyes are bugging out. Yesterday I went to Jamestown, took the Jamestown ferry across the Chesapeake, and then drove across VA to the Blue Ridge Mountians. I slept in my car there (in a camp ground slash the field behind the little league baseball diamonds). It was pretty good, but very sticky hot. So I cracked the windows for air, but by about 1 am…I was getting wet. It had started raining. I scrambled around, crawling over the driver's seat to turn the car on so I could roll up the windows, but in my haste I hit the panic button on my keys - aptly named since it made me panic. So nice of me to alert everyone in the area that I was there. It rained hard all night with car rattling thunder and lightening. I may have been a tin box in a big grass field during a lightening storm, but at least I was dry.

Needless to say I didn't get much sleep, so I took off before it got light and headed up into the Blue Hills and took a nap at a scenic overlook. The Blue Hills as well as the Shenandoah Valley are really beautiful.




Oh and this is for the folks in Boston…it made me laugh. Boston is a knob, not a mountain or even a hill. Just a knob.


I also picked up a couple of hitchhikers just outside the Shenandoah National Park. They were a couple of college-aged kids back packing the Appalachian trial. They wanted a lift into the nearest town to get blue body paint since the next day was hike naked day. They thought they'd paint themselves blue so as not to scare any kids they came across in the Appalachian towns. Somehow I think two naked bodies painted blue might scare them more, but whatever. Hope they have fun.

I have counted 25 bug bites on my right leg from knee to ankle alone and about 15 per arm. My survival = Benadryl.

Gas update:
Eastern VA - $2. 97
Western VA - $2.91
Eastern WV - $2.76
Western WV - $3.09

And last, the map update:

The Pony Hunt

It’s been a long day that’s for sure. I left DC this morning and drove to Chincoteague, VA by way of the eastern bank of Maryland – lots of farms and small towns. It looked like something that should have been in the mid-west, except the corn and wheat fields were edged in thick trees (one could even say forest). I got down to Chincoteague without a hitch, but getting to Assateague Wildlife Refuge took some patience. I sat on the bridge to get to the island forever – just sat there. Good thing this was my view…


But needless to say, I missed the refuge tour and had to create my own search for the wild ponies. The ranger was very helpful in pointing out places where I might find them. To quote him, “I’ve never been up to the ridge and not seen them.” So I set out on the 2-mile hike to see the ponies. Did I mention it was 100 degrees, well 98 degrees but close enough. I made it about five feet up the trail when I got swarmed by mosquitoes and I mean swarmed. I don’t think if I had bathed in DEET it would have done anything. But I pushed on and made it to the overlook. Apparently the ponies liked the heat as much I did. No wild ponies! I ran all the way back down to my car and jumped in. Unfortunately part of my swarm made it too. I then had a massacre of bugs in my car. You know it’s bad when you slap them and they leave a red streak across your legs. So I drove out to the other side and waded out in the Atlantic Ocean to wash off the blood. No ponies on that side of the island either. I went to another ranger station and asked again. No such luck – apparently the ponies like to hide in the forests and shade when it’s that hot out. I was about to give up – when I spotted this… Yes if you can’t tell, those dots are wild ponies!


I also drove over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. I paid $12 to drive over that bridge – total extortion. But if you ever get a chance to drive over it, pay up. It’s 20 miles of crazy bridge. I couldn’t see land in any direction for most of the drive, but I was on a bridge! And bridges that sink under the water to let boats go over the top rather than rise up so boats go underneath are just cool. Check it out.

I am no longer in New England that’s for sure. The first restaurant I walked into asked if I wanted smoking section or non…and ever since I crossed into Virginia, everyone single person has said hello and have a nice day - from the woman at the visitors center to the teenagers at the gas station.

VA Bound

Oops…somehow I got a day off. I was little shocked this morning when I realized that tomorrow is the 18th and not the 17th. I guess that means it's time to move on. I am heading down to Virginia tomorrow, not on Tuesday. What are ya gonna do? I spent the day at the zoo here in DC. Last time I was here, they had just had a baby panda born. I remember waiting in line forever to see the baby panda, only to get to the front and see a zookeeper standing there with a picture of him. So not cool. But this time I got to the see the baby. Although he doesn’t look so much like a baby now. I guess that’s why they’re called giant pandas.

So I’ve decided to try and post a map as I go along to track my route. We’ll see how this works, but thus far this is where I’ve been.


Tomorrow I head out early to go to Chincoteague, VA and then on down to…we’ll see when I get down there. This begins the real solo trekking of the trip. No more interstates, no more crazy 10-lane highways. I’m hoping to make it across the country by stringing together routes from my National Geographic book of the most scenic byways in America. Here we go…

Next Stop DC

I left NYC this morning to make my way to DC. I had an awesome time in NYC hanging out with Brooke and Clementine. We had lots of walks, good made-up conversations, and our own run-in with the Pitt/Jolie baby clan at the children’s museum.
Also got to experience a little of NYC's wilder side – not crazy all night parties, but more in the way of the city’s wild life. Now I’m all for communing with nature. Never really had issues with bugs or spiders…but mice. Mice are another thing all together. Particularly when you’re sleeping on the floor and you’re at their level. And they wouldn’t be NYC mice if they weren’t just a little bold…or very bold. The first mouse I saw I got up to scare it away, but it just scurried to the other side of the room and watched, waiting for me to leave. So i ran at it and chased it to the other side. It crossed back again and stared at me.

A fun fact…mice hate the smell of peppermint. I poured peppermint flavoring into every little hole. Haha. I win. Wild Kingdom in the Concrete Jungle.

Now I’m somewhere in New Jersey on my way to DC. For a pretty long, skinny shaped state, they have the widest highways I have ever seen – six lanes going each direction. Make me wonder…

Oh and Katie, as requested, gas prices thus far:
Boston - $2.97
NYC - $3.23
New Jersey - $2.89

So far it looks like your new home is in the land of big roads.

And so it begins…

It’s starting. I’m off. What is that saying? A journey begins by stepping outside your front door, or a friend’s door in my case. And what should I find just outside my friend’s front door – my car with a parking ticket! My last day in Boston and I got my first parking ticket. It just seemed all to fitting a way to leave. Waving the ticket in the air, I drove out of town.

And what a pretty day to drive – bright, blue sunny sky. I rolled down all the windows and let the smell of cut grass blow around the car. The first stop NYC. I hear the collective scoff that my first stop of my big trip is the city. But I’m not going to make the wild west in one day. So I successfully navigated my way to NYC and drove into and parked in the city. I can now say I have driven in the city and I have to say, not so bad.

So now I am lounging at my friends in the west village. I’ve taken a walk around the neighborhood, run into a random friend in true NY style, had cupcakes, and a dance party with a one-year-old. End of trip day one.

so long number 95

On Friday, I moved my remaining things out and handed in my keys. It’s was strange to walk out for the last time. Of course about ten feet outside the front door, I automatically checked that I had my keys with me and had a wave of panic when they weren’t there. Stop, breath, keep walking. It's the way it is suppose to be.


I’ve had some good memories in that place. A few of my favorites - our annual Christmas parties… The time they gutted our bathroom and I had to go so badly at about 3 am that I snuck up the back stairs, into the apartment above, and crept through the sleepy sounds to their bathroom… Or the time I locked myself out and had the brilliant idea of gathering all the recycling bins in the neighborhood and stacking them up to reach my back porch. I climbed up the precarious stack, only to have them topple over leaving me hanging from my back porch… Or the absent habit I had of picking the flaking paint off the walls while I was on the phone… Oh the good times.

It's all empty now. Most definitely the end of an era but oh so liberating!