Ramada Inn Roanoke

... we continued on our southerly trek, admiring the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains, all the while seeing that the sky was beginning to get heavy, as the weather forecasters had foretold.

We had checked the weather radar on the internet this morning before leaving the campground and the images showed a line of rain and storms just south of Roanoke, VA. By now we were coming ...

... and their family in Radford were had a feast of good ole southern down home cooking.  After dinner we headed back up to Salem and stopped by our old water hole, Mac and Bobs  to join the party!  

On our way out of Town on Sunday we made sure to stop by Alligator Alley, a favorite store of ours, for my husband to pick up a new Lacoste shirt.

We were in no rush to get to Salem, Va and since we had missed Skyline the day before, we spontaneously decided to exit of I-81 in order to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway down to Roanoke. We made a stop along the way at a trail near Lynchburg. The 1.6 mile loop trail takes you to a beautiful waterfall where we stopped for a picnic lunch.  It was such a gorgeous day - the weather was perfect - and this was just a really nice relaxing drive!  

... we discovered that there was a ‘railwalk’ behind the building we decided to do that first, so although it was baking hot we dutifully followed the train lines and literally walked through the rail history of the city…


This interactive walk was great fun, buttons and levers allowed us to activate loud bells ...

... video of the glass blowing)
We then poked around W. Beverly St. and did some browsing in the rain. We made a stop at a cute little shop run by a guy from Newburyport (with a thick southern accent) that sold these hysterical rubber duckies called Celebriducks (www.celebriducks.com). They had an ...

I just wanted to summarize a few details of our trip in this entry. We had such a great 2 weeks and wonderful experiences across the country. We both said we would definitely do it again and are already plotting and planning the next area of the country we'd like to see. SUMMARY Days Traveled: 14 Total Miles: Just under 5000 Total Stops: 10 Number of States we hit: 14 (VA, TN, MS, LA, TX, NM, CO, KS, MO, IN, IL ...

After about 5 hours of sleep, we woke up early and got back on the road. The wind was much better today and we were able to make good time. We drove about 13 hours through Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia back to our Appalachian Mountains. Not quite as impressive as Colorado or NM mountains, but still a really pretty drive. We arrived in Moneta, VA where ...

... TP for an RV?) and sent us on our way. We spent the night at our lakehouse in Moneta, VA and went out with our lake friends for dinner and drinks. Everyone was sorry to hear about my job, but excited for us about our trip and I think if we asked them, a few would've packed their bags and come with. Tonmorrow - we head to TN!

... took about 6 hours or so, mostly on multiple lane highways. Sadly when you're travelling down the big highways there's none of this "giant Ball of String" or "the world's biggest slice of cheese" caper. those sorts of attractions are saved for the smaller roads... as a result I found myself sleeping for a good portion of the journey. I did awake every now and then to find that most of the passing attractions were signs for wendys, mcd's, taco belle and other ...

... to see a lot of my brother's friends that I had met back in the day at age 15 when he took me to his University for a beer pong tournament. Now most of them are married with kids. Its a strange feeling to see people grow up. Its like you blink and everything changes. It was also a pleasure to see my mom's side of the family that we rarely get to see. That is the best part about weddings; everyone comes together, usually ...