Knock-Em-Stiff, Ohio

Sunday morning we left our KOA camp at 9:30am and headed to Ohio, a drive of about 12 hours total. As always, we were traveling on Route 50, first through a bit of Maryland and then into Virginia for a good part of the day. It was very scenic and we enjoyed driving through many little historic towns. That's one neat thing about driving Route 50 is we get to see alot of places most people never will, since they travel the Interstates.

In a bigger town we spotted a Ross and stopped to check out the deals. We bought two smaller travel bags, with the intent of leaving my bigger bag at Jeryl's mom's and packing my stuff in the two smaller bags. The back of our car is pretty full so we decided to get rid of some of our stuff at her mom's house and then get it later. She only lives 2 hours from where we live in Carlisle.

Then it was back on the road and soon it was lunch and we spotted a sign for Sky Meadows State Park, near Paris, VA. Neat, because Jeryl works in Paris, KY. (Virginia also has a Richmond, Lexington, and Winchester.) We decided to stop there for our usual picnic lunch. It cost $4 to get into the park and the ranger said there was a brand new picnic area. We were the only ones there and enjoyed the peace and quiet.

We walked around the picnic area and took some pictures and then drove back to the gift shop, where there is also an old homestead you can view from the outside. During the Civil War, the military used part of their field for an encampment and 3 of the owner's sons ended up fighting in the war. You can view their house and other buildings, but only from the outside.

After lunch it was back on the road. Do you know what a round about is? They are used to "calm traffic" because the curves cause you to slow down. And they help to control the flow of traffic. Time is saved because you don't have to come to a complete stop, like at a stop sign. Well at one point, in the middle of nowhere on Route 50 in Virginia, we came to 3 round abouts in less than a mile. We thought that very strange they would need that many in such a short distance. Here is a picture of a map of them I found on the Internet.

We went through the 3 in a row and I didn't even realize there was a 4th one since we didn't go that way.

Soon we drove into West Virginia and we would soon come to dread traveling that part of Route 50 because it was downhill most of the way, with 8 and 9% grades and many, many curves. Jeryl did all the driving and I know she had to get tired of all those curves and constantly putting on the brakes. This is a typical scene in front of us then.

About 6 we stopped for supper in Clarksville, WV at a "Park and Eat" restaurant. We hadn't heard of those. They had a bakery as you walked in and big posters for doing birthday cakes for your parties. When they brought out some bread for us to go with our meal, it included a sour dough roll and a small cinnamon roll. So that was a nice treat for us. The food was pretty good.

Soon we were back on the road and to our surprise, we went through a little part of Maryland. At first we thought we had gone the wrong way but Jeryl remembered that a little piece of Maryland comes down into the top of WV. It was funny seeing we were back in Maryland after being out of it for so long.

We finally arrived at her mom's around 10pm and thankfully sat down to rest. We had a good day Monday visiting with her family and now today we are getting ready to once again get on the road. It will be a short 3 1/2 hr drive to Cincinnati where we'll stay the night with my in-laws, whom we visit as much as we can and always have a good time talking with them. So until the next time I update, happy trails! And thanks for following our journey. Don't forget to leave us a comment some times. :0)