The trip from Blacksburg to Pittsburgh (August 10) was supposed to be about 5 hours of relatively easy driving, with plenty of time to stop and look at anything that might be interesting along the way. We got going about 9 am or so and had no problem whatsoever getting out of Blacksburg and into the rolling mountains of West Virginia. Our first stop was Tamarack, which was much more interesting than what I was expecting from the description. It's a large building featuring handmade goods from artists and craftsmen all over West Virgina – candles, jewelry, blankets, pottery, furniture, clothes, and so on. There are artist studios right in the center so you can watch people at work and it's very obvious that the entire project is centered around promoting the artisans instead of simply making a few bucks off of tourists. I nearly bought a few pieces from Linn Pottery but I decided that I could wait on that, given our current storage limitations.
Our next stop was the New River Gorge – we walked down to the lower viewing deck, which was still a long way above the river, and looked at the rapids and the bridge that we had just crossed. When we got back to the car, having just experienced two pleasant and interesting stops, the decision was made to take a short detour west to Gauley Bridge and see if the Gauley River was as interesting as the New River. It was a lovely country road...until we ended up going down a steep incline behind half of a large manufactured house on a flatbed truck that was going about 15 mph and scraping bits of the roof off the house every time it went under a tree. Finally, they turned off onto a different road and we got to Gauley Bridge to find that there wasn't much to look at there except for the waterfall that we didn't see until we were past it and it was too late to stop. Not wanting to get even more tied up with a further detour, we headed back towards the main road hoping to avoid more oversized truckloads. Which we did – but there was road construction along the way and we got to sit for 20 minutes or so waiting for things to clear up. We finally got back to relative civilization, got gas and had some lunch, and headed north to Pittsburgh determined not to stop for anything short of an emergency.
About an hour or so later, we ran into the worst rainstorm I have ever driven in. Everyone slowed down and most people put on their flashing hazard lights, which was the only thing I could see in front of me for several minutes. We crawled up one mountain and down another until the rain lightened up and traffic went back to normal; of course I was pleased that there were no accidents and that everyone seemed to be driving carefully and responsibly. Just as I was congratulating myself on getting through the storm and calculating how long it would take to get to Pittsburgh, we got to the point just south of Morgantown where 79 and 68 split off from each other...and traffic came to a halt. For about two hours total, due to a jacknifed semi ahead of us. The first hour was bad enough, watching all the southbound cars zooming over the overpass in front of us and next to us across the median, but then something else happened behind us (we never did find out what) and traffic backed up in the other direction too. Police cars and ambulances went by, people walked their dogs, and we forlornly wished we'd gotten stuck about 100 yards behind where we were so we could have gotten on 68 and gone east.
Eventually, traffic started moving and it turned out that we were only about ½ mile behind where the truck had stopped. We were supposed to be in Pittsburgh by 7 so we could meet up with William's grandparents who had just flown in after a weeklong cruise, but we knew there was no way we would get there in time (it was about 6:30 pm when we got past the accident) and so we called to tell his parents that we would just go straight to the house. The rest of the trip was moderately uneventful – we were slowed down a bit by yet another storm with dark and ominous clouds but not nearly as much rain as before, and we got to William's family's house about 7:45. We were so relieved that our long day was finally over...we were going to have some dinner and relax...and then William's brother Steve met us outside with the delightful news that the power was out.
The three of us spent most of the evening on the front porch, watching the rain and scowling at the (working) streetlights on the other side of the street, and when the rest of the family got home with the news that the grandparents were fine but their luggage had gotten lost, we decided that we should just give up and go to bed.
After all of that, the remainder of our visit has been marvelous, and I'll get to that in the next post.
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