VIRGINIA

I took a road trip this week into Virginia to pick up some items I bought for the Neighborhood Center, the Camden non-profit where I volunteer from time to time.  Those of you who think I live in the country should have been with me to see where the real wilderness holds sway.  You sometimes need to go quite a distance between signs of human habitation.  But this is very pretty country.

I was worried about the weather, since a storm blew by on Sunday, but the roads were really clear.  I took a train to DC and picked up a truck from there.  On the trip west on I66 it was clear from the trees that there had been an extensive ice storm.  The trees were really pretty, but even if I still had my little digital cameral there wasn't much of a picture since it was cloudy, even a little foggy.  Further south on I81 there were even fewer signs of the storm.  The only real road issues I had during the whole trip were in my home town of Willingboro, which hadn't been cleared properly as late as Tuesday night.

The last 40 or so miles were on I64, which is by far and away the loneliest interstate highway I've ever seen.  For much of the trip (at around 6PM) I was the only vehicle on the road.  In either direction.  During the day, the next day, it was less crowded than the NJ Turnpike would have been at 3AM on a Sunday morning.  Mind you, it's not like it's a primary artery.  It goes to Beckly, WV.  (I know, where?)

Some things I discovered (or rediscovered) about Virginia.  The people are as pleasant as I remember them from my time in the Navy.  Of course, people everywhere are pleasant to one degree or another (Manhattan being an exception, of course), but the soft southern accent makes Virginians seem nicer, I guess.  One thing I wasn't prepared for is that people were smoking in the bar.  Although there's an anti-smoking law that looks like New Jersey's on paper, the general southern cussedness means that they look for any loophole.  So althoug the restaurant is smoke-free, they isolate the bar in a separate room and declare it exempt from the restriction.  I can't remember the last time I was in a smoke-filled bar.  But there actually was effective ventilation, so it wasn't so bad.  Another thing is that the speed limit for large stretches of highway is 70mph (although a fully loaded truck sometimes can't take full advantage in those hills).

The other thing I experienced was pumping my own gas.  Apparently NJ and one other state in the entire country are alone in mandating that an attendant pump your gas.&nbsp: Everywhere else you do it yourself (or pay extra for attendant service).