Getting our kicks!
This is the first post from a real diner(tm) in virginia! We had been getting our kicks, on route 66, and programmed in a little detour: skyland VA. This is in the middle of shenandoah woods - a neck of the woods which was warmly recommended to me by andrew k in california before we started.
I am now sipping my steaming hot and otherwise completely terrible coffee after ordering a low-carb breakfast: 3 eggs sunnyside up, a few strips of bacon, and a carb-free piece of toast. Paul doesn’t yet know how to order his eggs, so he asked me and i said sunnyside up, which of course is not what he wanted, heh heh.
The diner we are in is called the cracker barrel and old country store. I’m loving it but not like macdonalds :) It also puts an end to my mild hangover, so i am ready to go now! West virginiaaaaaa, country mommaaaaaaaa (ehh, whatever)
Location : 10801 Battleview Pkwy, Manassas, VA 20109,
Posted by Pim van Pelt at 7:15 AM
2**10
We thought you might want to know… 1024 miles on the jeep’s odo.
Location : Waynesboro, VA
Posted by Pim van Pelt at 10:52 AM
.. aand we’re back!
And we’ve got coverage again… Instead of doing interstates from Washington DC to Nashville, TN we opted for the green alternative and cruised for some 70 miles of winding roads through Shenandoah nat’l park. Very beautiful forest covered mountians and our first encounter with wildlife: 2 black bears and a handful of deer.
So, back on the interstate again (which brings us 3G again, so we have satnav back online). It’s another 500 miles to Nashville, and it’s already past 2pm, which means we may not make it there today. We’ll see how far we get, first time for some lunch.
Posted by Paul de Weerd at 10:54 AM
High Tech Blogging!
Cool beans! I think I have made the ideal setup for our blogging experience while doing this trip (see picture). Paul is currently driving and we’re about 130 miles from Knoxville TN [we’re trying to get to Nashville, but we may not actually get that far, as it’s about 5:30pm right now].
While he’s driving down the I-81 at about 70mph, I decided to put all of the cables and geek toys I took with me on this trip to good use. So first, we have a car adapter for Apple (12V charger) which connects to my laptop. Then we have a USB connection to the Droid “courtesy of Verizon Wireless”, which runs PDAnet in USB tethering mode. I can now type on the big keyboard with a decent screen real estate, and publish the blog entries like that, rather than typing on the mini-screen and keyboard of the Droid itself (which, of course, is also lots of fun :)
But all the while, the android is happily running Driveabout and providing me internet. Thanks Charles and thank you again, Verizon - this really was a great thing you did for me.
Posted by Pim van Pelt at 2:38 PM
What is a halcyon?
We are currently waiting for our starters in a “fancy dining” establishment in the small town of crossville TN. It is called the Halcyon Days and the dutch would say it “is hem net niet”. The interior is okay, linen on the tables, and a really friendly lady who greeted and seated us. The waitress, perhaps, is a little bit weird. Do you know the movie the butterfly effect? When Kayleigh ends up as a crack fiend… well that is sort of like the animo and willingness of our girl here (name known to to the editor).
Other details are that the “fresh italian herbs” are simply dried oregano, and the cream cheese that goes with the smoked salmon is actually a ball of butter, and that the server doesn’t actually take away our starters cutlery.
Okay, on to the entrees- Paul has the newyork strip and i have a dish suitably called “scampi shrimp”. I will say that i have nothing at all to complain. My shrimp tails came loose easily, there was a tasty ravioli with veggie filling and the butter-garlic sauce was yummy. Paul’s steak was great, veg was crisp, and all in all very tasty indeed.
So what is a Halcyon anyway? Paul utilized the power of the internet and got to the bottom of this culinary mystery: it is a mythical bird, which makes a nest in the ocean, and it has the power to calm down the waters and wind.
Thanks for the good grub, the enlightenment and the hospitality. I will forgive you, M ;-)
Location : 2444 Genesis Rd, Crossville, TN 38571,
Posted by Pim van Pelt at 6:48 PM
Free time
So here we are, in the Comfort Inn motel in Gordonsville, TN. The room rate is quite a bit higher than some of the ones we’ve seen along the road so far, but we decided we were too tired to continue our search for cheap lodging. On the upside, this is a very decent place, lots of room and complementary breakfast tomorrow morning (which will save us some time before we drive off to Nashville).
In total, we drove about 650 miles (1040 km) today, from Washington DC to Gordonsville, probably the most driving for one day during our trip. Nashville would’ve been 70 more miles (an hour of driving). And in those last few miles we also crossed time zones from Eastern to Central (the boundary between these two time zones is somewhere in Tennessee, as we have just learned) so we’ve gained an hour!
Posted by Paul de Weerd at 8:51 PM