ntsammy5
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2006
A few comments on our recent trip:
We drove from Buffalo to Charlotte in a couple of days along I-90 I-79 US-19 I-77. The drive is beautiful especially in the mountains of PA, WV and VA Johns neck of the woods in PA and near Ami in VA. It takes 12 hours almost on the dot that includes stops. We ran into very little construction, but since we traveled on weekends, they werent really out working at all. We didnt run into much traffic except for the I-81 I-77 merge in Wytheville and the problem there was a bunch of idiot drivers. Just past that there was a really old driver who was driving 40mph on the Interstate thats downright dangerous. All-in-all there werent that many bad drivers out.
Theres a lot of good scenery all along the way, but I have to say my favorite spot is near Fancy Gap, VA when you come out of the mountains into the Piedmont in NC spectacular scenery. Also, the foliage in the mountains is just gorgeous. We almost always stop at the New River overlook in WV home of the longest arch bridge in the Western Hemisphere here are some pictures of it. I just love this neck of the woods.
People in WV are great too Im not sure how WV residents got such a bad reputation, everyone there is very friendly. I could definitely live in WV. We did see a vanity license plate that I liked on an Escalade driven by a gorgeous woman TROFYWIF - If the shoe fits
RVs & TT
Although its not scientific we didnt see as many RVs and TT/5ers as we normally do in summer trips normally youre never out of sight of one for very long, but this trip we went for long stretches without seeing one. We didnt see many at all on the way south and really started seeing quite a few on the way north when we got into PA & NY. We barely saw any pups at all. Thats in roughly 1400 miles round trip. I think we saw a disproportion number of diesel pushers some really high end rigs in Erie we saw a really neat CSPAN RV that had a big sign on it Campaign Coverage. Dont have any idea why that was there.
GAS
In traveling through 5 states gas prices ranged from $3.51 to $4.06 of course the $4.06 is at home. WNY is always higher than most other places. Didnt pay much attention to diesel . Im happy to say that we got 29.5 mpg for the entire trip, highway and local. Thats not too bad for a 3.5 six.
Restaurants
We ate at a couple of interesting restaurants but the one well remember was a place called Boomerang in Clarksburg, WV. The place was hilarious to us at any rate. It was an Australian theme, Mick Dundee was sitting at the bar, and everything on the menu had a for suffix for an extra $4.95 you can add a baked potato, for an extra $2.00 you can get a large beer, for an extra $3.50 you can have water with your meal, for an extra the waitress added that suffix for every menu item she pointed out - everything and I mean everything had that suffix! The waitress was cute but not an alcoholic drink expert when she was explaining the beers I asked if Mountaineer (local brew) was a lager and she said yes its really dark she then started to explain the wine to my wife who only likes really dry wines and tried to sell her on the White Zin (as she put it) because everyone says its real good. They didnt even have Fosters on tap and it was supposed to be an Aussie joint! It just struck us funny. We really enjoyed it and the food was really good! We got the seafood buffet I started out with about a 16oz prime rib that was really good and my diet went down hill from there clams, shrimp, oysters, mussels really, really good.
State Park in NC
One day we took the boys to a state park near their home to go on a picnic and go swimming at the beach and I was really impressed. It was 98 out that day but really not bad in the water Its Lake Davidson State Park and its only about 20 years old. There are beautiful forests and a real nice camp ground there. The facilities are great and the picnic areas are nice. The beach was a blast better than the pool.
Lake Davidson is a man made lake that Duke power uses for hydroelectric. We were talking to a guy who lives on the lake and the day we went the water level was down about 5 feet because they were expecting a big storm, that never came, and lowered the lake level.
The campground was wooded and it would be a problem for a big rig, but tents are fine dont think there are any hookups though.
Sometime I want to just take minimal stuff and maybe hit a bunch of state parks in VA, WV and the Carolinas good luck convincing the wife.
We drove from Buffalo to Charlotte in a couple of days along I-90 I-79 US-19 I-77. The drive is beautiful especially in the mountains of PA, WV and VA Johns neck of the woods in PA and near Ami in VA. It takes 12 hours almost on the dot that includes stops. We ran into very little construction, but since we traveled on weekends, they werent really out working at all. We didnt run into much traffic except for the I-81 I-77 merge in Wytheville and the problem there was a bunch of idiot drivers. Just past that there was a really old driver who was driving 40mph on the Interstate thats downright dangerous. All-in-all there werent that many bad drivers out.
Theres a lot of good scenery all along the way, but I have to say my favorite spot is near Fancy Gap, VA when you come out of the mountains into the Piedmont in NC spectacular scenery. Also, the foliage in the mountains is just gorgeous. We almost always stop at the New River overlook in WV home of the longest arch bridge in the Western Hemisphere here are some pictures of it. I just love this neck of the woods.
People in WV are great too Im not sure how WV residents got such a bad reputation, everyone there is very friendly. I could definitely live in WV. We did see a vanity license plate that I liked on an Escalade driven by a gorgeous woman TROFYWIF - If the shoe fits
RVs & TT
Although its not scientific we didnt see as many RVs and TT/5ers as we normally do in summer trips normally youre never out of sight of one for very long, but this trip we went for long stretches without seeing one. We didnt see many at all on the way south and really started seeing quite a few on the way north when we got into PA & NY. We barely saw any pups at all. Thats in roughly 1400 miles round trip. I think we saw a disproportion number of diesel pushers some really high end rigs in Erie we saw a really neat CSPAN RV that had a big sign on it Campaign Coverage. Dont have any idea why that was there.
GAS
In traveling through 5 states gas prices ranged from $3.51 to $4.06 of course the $4.06 is at home. WNY is always higher than most other places. Didnt pay much attention to diesel . Im happy to say that we got 29.5 mpg for the entire trip, highway and local. Thats not too bad for a 3.5 six.
Restaurants
We ate at a couple of interesting restaurants but the one well remember was a place called Boomerang in Clarksburg, WV. The place was hilarious to us at any rate. It was an Australian theme, Mick Dundee was sitting at the bar, and everything on the menu had a for suffix for an extra $4.95 you can add a baked potato, for an extra $2.00 you can get a large beer, for an extra $3.50 you can have water with your meal, for an extra the waitress added that suffix for every menu item she pointed out - everything and I mean everything had that suffix! The waitress was cute but not an alcoholic drink expert when she was explaining the beers I asked if Mountaineer (local brew) was a lager and she said yes its really dark she then started to explain the wine to my wife who only likes really dry wines and tried to sell her on the White Zin (as she put it) because everyone says its real good. They didnt even have Fosters on tap and it was supposed to be an Aussie joint! It just struck us funny. We really enjoyed it and the food was really good! We got the seafood buffet I started out with about a 16oz prime rib that was really good and my diet went down hill from there clams, shrimp, oysters, mussels really, really good.
State Park in NC
One day we took the boys to a state park near their home to go on a picnic and go swimming at the beach and I was really impressed. It was 98 out that day but really not bad in the water Its Lake Davidson State Park and its only about 20 years old. There are beautiful forests and a real nice camp ground there. The facilities are great and the picnic areas are nice. The beach was a blast better than the pool.
Lake Davidson is a man made lake that Duke power uses for hydroelectric. We were talking to a guy who lives on the lake and the day we went the water level was down about 5 feet because they were expecting a big storm, that never came, and lowered the lake level.
The campground was wooded and it would be a problem for a big rig, but tents are fine dont think there are any hookups though.
Sometime I want to just take minimal stuff and maybe hit a bunch of state parks in VA, WV and the Carolinas good luck convincing the wife.
Sounds like you had a nice trip. I want to explore that area one day too. So much to see, so little time, sigh.
)
