Life is a Highway

As of this morning we have traveled 1280 miles from home.

Thursday we traveled across West Virginia. Went to the New River Gorge National Park. This place was a little different by NP standards and we didn’t have a whole lot of time to explore on foot. The big attraction here was the bridge over the New River which was high and massive. The pictures don’t do it justice but from the bridge to the water is as high as 2 Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. When you go across it, you know you are up very high.

Yesterday we got to Louisville in the early afternoon. Spent most of the afternoon downtown. Went through the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory. That was a lot of fun. Randy got to hold actual game bats of Zander Bogarts and Babe Ruth and I got to hold Carl Yastrzemski’s. That was pretty cool. Today we will be spending most of the day at Churchill Downs with a tour this afternoon and the races this evening.

We are building a playlist of “road” music so feel free to comment below and make some recommendations. So far we have On the Road Again – Willie Nelson, Shotgun – George Ezra, Life is a Highway – Rascal Flatts, King of the Road – Dean Martin cover (Patrick’s suggestion), Windows are Rolled Down – Amos Lee. Would love to hear what you would add.

Yesterday we spent most of the day at Gettysburg. So much history and very well done by the park service. One of the pictures below is of a “cyclorama” which is a painting of the battle of Gettysburg done in 1883. It is slightly longer than an football field and 4 stories tall. It was nearly destroyed due to neglect but restored from 2003-2008 and now is in a circular theatre at Gettysburg. The pictures below do not do justice to how amazing this is. All of Gettysburg was quite impressive.

Last night we stayed in Harpers Ferry, WV. Again a lot of civil war history here and sits on the convergence of the Potomac and Shenandoah River. Amazing that so much of the town is still intact.

Today was a trip down Skyline Drive through Shenandoah National Park. Quite an amazing drive (although going 100 miles at an average of 25mph takes a long time!). We did stop to do a short hike early on to a pretty waterfall. Tonight are in Lexington, VA with plans to hit the New River Gorge National Park.

We left Patrick and Courtney’s yesterday after spending the morning geo-caching with the kids at Ashland State Park. We missed an exit in Massachusetts and ended up going through Stockbridge, MA passing by the Red Lion Inn where I worked as a chambermaid 46 years ago! I hadn’t been back there since so we stopped, took some pics, went in the lobby and left a note in the visitors book. It was kind of cool. Let me tell you, working there is the reason I tip chambermaids today.

Today we traveled down through the Delaware Water Gap in Pennsylvania. It is no where near Delaware but on the Delaware River. Hiked/walked into Dingman Falls. It was a pretty easy hike, mostly on a Trek boardwalk. Randy commented that this was his kind of hike. Falls were pretty but in this part of country most of the trees were not leafed out yet.

The further south we went the more the leaves and blossoms on the trees came out. The apple orchards through here where beautiful. We set our GPS to avoid highways and toll roads and it did a great job taking us through a lot of secondary roads, small towns, and neighborhoods. Places we would never have gone to by just following a map. Was surprised at how pretty Reading, PA was. I always envisioned this as a industrial, manufacturing, kind of dumpy town but we saw some beautiful old homes and the lawns and trees were beautiful. I would have liked to have spent more time here but we keep telling ourselves “we can’t see everything.”

Tonight we are in Denver, PA – not to be confused with Denver, CO. It is just west of Reading. Tomorrow plan on spending most of the day in Gettysburg and hope to get to Harper’s Ferry, WV tomorrow. We’ll see how the day goes.