Finally, Wi-Fi!

Apologies for not updating yesterday... who knew the 1500 B.C. hotel I was staying at in the middle of the Appalachian mountains wouldn't have adequate wi-fi? What was I thinking? The hotel itself was a bit of a riot... when they first assigned me a room, they told me it was in the "annex building" on the third floor and didn't have an elevator, so if I had a lot of stuff it would make sense to park closer to that entrance. I'm sorry, What?!? After explaining that it would be preferable to have an actual room in the actual hotel (after all I had booked ahead), I was assigned a new room, number 228 (in the main building).

Upon entering said room, I got a little creeped out... there were used towels on the floor and soap with open packaging and the bed had a distinct ass print in the duvet. I went back to the desk, mentioned this to the clerk, who apologized profusely and moved me to another room... this one with a patio. Bonus! Then I checked into that room and there, under the desk, were two plastic baggie-looking things that I can only describe as "evidence booties", you know, the elastic banded protective footwear that crime-scene detectives wear over their shoes when investigating a triple murder. I brought them down to the front desk and was informed they were the wrappers from the individual plastic cups sitting next to the ice bucket. A bit anti-climatic, but still... hello, Housekeeping?

So I poured myself a Jack (no ice... the only ice machine in the hotel was on the first floor), and after booting up my laptop and perusing footage from the day, I tried to sign into what they referred to as "wi-fi", but what turned out to be a shared dial-up (I know, right?!?) and it literally took 7 minutes before I could even login to my site. Needless to say, any updates were going to have to wait til the next day and civilization.

Morning came and breakfast was nowhere to be found. So I ventured down to the State Park and was blown away by something called "The Natural Bridge". Apparently, this million-year-old rock formation, carved by water (like the Grand Canyon) was a place where Thomas Jefferson and George Washington would hang out when they were in Virginia and wanted some quality peaceful time. It was breath-taking. Pictures do NOT do it justice, because the sheer height of it is difficult to show without some common reference point, like an average 5'10" human. None were to be found, because it was raining, and it was 8:00 am, hence I pretty much had the place to myself. When I review the footage from the GoPro it's possible I can get a better scope for you. Otherwise, the picture simply looks like this:

Then I hit the road. It was still raining in Virginia, and all the way through to Maryland it was pretty cloudy, drizzly, and basically shitty driving weather. But not as bad as yesterday... (post dated story to follow!).

I've got some great footage from today's drive and once I get back to Boston, I'm going to post a whole video of the trip... complete with me singing along to John Denver and Elvis Costello. For now, I'm all tucked in to my AMAZING AirBnB room tonight (more info on that tomorrow). For now, let's see if I can post the video from my anxiety-riddled crossing of the Tappan Zee Bridge in New York... Please feel free to enjoy my angst. Hope it loads properly!

Until tomorrow... and hey y'all, thank you so much for sharing this adventure! It means the world to me.