Southbound Start - #61-01

January 4, 2006 (Wed)
Home to Winchester, VA (287/287 miles)

Off at 8:35 35° Sunny. Off for the second time (we forgot something!) at 8:45 still 35°, still sunny. Our route - down the Garden State Parkway, West on I-195, and South on I-295 - was familiar and uneventful. Q was happy to be out on the road again and purred along contentedly at just under 60 MPH. Our stop for gas, ($2.05/gal) at the Flying-J just before crossing the Delaware Memorial Bridge into Delaware, was also uneventful. The temperature was up to 43° by then, even though the sun had retreated into an overcast. At around noon we were again headed West and looking for a place to stop for lunch. There were no rest areas so we got off I-70 East of Frederick, VA and found a supermarket parking lot.

Joy's father used to come to Winchester on business quite often. The company he worked for (Abex) has or had a factory here. Coincidentally, the Walmart parking lot is next door to that plant. As I write this, I can see the water tower out our dining room window. It adds to the interest of being here but not the ambiance! It's not a bad place to spend the night though. We're off in a corner with several other motor homes and there is very little traffic. It should be a quiet night.

Q025416 Camp Walmart Winchester, VA B
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January 5, 2006 (Thu)
Winchester, VA to Mars Hill, NC (395/682 miles)

The TV show we'd planned to watch last night wasn't on so we ended up turning the lights out and going to sleep before 8:30. It was a very quiet night, as expected, so we slept soundly and didn't get up until after 7:00. We must have been exhausted! We ate breakfast and got off at about 8:30 - 44° (up from 40° over night) and mostly cloudy. We hit light fog south of Winchester but in general traveling was good. We stopped for gas north of Roanoke ($2.15/gal) and for lunch later on in a rest area and got to Bob and Pat's about 4:30. Then followed much stimulating conversation culminating in a rousing game of Dominoes in the evening.

Q027910 Bob & Pat's yard
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January 6, 2006 (Fri) Mars Hill, NC (2) - The over-night low was 33° and we woke to a dusting of snow on the ground. In the morning Joy and Pat went off to visit a friend while Mark and Bob stayed home to work on some administrative chores. After lunch we all took off to a farm where a couple owns some 160 sheep - among other assorted animals. They produce (sometimes personally) wool yarns which she sells in a well-stocked shop in the basement of her house. On the way home we detoured through Burnsville where there is a quilt shop. Actually there are two but we only went to one.

We ended the evening with dominoes.
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January 7, 2006 (Sat) Mars Hill, NC (3) - It got down to 25° last night. Cold! But we survived - with the help of the little electric heater we bought on our way home from Alaska. The on-board furnace would have worked, of course, but the electric heater is a lot quieter. This has been kind of a lazy day. We went out to lunch (delicious reubens) at the "Main Street Deli" in Mars Hill (Dave and Jennifer will know where that is) then to the video store. This afternoon we watched Cold Mountain and after dinner it was dominoes.
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January 8, 2006 (Sun) Mars Hill, NC (4) - It was cold again last night, 22° outside but our little heater kept the interior reasonable. Bob was filling in for the priest at their church. It has been a long time since we've seen him in this capacity and being in the congregation gave us feelings of comfortable nostalgia, like coming home after being away for a long time.

This afternoon was another lazy one. Our major accomplishment was watching Inherit the Wind. And again dominoes.