Harrisonburg, Virginia

This is a college town in the Shenandoah Valley - James Madison University, or JMU as it is always referred to. The day was beautiful and sunny, but the traffic was horrendous. The traffic stopped abruptly at one point with signs saying "Accident Ahead". Once we finally got moving, there was no sign of an accident although road crews were working on the right side of the roadway - you'd think an accident would be pushed to the median. I did notice two ambulances going southbound while waiting but no signs of an accident were evident. In a situation like that you just turn off the engine and roll down the windows. Young boys were throwing a football back and forth, and a couple of them climbed a hillside to relieve themselves, although they didn't really go far enough. The traffic was totally stopped for over an hour.

I didn't feel all that great from the time I got up this morning, so I was glad to make it this far, about 365 miles. That will leave me the bulk of the trip tomorrow. I definitely think I won't do much traveling from July through August after this trip. The highways are clogged! In my memory I-81 has never been this heavily traveled, and I've driven it too many times to count.

I walked a couple of blocks up the street to a shopping area with a Walmart to get my film developed. Some of the pictures turned out quite nicely, but when I put the CD into the drive nothing happens. It doesn't even register that the drive is in use. I wonder if Walmart gave me a blank CD, although I would think I'd get some sort of message asking me what I wanted to do if that were the case. So I paid for a bad CD.

I will be glad to get back to NY and get the rocking chair out of the cargo space. It really impacts on Lady's available space. I don't know if I mentioned that I had ordered a product called "Pet Ride" or something like that. It is a covering that is spread over the back seats and attaches to the headrests so as to stay in place, and the pet can lie on the back seats without getting dog hair all over the upholstery (HAH!). I don't believe it will catch all the pet hair, but I'm hoping that by pulling both seat backs up I will have adequate room in the cargo space for all my travel items - luggage, cooler, etc. She won't exactly have a wide space but it will be long enough for her and I think she can stand up and turn herself around when she wants. That's the theory anyway.

These motel TV's leave a lot to be desired, or maybe I have gotten used to all the channels available on Mike's TV. I will sort of be glad to get back to "normal" with no television at all, as most of the programming is stupid, depressing, or nonsense (as in the case of kid's tv). I can remember when my children were little I watched Sesame Street & Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood with them, and sometimes during the summer we would watch Captain Kangaroo. As they got older they watched the Brady Bunch and a couple of other so-called family shows. Now you would be hard pressed to find any programming that is worthwhile. I don't like being old but I'm sure glad I don't have the responsibility for raising kids today.

Two weekends ago I watched Book TV at Mike's, which turned out to be a 2-hour feature on Ernest Hemmningway, and was presented from his home in Key West. This past Saturday the same program featured John Steinbeck (my favorite writer), but I never did figure out how to record it. I have enjoyed the Book TV channel as well as the Science channel and History channel.

I brought the USA map into the motel room this evening, so I think I will take a look and see if it is possible to avoid most interstates going back to CA. It's not easy until you cross the Mississippi River, but I'm going to try.