Kim and I are attending the Flying Scot North American Championship being held in Deltaville VA. This is the first report of the trip so far, I will try to do an update everyday. We thought it would be cool to start an online Diary type of thing for our vacations and sailing activities (pretty much the same thing, it seems). So these emails will force us to keep a record of the antics, uh, activities from this trip.
Day 1 Friday, June 22, 2007. Ok we turned off the hot water heater, set the a/c thermostat at 85 degrees, turned off the main water valve, walked through the house 150 times to find that last thing we know we are forgetting… The heck with it lets go, its 7:32 am and we hit the road. One frustrating thing about hitting the road from our place in Dunden is it takes a long time to get to I-75 heading north. I’ve never timed it but I’d guess it takes about an hour, minimum or more if at rush hour. UGH! Today it took 58 minutes; we got on I-75 at exactly 8:30 am. This may not seem like a big deal but when returning from a long trip that last hour seems like hell.
What are the odds? So its 9:26 and I see a Flying Scot entering the highway from an on ramp, its BRIGHT yellow, nothing stands out more than this except maybe a school bus. Then I realize it is connected to the back of Ron Pletsch’s truck, so it must be that old boat #341 that he has been working on. It looked really good in the next lane, he did a nice job of it. Did I say this thing is yellow?
Here's Ron with the YELLOW boat after arriving at the club. The picture does it no justice.
Its 10:32 am and we notice we have only covered 160 miles. Some quick math produces an average speed of only 53 mph for the first 3 hours, shit, at this pace it will take like 3 days to get there. It is time to get serious and quit stopping at every rest area we encounter.
At about 12:15 we stop for gas at the first exit into Georgia. Sort of the “moment of truth” for the new (used) Honda Odyssey van we bought recently. I am missing Clifford (the old Suburban) but one thing that could ease the pain would be some good gas mileage from the Van. Again, some quick math shows we just missed 20 mpg, not too bad for towing. I am a little disappointed that we are only 4 or 5 hours into the trip and I cannot get comfortable, my back hurts, as it has for about the last month. Clifford was way cool for long trips.
On the bright side it is a nice day for travel. We hit only brief patches of rain which lasted a few miles but most of the day was sunny and hot. For the most part the traffic was fairly light and thankfully there were no accidents or tie –ups. With good conditions, we began to pick up the pace, by the end of the day we stopped just outside Richmond VA. We covered 801 miles in 12 hours and 15 minutes for an average of 65.4 miles per hour for the day. The Van seems to be happy and in a groove at about 80 mph so that is a good thing. The A/C is really cold…another good thing.
The Van and Piggy at the Econo Lodge outside Richmond VA
We noticed that the attractions along the highway and the motels seem pretty empty for a Friday night. Even the world famous “South of the Border” looked deserted and maybe closed, couldn’t tell for sure since it was still daytime. We wondered if gas prices are keeping people from traveling….you think about a lot of relatively meaningless things during a long road trip.
The eerily empty Econo Lodge, not sure what to make of this place...
Settled in at the Econo Lodge and the beer is really hitting the spot and we're happy about being only 2 hours away from Deltaville. Our plan for tomorrow is to be registered, have the sails measured, the boat weighed, and in the water by tomorrow afternoon!
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