Sunday, July 21, 2013

Bears Go East: And So It Begins

The following events happened on June 28, 2013 
My family and I are on an epic road trip up the eastern coast of North America.  Our ultimate destination is the Canadian Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and to fill the miles in between with as much adventure as we can manage.

Today we took the first steps on our journey. It begins now.

 I woke up early and filled the Geovan-of-Destiny up with magic go fuel (aka gasoline).  Then we packed up the kids, and enough earthly belongings to survive in hotels for 3 weeks, and headed down the driveway and off on adventure.

Our goal for today was to get to Salem, Virginia.  We can only go as far as the patience of a toddler and infant allow, so we are taking short hops every day as we inch our way north and east. This day wasn't overly exciting as our main goal was simply to put in mileage to get closer to areas we have not explored very well yet.  We still managed to find some interesting things to do, and sites to see.

Our first stop of the day was just across the North Carolina/Virginia line, where a quick climb up some ancient stairs and a short jaunt through the woods lead me to an old amphitheater  and my very first geocache of the trip.

We then proceeded about 15 miles down the road to Dublin VA, where we stopped for lunch, and grabbed another pair of geocaches.

When we arrived in Salem we immediately headed over to a Quilt Shop to get some much needed supplies forgotten by my quilter wifey.  She has a quilt she is working on to pass the time in the car, and forgot some needles (an important tool for any quilter).

I did find one cache that was unique in my experience, which is a pathtag hotel.  It is basically set up like a travel bug hotel, but the primary purpose is to swap path tags. I thought it was a cool concept, and was happy to drop my tag into the cache.

Along the way we ended up seeing some wonderful vistas, like this one of the Virginia mountains:

We also ended up driving the Highway To Hell (which is in Virginia for some reason.. who knew?).  Road 666 runs along side Interstate 81 for a few miles, so we decided to drive it (listening to AC/DC's Highway To Hell along the way, natch).

Another interesting fact: While the Yellow Brick road brings you to the Emerald City, and there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, at the end of the Highway To Hell there is a geocache (I am not sure exactly what this means, spiritually speaking, but I'll take that up with my pastor).

So that ends day one of what promises to be an awesome adventure.  Stay tuned tomorrow as we head down the road to Maryland for some food and cheer, and along the way some history lessons.