January 2019 road trip Days 1 and 2 - One hike described
Road trip basics: Driving from home in New Jersey to New Orleans and back.
Dates: January 15-26.
Originally we planned on taking the train to New Orleans. In fact, we had it all booked and we were going to come home on the 23rd, getting home on the 24th. Well, on December 13th an innocent looking email said that something had changed on one segment of our trip and to call for more info. I've had these happen a lot with airlines and Amtrak and its usually something like we changed your departure from 9:05 am to 9:08 am due to an annual schedule adjustment. Not this time! Our return trip was summarily cancelled because there will be no service from NOLA to Trenton on the 23rd. Turns out not on the 24th either. So at that point we'd be coming back the 25th and even if everything went perfectly I couldn't make my flights to LA for work that day. So we made the trip into (a slightly longer) road trip.
Day 1 - Tuesday January 15
After a short and busy work day interspersed with packing and doing laundry at the laundromat (oh yeah, our washer broke the other day and parts are on order!), we finally headed out around 3:30 pm. By the time we got near Phillipsburg the car nav was telling me there were delays on US-22 in Allentown so I tried getting on I-78 West instead. For those who aren't from our area, I-78 cuts a bit south of US-22 and the two eventually merge somewhere past Allentown so this alternate route was less than 30 miles long and mostly parallels the standard route. Unfortunately, as is usually the case for my on I-78 in PA it was very congested and annoying with a few near stops in traffic. Then we got on US-322 to head towards Reading on our way to dinner in Lancaster PA. Traffic was very irritating but ultimately not terribly slow until about Reading and from then on it was a non-issue. In order to get our very long trip to NOLA done with the other plans made earlier based on the train trip, Tuesday and Wednesday and possibly Thursday were all going to be pushed to the max to cover the 1250 miles or so just to get to NOLA. We drove to Roanoke the first night, arriving a little after midnight, about what was planned. Dinner at PF Chang's in Lancaster was a good vacation start. I didn't take any pictures here but imagine your choice of traffic clogged freeways and two lane roads until dark and then endless miles of I-81 in the dark with a healthy amount of trucks on it even at midnight and you'll understand most of this day.
Day 2 - Wednesday January 16
We got up from Roanoke and headed out pretty early from the Hyatt Place we stayed at. Breakfast at the hotel was an interesting menu (a vegetable hash and sausage biscuits with pimento cheese plus some scrambled eggs for me) but by the time we ate at 8:30 it seemed like everything was a little stale and crusty. I-81 in Virginia was unrelentingly awful. I could never have imagined how many trucks there would be for the first 150 miles of today. Many times I had a truck in front of me, one to my right and one right behind me with no room to maneuver. For the most part it was just trucks and cars (but mostly trucks) doing what they need to do to get down the road but I-81 is a little hilly in VA and there are only 2 lanes for most of it and there was almost no peaceful time when we weren't either waiting for an opening to get back up to speed or working at finding ways to get out of the way to let the other even more impatient motorists get past us. It was not in any way an enjoyable drive for me. Luckily, once we got into TN it improved somewhat. Still busy but not as crazy once I-77 peeled off in southern VA leaving only I-81 travelers.
Despite knowing that today would be a marathon we agreed to shoehorn a hike in. In this case I wanted to go to the Fiery Gizzard trail which is one of if not THE most talked about hikes in all of Tennessee. When I lived in TN I went to the other section of the South Cumberland Recreation Area called Savage Gulf and did the astoundingly beautiful Stone Door hike (blogged here) but I just never made it that extra handful of miles towards Chattanooga to do the Gizzard. So today we got in about 3.5 miles. We did the Grundy Forest loop (2 miles) and the spur to Sullivan's falls (about 1.2). It also gave us a chance to go West a little further on I-40 out of Knoxville and then south on US 127 which was very relaxing instead of 80 miles on I-75 and going through Chattanooga on I-24. Traffic on I-40 was mostly pretty good, especially East of Knoxville but got more difficult in the hillier terrain West of Knoxville which also has fewer lanes.
The hike didn't disappoint and as an extra gift, I had said several hours before we arrived that I would really love it if the thick overcast clouds burned off before we got there. About 30 minutes before arriving at the trailhead I saw the first little tiny slits of blue sky and sure enough when we parked at the trailhead I got out of the car into almost full sunlight. It wasn't toasty warm but it was bright and felt great compared to the lousy wet weather we've had at home this winter. Most of the trail was along one of what I assume are two branches of the same creek or river. The flat limestone rock that is so typical of the SouthEast US was present and the trail had a lot of branches and rocky ledges and drop offs which made it more exciting that its modest length might suggest. We both loved it.
Tomorrow we finish the last 200 miles in to NOLA and meet up with our friend Jim from Vermont for four days.
Pics by Brian:
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