We hit the road early and we hit it hard! We drove out of Virginia through morning traffic and were pretty soon in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains. Early along that route we came to an awesome pass that we taped for you all:
As it turned out, my geography WAS wrong, that was definitely not the highest point we passed over on the mountains. Though we HAD managed to stay in the DC metro area long enough for the big storm to pass over, another smaller storm was moving in today. It started to hit while we were in the mountains in western Maryland and Pennsylvania. I have to say, few things are as immediately concerning as driving along a mountain highway when the snow starts.
At the Maryland Welcome Center
Cades drove it like CHAMP though. You never would have guess that he's never driven in snow before because he did GREAT. Parts of the drive we hit near white-out conditions, maybe 100 feet of visibility ahead. The only reason we pushed on is because those patches ended up being about 5 minutes of near white-out that then broke into light snow, so we kept going. At some point in all this driving we hit 1000 miles driven on the trip too!!
At the West Virginia Welcome Center
When we finally made it into Ohio, the weather had cleared up a ton and we had nice flat, straight highway to cover. Which turned out to be VERY boring. Ohio is not the most exciting state to drive though, let me tell you. If it wasn't for the gusting wind requiring that you actually pay attention to driving, we would have been at risk of falling asleep on the road.
One of the more interesting things we learned about Ohio is that when there's fresh snow and high winds... all that flat lands creates SNOW DUNES! We tried to film it for you guys:
In the end though we made it safely, nearly 10 hours after we started this morning, to Mason, Ohio. Though right before we got to our destination for tonight we got ANOTHER hit for our made-up "insane things on the highway" scavenger hunt, an 18-wheeler tipped over sideways off the highway! Woo, we've got so many points now!
At the Ohio Welcome Center
As per what may or may not be some kind of tradition, we were treated to Skyline Chili, and it was GREAT! Both Cades and I decided that the flavor reminded us of something we've had before, but we couldn't quite place it.
Running back inside after food was described by Cades as "The worst 3 minutes of my life". Currently in the Cincinnati area the temperature is about 5 degrees, with a windchill below zero, it's DAMN cold . With all that said though, we're curled up in a warm house, full of chili and ready for sleep. We've got a 6 hours drive tomorrow to Saint Louis! At the bottom here I'm going to put a few of the shots of the gorgeous scenery from today.
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