WINCHESTER,VA TO CHILLICOTHE, OH

Left the hotel this morning and headed into downtown Winchester on route 50. We were soon into the old section of town. These roads were meant for horse and buggy so now the houses go right to the edge of the sidewalk. The homes were built in 1750 when the town was founded. At one stop sign the house on my right was George Washington's construction company office in 1752. Down the road was a cannon with a sign stating that Washington and his army used it in defense of a nearby fort in 1760. Incredible, this type of history is normal for the area and commonplace.

Left Virginia for West Virginia and started climbing into the Appalachians. The weather turned colder with the temperature falling to the high 40's. By this time 50 had turned from a nice road to a narrow two lane road twisting back and forth up and down through the mountains. A driver of an eighteen wheeler had pulled to the side to let us by then kept right on our tail for the next 30 miles.

As we passed the driver he looked out at me and had a sort of toothless evil grin as we drove by. The way he was handling that truck I knew that he had grown up in the area. I would also bet that he learned to drive riding shotgun with his daddy while running moonshine in the mountains.

Almost heaven, west virginia
Blue ridge mountains
Shenandoah river -
Life is old there
Older than the trees
Younger than the mountains
Growin' like a breeze

Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West virginia, mountain momma
Take me home, country road
John Denver

Continued into the mountains passing small groups of homes along the road and side roads with names like Dark Hollow, Berts Hollow, and I'm not making this up, Sleepy Hollow. All of a sudden Ken pulled off the road into a gravel parking lot with a small wooden sign that said Melanie's Restaurant, lunch time. The waitress was a young girl with a quick smile that kept holding it back due to some bad teeth that she was obviously self conscience about. She said the special was a burger with ramps and laughed outloud when we didn't know what a ramp was. Thanks to google later found out that a ramp is an early spring type of leek grown in the area, oh yea had the burger and ramp special.

Continued west beautiful two lane with a canopy of trees covering the road above as we went from west Virginia to Maryland back to West Virginia and finally into Ohio. The road turned to divided highway for a while then back to two lane before we stopped for the night in Chillecothe. It's an old Indian name and also the first capital of Ohio.