The Sweatiest Road Trip Ever - Day 2. Skyline Drive in Squanket

In our last thrilling episode, you may recall that we had climbed into a rented minivan that had all the raw driving appeal and responsive handling of a poached egg, and were headed south to deliver our daughter to college in Florida.

That first night we managed to get all the way to southern New York, about 4 hours from home. We decided to crash for the night before we crashed.

In the morning, we got up early and hit the road again. We passed some time deciding on a name for the van. this is an important element of any trip. As the mighty Dodge Caravan was to be our prison for many, many hours, it needed a good name to reflect its importance.

Based on a permutation of a pond name we saw, we decided to call the van Squanket.

Shut up.

Go name your own van.

As you may or may not know, I simply adore tourist traps. The tackier and more awful, the more I genuinely enjoy them.

Here is a partial list of places that my family would not allow me to stop (on the flimsy argument that Tori needed to be at school on time for orientation):

The John Wayne Truck Stop and Chrome Shop
The Lion's Den Adult Superstore
The Food Lion
The Runaway Truck Ramp

One of the many, many "World's Largest Fireworks" stores we saw along the way.

All my sightseeing had to be done along the road, at 70+ miles per hour.

I did get to see:

This

truck

painted

like

Shrek.

The Rust-Oleum Factory

Drooling Tori.

Oddly Contorted Alex

A LOT of super-huge crosses.

People with the worst camp site in the world.

This fine person with the "Democrats Kill Babies",  "Hitler Cuomo Kill Babies", and "Trump Forever" bumper stickers.

I will admit that some of these attractions were less appealing than others, but still, I like the adventure they offer.

We did trust our GPS (named Nellie) to find us a park to have lunch in. We followed her off the highway and pulled into a scenic parking lot at a truck repair facility.

Thanks, Nellie. This is really nice.

After some high-intensity whining, I managed to get the family to allow me to pull off the highway into a tourist information center in Virginia.

I opted for the safety rest area instead of the danger rest area because I am a responsible adult.

Awwwww...

I did discover a triceratops fossil. No big deal or anything, but I think I deserve some sort of award.

It doesn't say anything about removing these items. Thanks for the free gum, Virginia!

Oddly specific directions.

The friendly attendant talked my ear off for about 8 or 9 hours, while I slowly edged away from him. I leapt into Squanket and squealed out of the parking lot and he clung to the hood like some action-movie hero, still trying to convince me to take more pamphlets extolling the virtues of visiting the Factory Outlet Stores next to the Applebee's.

After some tricky evasive driving and three trips though a car wash, we managed to get him off the hood. The only thing that remained was a piece of a map, beckoning us to visit Skyline Drive, a scenic road that winds along virtually parallel to the highway we were on.

"Let's do it!" I cried, reaching out and snatching the scrap of map from under the windshield wiper.

"We drove on Skyline Drive when we came to Virginia before," Kerri reminded me.

"And it was lovely, right?" I said, steering Squanket off the highway toward the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. And it really was lovely. Even the second time through.

Scenic Vista.

Another Scenic Vista.

The 10 millionth Scenic Vista.

The names of some of the overlooks were worth the price of admission.

This, in case you wondered, is what Gooney Manor Overlook looks like. 

And speaking of Gooney.

Tori noticed the buzzards circling overhead and suggested that it might be time to leave.

I made her play dead as a distraction while the rest of us piled in the van.

It really makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Tunnels are always fun.

Wheeeeee!

The road continued to wind and be scenic and lovely, but it was really, really long. Eventually, I asked Tori to look at the pile of literature that the ranger had given us when we entered the park and see how long Skyline Drive is.

"105.5 miles," she answered. "And the speed limit is 35 miles per hour, so..."

I might have lost consciousness for a moment because I didn't hear the rest of her reply.

"105 miles!" I cried.

"105.5," she corrected.

"105.5 miles of this slow, winding road?"

I could feel my family's eyes boring into me. So I closed my mouth and smiled. "Sure is scenic, isn't it?" I asked. "Oooh, look! Scenery!"

A small problem with Skyline Drive is that there are only a few ways off it once you get on it. And they are many, many miles apart. Another, more deeply personal problem was that Alex had developed some sort of intestinal distress and was clouding the air inside Squanket with a toxic haze of egg farts.

Thanks, buddy!

"If you had let me go to the World's Largest Fireworks Store, we could have strapped a bunch of bottle rockets onto the van and blasted back to the highway," I whined.

"If you light a match anywhere within a mile of Alex, we'll all die," Tori choked from the floor, where she had slumped.

We did, eventually, wind our way back to the highway and, all in all, we only lost about 3 precious hours of driving in the race to get Tori to school in time for orientation.

The only way I could see to make up for that lost time would be to stop for pizza.

Alex used his super power of Googling things to find a lovely-looking pizza place that had a wood-fired oven.

The food was delicious. And, boy, did it feel good to sit down after that long drive.

Fortunately, the service was super slow, so dinner only took a couple hours.

At some point during the meal, it was apparently decided that I should be relieved of all driving responsibilities and Kerri was to be the driver from now on.

Which is fine with me. Now I can really do some sight-seeing for the rest of this trip.