Day 31, Feb. 20, p.m.

 

I drove for six hours today stopping once at a rest stop to use the facilities and once for gas. Tonight I am at a Comfort Suites Inn on Rte. 17N in Fredricksburg, Va. I had a nice swim in an indoor pool that uses mineral salts instead of chlorine. My skin feels so much better. The woman at the desk said it’s the latest thing.

I’m receiving word from home that another big storm is due in this weekend. I’ll have to pay close attention because the last thing I want to do is to be driving in unfamiliar territory in heavy traffic during a blizzard. If the storm hits N.H. on Saturday, that means I’ll probably be running into it in Penn. or N.Y. I’ll have to decide whether to try to beat it home or wait until it passes through.

It hit me a few minutes ago that this will be the first time I’m ever coming home from a vacation and my mother will not be waiting to welcome me back. She would have been so proud of me for daring to take this trip. Oh, she would have hated to have me gone, but proud that I would do it. She’d love to hear the stories and see the pictures. It’s going to hard walking into that house and not hearing her greeting.

After my issues with my hotel room last night, I said something to the desk clerk as I was checking out. She gave me an extra 15% off which I appreciated. Now I feel better about the experience. I was heading out onto Rte. 17N at 8:55 a.m. It was sunny and 48 degrees. The odometer read 16013.0 and I had ¾ tank of gas. I reached Rte. 795 at 11:10 and Rte. 95 twenty minutes later. At noon, I stopped at the Nash County Rest Stop to use the facilities. I also bought a Snickers bar. It was 48 degrees and the odometer read 16186.5. I crossed into Virginia at 1:40 with the odometer reading 16226.0 and it was 50 degrees.

I saw heavy black smoke about a mile away and as I got closer, saw it was a big fire on the side of the road of the south bound lane. There were people all around and emergency vehicles. As I drove past, it looked like a tractor trailer had exploded. All that was left was the cab and a trail of flaming debris. I hope no one was injured.

For the most part, the drive wasn’t bad, mostly tedious. There were periods where there weren’t any other vehicles around me and that felt good. There were times when vehicles were passing me on both sides and times when they were just barely going the speed limit. Sometimes I’d find myself tense and have to shake and wiggle in my seat a little bit to get muscles to relax. I’d find myself gripping the steering wheel so hard that my arms would ache.

I wondered what it would be like to explore Richmond. There must be tons of history there. Perhaps another time.

I made my second stop in Petersburg, Va. for gas. It was the cheapest I’d seen all day at $3.67/gl. Most stations were over $3.70 and many closer to $3.80. It was 1:20 p.m., 47 degrees, and the odometer was at 16360.3. Forty minutes later, I passed through most of Fredricksburg and got off of Rte. 95 onto 17N. There I found the Comfort Suites and decided to call it a day.

 Elevator 2 in this place creaks and groans. I keep waiting for the floor to drop out. It scares me. Someone on floor 3 said that elevator 1 is haunted. I think she’s wrong and it’s elevator 2.