So it’s obvious that I have come home by now but I would just like to wrap up the story of my road trip by summarizing the last three days. I left Gettysburg at about 10 last Thursday and went west on US 30. It was the first time that I dealt with real mountain driving in a long time. Driving down here on the coast of Carolina is easy compared to mountain driving, the only hills around here are man-made.
I got into Altoona about 1 and promptly made my way over to my Grandma Burfield’s old house. I walked up to what I thought was the house because it had a breezeway, knocked on the door and no one answered. So I went next door thinking that it was the house of an old neighbor that my Dad wanted me to see if she still lived there. An older lady answered the door and said no, the one I was looking for was one more door up. It didn’t immediately click but that house was my Grandma’s house. The reason I passed it by initially is that the man that bought the house has closed in the breezeway and made the kitchen and dining room bigger and I just didn’t recognize it. Either way I went up to go see if the old neighbor was still there and I missed her by 10 minutes. Walking back down the hill the lady that I originally talked to came back out to say that her house was the one I was looking for and she invited me in. I got to take a quick look inside and it was completely different with the added space. It brought back quite a few memories, like setting up hot wheel tracks down the the stairs to the basement and racing them down those tracks making them fly across the room as they left the track at the bottom the stairs. This is a picture of my Grandma’s house… 
From there I made my way up to Du Bois where my Grandma Burfield is buried. She died in 2001 and it certainly doesn’t seem like it has been that long. I was never able to make it to the funeral so I went to go visit and pay my respects. I then headed into downtown Du Bois to go see my Dad’s boyhood home which is still there. I left there and made my way back to Altoona where I stayed the night.
Saturday morning I woke up early and made my way out to the Horseshoe Curve. Built in 1854 on the side of the mountain, it helps trains climb the mountains at a lower grade than creating one long straight stretch of track. I always used to go up there when I used to visit my Grandma and it hasn’t changed much except that they now charge to go up to where the curve is. I managed to get a shot of train going up the mountains but it took 4 engines to provide the power…
I watched a few more trains go by and then left to make my way down to Lexington, Virginia. I decided to take the scenic route by way of Skyline Drive. Located in the Shenandoah National Park the drive sticks to the top of mountains and at it’s highest point it is 3600 feet above sea level. It starts in Front Royal, Virginia and goes 100 miles up the valley towards Waynesboro. It cost $15 to enter the park but it was well worth it because the road was in top condition. It had plenty of overlooks into the valley, I think I saw a stat that there are about 60-70 different overlooks. I didn’t stop at every one but I got close because I took close to a hundred pictures that day. It rained a little bit on the drive so that made it fun watching the weather try to get up and over the mountains. At different points it looked like I was at the same height as the clouds. The following is just a small sample of the many pictures that I took.
It took me about 4 hours to make the full 100 mile drive with all my stopping to take pictures. I then took the interstate down to Lexington. I unfortunately made it there too late to make it to Robert E. Lee’s grave on the campus of Washington and Lee or make to Stonewall Jackson’s house. With the next day being a Sunday they opened too late for me to make the next day. I guess I’m gonna have to go back there on another road trip one of these days to go visit those places. I still made it to Stonewall Jackson’s grave which is in a public cemetery. It was neat to see that people had left lemons at his grave. They were his favorite delicacy and one of the few things that he indulged in. He was known to ride on his horse while marching with the troops sucking on a lemon.
I stayed the night there in Lexington. I woke up early on Sunday morning to start the trip home. I used US 60 to cross back over the mountains. I then used a state highway to make my way over to Appomattox where Lee surrendered but passing by there I realized that I was going to make it back late as it was. I had been there before when I was younger so I decided to pass it on by and used US 460 to get over to Petersburg and Interstate 95. I then stayed on the interstates to get home. I left Lexington at about 8:30 and made it back close to 3:30, not a bad time I think.
Overall I travelled 2,047 and half miles on the trip. I averaged close to 30 miles to the gallon so that wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. It was good to get away and just hit the road and this time while driving not have to worry about getting to the next stop for a delivery. It was also really good to see the places I used to live, the game was awesome and the time at Gettysburg was even better. I couldn’t have asked for a better vacation.
