A video postcard as I road trip south
Mar. 26th, 2010 09:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
namasteI'm traveling south for a couple of days, off to visit family in St. Petersburg, Fla., for a vacation. (Yay!)
I decided to drive for this trip. Normally when I drive I pretty much follow I-75 south and north, but this time, the bosses wanted me in Akron, Ohio, for something the day before vacation. So instead, I drove over to Akron, and headed south from there.
Road trip!!!
The weather was ... not so great to start with. Heavy rain, cold temperatures getting colder by the hour. I made it as far as Marietta, Ohio, on Thursday before grabbing a hotel room. And a beer and a sandwich at a local pub.
It was 34 degrees and raining this morning as I took off, turning south across the Ohio River into West Virginia. For three hours, it switched between heavy rain and light rain, with a few snow flurries to make things interesting.
I've been in West Virginia before, but as a flat lander (relatively) I'm always astounded by the way these towns squeeze in to just a little bit of open space along the river, surrounded by high cliffs. Even the state capital is ringed by mountains, the golden dome of the capitol building the one bright spot this rainy morning.
From West Virginia, I drove south through Virginia as the mountains went from rugged rocks to soft mounds and finally oversized hills. The rain gave way to fog, and finally clouds.
In North Carolina, I saw the first fuzzy glimpses of buds on the trees, and when I got out of the car, it had turn to spring, the temperature still cool, but not cold.
Further south and the clouds finally began to break up. Now there was the blue of the sky, the gray of the clouds -- and all along the roadway blossoms of white and pink and yellow and even purple on the trees.
Sometime in West Virginia, I gave up on trying to get good reception on NPR and put the iPod on shuffle. It gave me combinations of sights and sounds that will stick with me -- Kirsty MacColl singing me through a tunnel, "I'm an autumn girl, on an endless search for summer" -- Gillian Welch when the rain finally stopped, "I dreamed a highway back to you" -- and Sigur Ros, singing whatever they sing in that language they created as the sun finally broke through.
By the time I crossed into Georgia, I'd driven more than nine hours straight, and when I got out of the car, it was warm and sunny. I was ahead of schedule, so treated myself to a brief stop in Savannah, roaming the streets and squares.
And now I'm stopped for the night, a little south of Savannah, ready to push on to St. Pete tomorrow, see my family, relax for a while and do a little reading, a little writing, a little bicycling, and generally enjoy vacation.
In the meantime, enjoy a brief video postcard that I shot in Savannah, and I hope you all are having a good start to the weekend.
I decided to drive for this trip. Normally when I drive I pretty much follow I-75 south and north, but this time, the bosses wanted me in Akron, Ohio, for something the day before vacation. So instead, I drove over to Akron, and headed south from there.
Road trip!!!
The weather was ... not so great to start with. Heavy rain, cold temperatures getting colder by the hour. I made it as far as Marietta, Ohio, on Thursday before grabbing a hotel room. And a beer and a sandwich at a local pub.
It was 34 degrees and raining this morning as I took off, turning south across the Ohio River into West Virginia. For three hours, it switched between heavy rain and light rain, with a few snow flurries to make things interesting.
I've been in West Virginia before, but as a flat lander (relatively) I'm always astounded by the way these towns squeeze in to just a little bit of open space along the river, surrounded by high cliffs. Even the state capital is ringed by mountains, the golden dome of the capitol building the one bright spot this rainy morning.
From West Virginia, I drove south through Virginia as the mountains went from rugged rocks to soft mounds and finally oversized hills. The rain gave way to fog, and finally clouds.
In North Carolina, I saw the first fuzzy glimpses of buds on the trees, and when I got out of the car, it had turn to spring, the temperature still cool, but not cold.
Further south and the clouds finally began to break up. Now there was the blue of the sky, the gray of the clouds -- and all along the roadway blossoms of white and pink and yellow and even purple on the trees.
Sometime in West Virginia, I gave up on trying to get good reception on NPR and put the iPod on shuffle. It gave me combinations of sights and sounds that will stick with me -- Kirsty MacColl singing me through a tunnel, "I'm an autumn girl, on an endless search for summer" -- Gillian Welch when the rain finally stopped, "I dreamed a highway back to you" -- and Sigur Ros, singing whatever they sing in that language they created as the sun finally broke through.
By the time I crossed into Georgia, I'd driven more than nine hours straight, and when I got out of the car, it was warm and sunny. I was ahead of schedule, so treated myself to a brief stop in Savannah, roaming the streets and squares.
And now I'm stopped for the night, a little south of Savannah, ready to push on to St. Pete tomorrow, see my family, relax for a while and do a little reading, a little writing, a little bicycling, and generally enjoy vacation.
In the meantime, enjoy a brief video postcard that I shot in Savannah, and I hope you all are having a good start to the weekend.