Traveling up the Appalachians

May 6, 2008
Clarksboro, NJ

We left Albertville a few minutes ahead of schedule on Monday (Cinquo de Mayo) and headed northeast. We've driven this route many times, but almost always in the opposite direction, coming from New Jersey to Alabama or other points south and west. In keeping with our objective of staying off the Interstates when possible (not that we're doing well with that on this leg of the trip), we drove up AL-75 all the way to the Georgia border before cutting across to I-59. Actually, I should say "dropping down" to I-59, since the road descends the side of a mountain reminiscent of what we've see out west, with several 15 MPH switchbacks and steep grades. It was a smooth, wide road, so we had no problem holding speed with the Jake Brake and made the descent easily.

Once on the Interstate, it was smooth sailing (except for sections of "bad road" that the highway engineers should be ashamed of) through Chattanooga on I-24 to I-75 to I-40. There's a major construction project in downtown Knoxville, so we had to use the I-640 bypass, but that was a relatively short detour. Once in the Eastern Time Zone, we continued to I-81 and made our overnight stop at the Flying J truck stop in Fort Chiswell, Virginia. We've gotten much more adept at arranging fuel and overnight stops at "J's" on longer segments. We top off the tank, park "out back" with the trucks, and grab a cup of coffee on the way out in the morning. When I went in to get coffee at 5:45 AM, there was only enough for 3/4 of a cup (well, a 24 ounce "cup"). When I called the cashier over, she told me it was free; a retiree's dream come true. We were on the road at 5:55, again heading north on I-81.

Most of the time we've taken this route, we've used I-695 around Baltimore (you can't take propane in the Baltimore tunnels) and I-495 around Washington. I-66 links I-495 with I-81 about 60 miles west of the capitol. This time, I knew that we'd be going through this section during the early afternoon, so I chose a different, slightly longer, route to avoid Washington. We continued up I-81 through West Virginia and into Maryland, and then cut east on I-70 in Hagerstown. This brought us to I-695 around Baltimore, and we were able to bypass a lot of traffic. We continued up I-95 through Delaware and then cut over to New Jersey on the Delaware Memorial Bridge. We fueled up at the Flying J on I-295 and then drove the 16 miles north to the campground where we're staying. They "lost" our reservation but had space for us, so we had a chance to settle in.

This was the end of the long driving segments for a while, since it's a relatively short hop up to Connecticut from here. We're planning to leave here Friday morning and should be at Pat & Al's place north of Hartford in the afternoon. So far the driving has been rather uneventful and the coach has been performing well. I've slowed down from 62-64 MPH to 57-58 MPH on the highways, and improved fuel economy by 10.3% (from 5.679 to 6.263). This isn't enough to offset the cost of diesel fuel (we filled up for right around $4/gallon on most of this leg of the trip) but every bit helps.

A couple of other observations from the trip so far may be in order (only so I don't forget to mention them). First, road construction seems to continue at the same pace as prior years but the impact seems lessened (more lane shifts and fewer closures). We were surprised at the number of rest areas that are closed, and it's not clear if some of them will ever reopen. This kind of renders the interstate guides we buy less than completely reliable, and the highway signage isn't much better (lots of "next rest area nnn miles" signs only to find the next area closed). It's a good thing that we're self-contained and don't have to "rest" in a rest area! And, lastly, it's been a tough spring for the armadillos. We think of Texas when we hear "armadillo", but they've migrated quite far east. And they're not "traffic friendly", since we saw more of their carcasses on the side of the road than any other species. I have no idea why I notice these things, but there you are.