Jackie and Chris Travels: Last Day

After staying at our favorite hotel in one of our favorite cities, we needed breakfast before hitting the road. We went to two different places which were recommended, both of which had 1 hour wait times, even at 9:30 in the morning. We settled for the second of the two but we got take out instead. The wait for that was only 10 minutes. We enjoyed a fried egg BLT and sweet potato pancakes with pecans on top. We found out the reason for the long wait was because the city was packed with people for an Oktoberfest celebration. We wished we had known about this sooner; we would have stayed in town two nights instead of one. After breakfast we headed for the Biltmore estate, or more specifically, the gift shop at the Biltmore. The last time we were there, in April, we especially enjoyed one of their wines, so we decided to get some more. After loading up on wine we made the trip towards Chimney Rock State Park, which was only about a 40 minute drive outside of the city. We had first heard about Chimney Rock State Park on our Blue Ridge Parkway trip in the spring. At the time we skipped the park so that we could stick solely to the parkway. This time, with the amazing fall weather, we wanted to check out the park. Chimney Rock State Park is named after a granite rock formation which looks like a chimney. This is the highlight of the park. We arrived at the park and were surprised not by an entry fee per vehicle, but by a $15 per person entry fee. We thought this was steep for a state park but we paid anyway. Since it was so crowded they did not allow us to drive to the top, instead they were using shuttle busses. We boarded a bus and got close to the top. Near the top one had a choice: either take an elevator the rest of the way up or walk. We chose to take the elevator up and walk back down. The wait for the small, 8 person elevator, ended up being much longer than we had anticipated. We estimate we waited in line for about a half hour. Once we got to the top, where they dump you into a gift shop, we walked out to Chimney Rock. The rock, which stands alone, separated from the rest of the mountain, is connected by a staircase which seems to be suspended in mid-air. We walked out, enjoyed the amazingly clear day, and just looked at the view for awhile. After getting off of the rock we explored the area a little more, first walking up hill to a cool little viewpoint called Opera Box, which is kind of a cave in the side of the mountain but overlooks Chimney Rock. We then walked further up the trail and up a bunch of stairs to the highest point in the park called Exclamation Point. From there we saw a plane flying through the valley, below us! The views from there were just as great and we rested for awhile after getting a nice workout.

The view from inside of the Opera House

Airplane flying below

View from Exclamation Point

After making our way down the mountain, we got back in the car and started driving northeast towards home. It was already about 4 in the afternoon and we had only driven about 35 miles since we started. We had spent that much time on the mountain. We wanted to make some good time because we wanted to be in NY early in the afternoon on Sunday and it was already 4 PM and we had over 700 miles to go. We had no idea where we would be spending the night, we figured we would just drive until we got tired, then we would find a place to stay. However, we were starving. While we had a nice breakfast, we had nothing for lunch and already it was getting close to dinner time. We read about a great fried chicken place called Keaton’s in Cleveland, NC, so we headed that way. It was unfortunate that we had so little time because North Carolina is famous for its excellent BBQ. Had we had more time we would have tried more of it. We arrived in Cleveland about 2 hours after leaving Chimney Rock. The place reinforced the fact that we are not snooty. Located pretty much in the middle of nowhere, from the outside it looked like a dump. Inside, however, there was a long line of people talking with local accents, which was a very good sign. Keaton’s is home to some of the best chicken we have had. The menu calls it barbecued, which it is, sort of, but it is also fried. The hot sauce penetrates the crust and meat of the chicken and caramelizes all around its outside edges, resulting in pieces of chicken that are hot, sweet, and savory all at once. We split an order which consisted of two wings, two breasts and two thighs. We also got side orders of spicy slaw, green beans and mac and cheese. We also drank nearly a pitcher of sweat tea.

The entrance to Keaton's

After dinner we started driving again. Only about 5 miles from the restaurant we had a choice to make. Make a left turn onto US 64, which would take us to I-77 north to I-81 north, through Virginia and PA, a trip that would be 640 more miles and about 11 hours; or make a right onto US 64, and onto I-40 toward I-95, a trip that while longer in mileage at 651, and longer in time at 12 hours, was probably better since we would be driving at night and Chris thought the extra traffic would keep him more alert. We opted for the busier route with a twist. At Greensboro, NC, we headed north on US 29. We had taken this router before as an alternate to I95 and we enjoyed it. While the speed limited alternated between 65 and 55, there is little to no traffic, compared to I95 to the east that can back up for no reason at all. We drove into Virginia and then headed east on US 360 towards Richmond. After driving for only about an hour and a half, it was already 9 at night and we knew we were not going to make it very far that night. We pulled over, switched drivers, and Chris took out his phone to start looking for places to stay in Richmond. We found a Fairfield Inn and using our General Dynamics corporate rate (wait a minute, neither of us work for General Dynamics), we booked an inexpensive room. We arrived at our hotel after driving through the night and likely picking up a dozen more counties, just before midnight. At one point before we got off of the interstate, we almost hit something in the road. It was dark and we didn’t see it until we nearly hit it, but in the right lane of the interstate was the contents of someone’s house, or so it seemed. There was a bunch of broken furniture all over the road and just up the road, an empty pickup truck with its flashers on and the tailgate open. We suspect they were overpacked and they hit a bump and everything fell out. We figured this was a good reason to rent a U-haul if we ever move.

Saturday's route

On Sunday we had only one real goal: getting to NY as early as we could. We wanted to beat the Sunday afternoon traffic plus we wanted to have a few hours to unwind and unpack the beast and re-pack the truck before we headed home on Monday morning. Our decision to head towards I95 last night probably came back to bite us: now we had to travel up 95 from Richmond, through Washington, Baltimore, Philly and NJ, all the way to NY on a Sunday. This surely would not be good. Google maps said it was a 369 mile drive which would take us 7 hours. If you have ever driven that stretch of I95 at any time other than the middle of the night you know that 7 hours would be amazing, 8-9 would be more like it. We quickly looked for alternate routes and found one. Anyone who ever travels towards Florida from the NY area should take note. You can avoid the I95 corridor from Washington to NY by doing what we did. Just outside of Washington DC we took US29 north towards Baltimore. At first there were a few lights but mostly it was 60 mph driving. We picked up I70 and I695 outside of Baltimore, then headed north on I83. We took that into Pennsylvania, then hit US30 heading east then US222 through Reading and joined I78 just west of the PA/NJ border. The route was advertised at 404 miles and 7 hours 45 minutes but we made it in a little under 6 1/2 hours including a stop for gas and a quick stop at McDonald’s for lunch. We absolutely recommend that route and we will surely take it again ourselves when we travel south. While we were driving through Washington we passed through some construction zones where they were adding tolled HOV lanes. We have seen these in California where the regular interstate is free but the HOV lanes have a toll. Not only that, the price of the toll increases as traffic in the regular lanes becomes more congested. So you end up paying a premium for zipping around the stalled traffic in the regular lanes. If traffic is moving freely in the open lanes then the HOV lanes are usually free as well. We know that if we had this opportunity we would pay to not sit in traffic. We finally arrived in Stony Point around 2:45 and started unpacking. We unpacked the beast, packed our truck and went and filled up the beast. The final fill up cost us a staggering $106 at $4.15 per gallon. NY gas prices are too high.