Travel 10/3/2015

Wednesday was pretty much a travel day. we drove from Breaks, VA to our next stop in College Park, MD, just north of Washington DC. Here are a few random observations and thoughts from our trip so far:

• Kudzu is everywhere down here. Kudzu is an invasive climbing vine. When left to spread, it will and does cover everything. Trees covered in kudzu look like fuzzy columns, and where kudzu has been left to grow unchecked, it looks like a leafy camouflage blanket has been thrown over the landscape.

  

  Kudzu

• When we traveled from the Smokies to Big South Fork, on one of the side roads (route 90), we saw a a tall Texaco gas station sign in the middle of the tidy lawn of a rural house. All we could think was that at one time, this home, or at least at this location was, a Texaco gas station. The station was taken down, but the new property owner liked the sign well enough to just leave it in place.
• It's hard not to love the names of some of the towns we passed through: Beefhide, Sassafrass, Vicco, Sizerock, Isom, and Antepast to name a few.
• Ray had a fantastic phone conversation with a Walmart employee in Oneida, TN (near where we were staying when we visited Big South Fork. We wanted to buy some wine, and there were no liquor stores in the vicinity. Other than beer, liquor and wine sales in grocery stores are at the discretion of the counties. So we wanted to know if this Walmart sold wine. Here is the basic conversation:
• Ray (R): Hi
• Walmart Lady (WL): Hello, hah can ah help you?
• R: Does Walmart sell wine?
• WL: Sell what?
• R: Wine.
• WL: Ah didn't get that.
• R: (Enunciating, and louder) W-EYE-N
• WL: Ah'm sorry, what do you want to get?
• R: (Louder) W-EYE-N, (then spells it)
• pause
• WL: WAHN?
• R; Yes!
• WL: Yes, we carry wahn. But wait, no, ah don't think so. But maybe we do. ah'm just not sure because ah don't work in the back. Ah really have no idea. Sorry.
• I like the dark, but our experience of dark at the campground at Breaks was a whole new experience. When we were out in southern Idaho at the City of Rocks some years ago, it was completely dark, with no wind, no trees, no sound, no moon, no people, just stars in the sky. It was unspeakably beautiful. At Breaks, it was pitch black, we were enveloped by the forest, with no one around, the crickets and cicadas were deafening, and it was creepy. I wanted to put our trash in a campground trash bin located a short distance down the road (150-200 yards). I took one step outside, and even with a bright flashlight in hand, I creeped out, and had Ray drive me to the trash area and back.
• There are some loooonnnnnngg trailer trucks on the road. 50+ feet  is not unusual. You get a whole new appreciation for truckers when you travel a lot on our highways. America really does move by truck.
• Listening to the radio, we heard about a game that is played down in Kentucky: cornhole. That REQUIRED a google search. There are actual leagues!