The Long Trip Back HomeW

Unlike our trip northbound, where we stopped for a couple days, a couple of times to visit with friends, the trip from Black Lake, NY back to Florida, was just long days of driving, a little sleep and then back on the road.  Next time we will make different plans for our return.

We were up early on Saturday morning, finished packing and on the road at 7:50 am.  You'll see that I take less and less pictures as we continue our journey home.  I took as many pictures as I could of the beautiful scenery in NY - the hills and valleys.  I knew once we got here that I'd missed all of this, and
now I hated to leave it.

We were making good time: into Syracuse at 9:25, lunch at Denny's around 10:30.  Breakfast is usually pretty good at Denny's, but the service is always so slow.  Today we enjoyed the Senior Omelet, which was delicious and the service today was actually very good.   We had our meal and we were back on the road about 35 minutes later.





The trip through PA was uneventful.  Again, this was still familiar territory from our days in NY State, so the scenery, the beauty of the hills and rock ledges still had my attention.

About 6 hours in our travel time for the day, the traffic in PA was heavy, lots of trucks on the road and we ran into light rain right on into Maryland.   But the sun was shining when we crossed the state line into West Virginia. at 3:17pm.    Not for long!!!

 About 3:30 traffic on I-81, not far from the Virginia state line, came almost to a complete stop.  We were pretty sure that the way traffic was moving and backing up that there must be an accident ahead. We were close to Exit 12, so decided to stop for gas, grab an ice cream at Burger King and hope that the traffic would clear up quickly.

Another couple who had also pulled off at this exit checked their I Phones and found that there was indeed a bad accident and that traffic was being detoured both north bound and south bound.  So we got directions to get on 11 South that ran parallel to I-81 and we'd work our way south.  Some pretty unique houses along this road, (picture above)   An hour and 45 minutes later we were back on I-81 S.  About 22 miles north of Harrisonburg, VA, which is where we would be staying the night we ran into what Rich described as a Monsoon!  The rain was soooooo bad and the wind very strong and you literally could not see the car in front of you.  It was VERY frightening!  Rich managed to get to get to the right hand land.....where we could see that most cars
had already pulled over.  We found a spot and pulled to the shoulder of the road where we waited out the storm for close to 15 minutes.  What was supposed to be an 8 hour and 20 minute travel day ended up being close to 11 hours when we pulled into the hotel parking lot at 6:44 pm. Whew!

We stayed at the Econo Lodge in Harrisonburg, VA.  The hotel had recently been renovated and we were extremely impressed with the accommodations, especially for the price!

Just across the street was a Chili's Restaurant where we enjoyed a Mexican Dinner.

 It was their special 2 for $8.  Rich had 2 beef enchiladas.  I had the chicken quesadilla and the chicken enchilada.  They were Excellent!    Rich enjoyed a Bud Light while I had a Marguarita!  They were excellent too!

We could hear the rain and the thunder outside as we drifted off to sleep.  Another long day tomorrow.