Day 2 Summer 2011 Road Trip

Day 2, awake bright and early, had a quick breakfast at the hotel and then “ On the Road Again”

Happy 4th of July to our American Friends.

We left Bridgeport West Virginia heading South on I-79 through the Appalachian Mountain Range. The mist was heavy this morning as you can see in these photos.

We drove through the East River Mountain Tunnel on I-77 South.

Then we entered Virginia and stopped at the I-77 South Welcome Center for a break and to gather maps and pamphlets so that we can do some research of things we would like to see and do when we return to Virginia later this summer.

Throughout Virginia and West Virginia we kept on seeing these 3 crosses grouped together in random locations. After doing some research we learnt that they were put up by a man named Bernard Coffindaffer who became a Christian at 42 years of age and had a vision to “plant crosses” He raised and spent $3,000,000.00 planting 1864 trios of crosses in 29 States, Zambia and the Philippines. West Virginia has 352 sets of crosses, the most of any State.

Another tunnel, The Big Walker Mountain Tunnel.

As we drove along through the West Virginia and Virginia parts of the Appalachians, we chuckled at the elevation signs we were seeing.. I think at the highest portion the sign said it was 3520 ft above sea level…although these are mountains, and very scenic… they are not the Rocky Mountains. I remember last summer driving at 10,000, 12,000 and even 14,000 ft altitudes. The Appalacians are some 460 million years old and have had considerably more time to erode and wear down compared to the much younger Rocky Mountains formed only 80 million years ago.

We saw a lot of road kill as we drove through the mountain roads. Yesterday we saw 1 dead deer and today I counted 6 deer and lost count of the raccoons, skunks and porcupines. We haven't seen this much road kill in all of our previous travels totalled together. Not a pretty sight.

We pulled into the North Carolina Welcome Center for another break and to gather more information.

We continued South on I-77 through the State of North Carolina and at many of the on and off ramps we noticed these large plantings of lilies.

Some photos of the Lake Norman Reservoir and the skyline of Charlotte NC.

Then we cross the State line into South Carolina. Of course we take a break and stop at the South Carolina Welcome Center.

Here is another interesting water tower to add to our collection of water tower photos. This one is painted to look like a baseball.

We arrived at our hotel in Orangeburg SC and will take it easy this evening so that we can get up early in the morning and make the final push to Titusville FL. We want to get to Titusville before the crowds are expected to arrive so that we can check out the area in preparation for Launch Day.

Oh yes, we also added 3 more States to our “Visited States Map”

To see all of our photos from today you can find them on our FLICKR site, just click on the link.