Oh Shenandoah . . . I'm bound Away

This is actually the Tennessee River, flooded, but
I thought it worked with the lyrics of the
song :)

Oh Shenandoah, I hear you calling,

Hi-Ho, You rolling river.

Oh Shenandoah, I long to hear you, 
Hi-Ho, I'm bound Away.

~ Traditional American Folk Song, early 19th Century

Linda and I have been learning oh, so much on this trip!  Anytime we see something along the way and don't know about it, I look it up on my trusty iPhone and regale her with what is probably an overload of information.  We feel so smart when we're done, though!!!  So no, to answer anyone's question about whether or not we are bored, no.  Besides that, we have well over 100 years of stories between us to share, so it will be awhile before we run out of things to say.  And, we have made four more days of good stories to share . . .

This was in the bathroom at the
Whistle Stop Cafe where we
had lunch.  Except for the "brain's" part
(should be "brains") this
describes our trip so far :)

Today, we mostly just drove.  It was our second day of rainy weather, so stops were not as inviting.  Plus, we needed to cover ground.  Which we did.  More than 700 miles of ground.  Most of Tennessee and quite a bit of Virginia.  We will get to where we are going sometime tomorrow morning.  When we arrive depends on we leave (duh).  The hotel people have warned us that there is quite a bit of traffic between here (Staunton, VA) and D.C. so we are thinking about what to do about leaving.  We don't want to venture forth only to sit in traffic.  We will decide in the morning.

One of the things that has amused us no end is the odd names to places along the way.  I've been keeping a list of the more preposterous SMH ones (shaking my head): Bucksnort, TN (a town), Pigtail Creek, Mouse tail Camp, Magazine Mountain, Frozen Head State Park (yes!), Cross-eyed Cricket Campground, Hungry Mother State Park, Route 666/Hog Back Road, Scrooges Restaurant, among others.  We thought "Frozen Head" might have an interesting story, but it only referred to the snowy mountain top near the park.  Kind of disappointing.  I did find an account of 18 frozen heads that were discovered in a container at an airport, though.  And something about the Ted Williams cryogenics controversy.

We've been collecting interesting road signs.
This one warns motorcycle riders of
grooved pavement.

Our room is at the back of the hotel, next to railroad tracks.  Linda had to sign a waiver about the noise of the "unscheduled trains" saying we understood there were no refunds for the possibly noisy room.  We didn't know what that could mean, but have just experienced the first train...and it is noisy and does shake the room a bit.  We are hoping to sleep through the next one :)

Yet another series of favorite pictures from the day:

It was extremely foggy in the mountains much of
the day.

The VW van in front of the Whistle
Stop Cafe (our place for lunch in the
town of Baxter, TN)

We saw at least four of these giant crosses
in front of churches in both TN and VA.  They
were all the same--huge and overpowering.

There are quite a few similar museums
along the way in TN and VA.  Too bad
we had no time for them today.

My favorite road-side photo.

Seventh-day Adventist Church in VA (don't recall
what city).  This is the 4th SDA Church we've
seen along the roadside.

Joe Bear enjoying the picturesque VA rest stop.

The VW van is to the left of the second sign.

This cute rubber ducky and note were on our
bathtub at tonight's Best Western!

We've seen several similar signs questioning our
destiny (we also saw a lot advertising "adult"
entertainment!  Strange juxtaposition of
values!!!).