It’s time to set off for the Lincoln Trail by heading a wee bit south before turning toward the northwest!
After all, it’d be rather daft to leave the guest of honour behind when we’re heading off to her high school reunion… 🙂
The luggage is in the boot of the hire car and I’m ready to head south to Fayetteville to collect Mom and I’m not even five minutes out before I hit a nasty tailback literally as I’m getting on the motorway. I was already cutting the time rather fine to begin with and now I’m wondering if I’m going to be at all close to the time I was hoping to head toward Greensboro and points beyond.
Fifteen minutes later, I’ve cleared the jam and I’m able to put my foot down the rest of the way to Mom’s condo.
I needn’t have worried…I literally pull up in front of her building about a minute after she had arrived after her appointment with her consultant.
It didn’t take long for her to come aboard the Escape and then we made our escape through Spring Lake, through Sanford, and into the Triad where we met up with I-74 in Winston-Salem to meet our first waypoint in Pilot Mountain.
Pilot Mountain is a very distinctive knob of rock in the Sauratown Range of monadnocks or “island mountains” where you have a mountain and nothing else round it. Think of Uluru in Australia as the most famous example of a monadnock where that huge rock stands alone on the plain that surrounds it.
Unless the weather is dreadful, you just can’t miss it which is why it was the navigational waypoint of choice long before paved roads and motorways made travel far more efficient.
Soon after Pilot Mountain, we make a quick turn to bypass Mount Airy which most people would know better as the fictional “Mayberry” from the “Andy Griffith Show” where trips to “Mount Pilot” were quite common and trips to Raleigh were a memorable trip indeed.
Once you’re past the Virginia line, that’s when you’re truly in the mountains starting with traversing through Fancy Gap into Hillsville (which was our first pit stop) and then on to Wytheville, home of the most famous “wrong-way concurrency” in the US Interstate system…I-77 and I-81 signed in completely opposite directions for the few miles they’re joined together.
It doesn’t take long to resume the northward trek to the two tunnels under the mountains near the West Virginia border.
I think it’s safe to say that there were two diametrically opposed opinions on those tunnels.
I’ve always loved going through the tunnels and the play of the lights as you’re driving through is more than a little mesmerising.
But for Mom, her eardums having a marked sensitivity to pressure variations makes the tunnels something to be endured rather than enjoyed. Fortunately, these two tunnels are pretty short (compared to say the Chesapeake Bay tunnels!) but no less harrowing for her.
Fortunately, the second tunnel heralds the arrival in West Virginia! 🙂
