Orange, Pittsylvania, Franklin, Henry, Martinsville City, Rockingham, Caswell, Danville City, Caroline
Brandy went to Virginia to visit her family this Thanksgiving. We took off a couple extra days, so we'd have time to dilly dally. I really wanted to go through DelMarVA to cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and catch a ton of counties, but the time and gas were prohibitive, so I'll have to leave that for the future. On the way down I was able to scoop up the last county that is reasonably on the way to Lynchburg, Orange County, VA. I'm not sure why I hadn't hit that yet, but there it was, a big gap in the middle of the map that was conveniently on the way from where we dropped one rideshare and where we dropped another couple. I didn't see much as it was in the middle of the night in horrible fog and rain, but I have gotten to the point where I don't have to see the countryside to know it's nice. I will definitely make a daytime swing through this county some day.
We spent a lot of time sitting on our asses, but took one day to check out Danville and environs. Danville is an independent city (county equivalent) about 70 miles south of where Brandy grew up and right on the border with NC. Apparently there is a tank museum there.
We took time consuming back roads, thanks to my trusty topographical map, all the way to Martinsville City. It was deep sticks and quite nice. It's also amazing how far you can go in these parts on these tiny roads without coming across a thing. We crossed a reservoir from Bedford to Pittsylvania, then entered a bit into Franklin. From there we went to Henry, which completely surrounds Martinsville. In M-ville, we spent a bunch of time in a big, mostly empty coffee shop. The coffee wasn't great, but the place was a nice spot to hang out. M-ville has a really attractive little downtown, although it is still mostly vacant.
I couldn't come that close and not grab the two adjacent counties in NC, so we swung down through Eden in Rockingham County. I wanted to get more into Caswell County and do some biking, but the time was starting to be an issue, so I only caught the corner as we came back up into VA to Danville. Danville had a decent downtown, with more topography, but it was definitely not as attractive as Martinsville and the coffee shop we patronized had atrocious coffee and was more of a diner. We hit up a thrift store here where I got Stratego for $2. I made certain to count all the pieces and only later realized that I hadn't bothered to check if there was a board, to my dismay. Another theory is that I took the board out to count the pieces ... and the obvious happened.
At this point, time was a big crunch so we hopped on the highway most of the way up.
One the way back home we spent the night in Washington Sunday night. On Monday we went across the Chesapeake Bay to check out Delaware. On the way there we caught one of the remaining DE counties, Caroline. Caroline was nice and flat and rural, just like DE. Big, open fields with old farmhouses. I find the East Bay area quite lovely. It's very quiet and surprisingly flat, which is kind of a shock to find in the middle of the urban spew of the Boston-DC smear. It reminded me a lot of the Midwest, which is part of why I liked it so much, so it may not be as appreciated by others.
We went to Dover, which appears to be a quite lovely colonial town, but get a block off the strip and you realize that's all a facade to hide the fact that the town is extremely depressed. After Dover we took to scenic Route 9, which parallels the tollway going north-south. It was empty and beautiful. We took a little side road to a small beach town on the sea, completely surrounded by swamp. We spent awhile walking the beach and collecting dried grass. We had parked out of town in the middle of the swamp and biked in and the sun was going down in vivid color over the swamp when we got back. A massive flock of birds rose up over the water and danced through the sky, twisting and turning and undulating. We watched the show until we realized they were coming our way and Brandy brought up the fact that they were likely laden with shit. Just before they passed overhead, we dove into the van. Luckily they just missed us because we heard the missle impacts splattering the parking lot just feet away.
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