THE MAINE E'VAN'T

Friday, October 3, 2014

In the continuation of the man, van, plan saga, our adventure finds us heading north to a state I have only been to one other time, and only for a few hours, just to eat and drive up the coast a short ways about 28 years ago, and it was about dark when we got there. Anthony has never been, so this will be pretty new for both of us. This was a bit of spur of the moment as we only decided to do this last Sunday. We knew that one day we wanted to go to Maine, and it needed to be in October, so here we go. Our plan is to head up the interstate to get there, and head back down the coast. But we shall see. 

We didn't know what next year might bring us. It's funny that when you retire, people start giving you ideas for jobs that retired people have. A few suggestions have been for us to work in a national park, Dollywood, or even at Disney World. Who knows, we may give one of them a try next year. So we wanted to go ahead and hit the road before winter sets in and one of us decides to get a job.

We have been driving through rain just about all day, pretty dreary. But the traffic hasn't been too bad. I know that a cold front is supposed to be coming through, but I am hoping not too cold as Anthony didn't pack any long pants, ha!! What was he thinking??  Maine, HELLO!!

We will be interested in seeing the leaves changing colors as we are heading north, so here they are in Chattanooga:

And here they are in northern Tennessee.

Already a bit of a change.

 

We had to stop and get lunch, so we pulled out our chicken salad from our cooler and made sandwiches before we got on I-81.

Then we made it into Virginia:

And when we are this close, we always like to stop and take a picture of the Roanoke College sign as we feel like we paid for a small part of it as Hannah went to college there for a semester.

Tonight we are hoping to make it to Winchester. It looks like there is plenty of free parking/camping in each of the three Walmarts in that city. Something interesting about Winchester, VA is that during the civil war the town changed hands at least 72 times, including 13 times in a day. (The AAA book is a wealth of knowledge.) Also, as an early landlord in the Shenandoah Valley, George Washington required each tenant to plant 4 acres of apples and as a result, there are extensive apple orchards around Winchester.

We both are looking forward to this trip and seeing more of the country that we have never seen, but this time it will be all in the Eastern Time Zone.