Day 224
The 2nd of October was our wedding anniversary. Yesyes, we didn’t only survive this journey, but also a marriage of 19years 😊! We never had such a subtropical anniversary day, hot and sweaty… We’ve visited Gettysburg and the National Military Park. It gave us an impressive overview on the civil war and the fights that took place on 01-02-03 July 1863 a turning point in this war. We drove the autotour along the war fields of Gettysburg. When we’ve set-up our tent, people informed us there was a tornado treat until 11pm, but luckily we only had some rain. To end our day, we ate some with fresh crab cakes and a good glass of wine and whiskey at the campsite.
On Wednesday we drove through 3 states: Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia. The border between Virginia and West Virginia was the crossing of the Potomac river. We flirted between both Virginia’s. The scenery was amazing; lots of hills, tiny roads, waves of fields, beautiful farm houses and old oak trees. In Fort Royal (Virginia) we entered the Shenandoah National Park. It’s well known for his Skyline Drive. It’s a 105mile curvy road alongside the rim of the Appalachian mountains. The views were breathtaking over the oak forests and the valleys. Especially the nice weather and coloring of the leaves made it extraordinary. At the end of the Skyline drive, the Blueridge parkway starts for another 470 miles with the same magnificent road, nature and views. We drove the parkway almost until the border of North Carolina and hit almost the point were we left the parkway 7 months ago.
In Rich Creek we started driving the backcountry road 219, which we followed north for the next 4 days. We’ve seen and learned a lot along the road:
quote from a man we’ve met whom was impressed about a woman driving a motorcycle because ‘women are lazy’.
In Elkins we learned more about a local forest fair: a parade with trucks, students from the gym schools, politicians that promote themselves for votes for the midterm elections, the major driving around in his car and waving hands
We entered funny towns: Berlin, New Germany, Accident, Curry Run
On Sundays, beer shops are open in Pennsylvania, but liquor stores are closed
Protests against abortion
The Zippo and Case museum in Bradford twp. To our big surprise we passed alongside the Zippo museum, so we had to stop to pay a visit to learn more about this icon. David was even able to get his 27years old Zippo repaired in the Zippo Clinic and on top of this we could engrave his precious lighter.
On Monday evening we camped close to the Niagara Falls and were able to visit the falls during nighttime from the US side.
The day after, we crossed for the last time in our journey the border between US and Canada. We visited the Niagara Falls in daylight from the more beautiful Canadian side. Unfortunately we drove the last 100kms of our 53742km long adventure.
Everything needs to end and our journey is also smoothly coming to his end. The past few days we had to say farewell to a bunch of good friends who joined us for the ride through North America. Mister Repel was the first to join in Louisiana, a bit further we picked up sir mustard in Tabasco on Avery Island. In Denver we met Misses Bearspray and finally in Washington we picked up Sister DEET.
Today we said goodbye to Jaak and Mieke…. Looking forward to see them again in London where we will pick them up and drive home.
