View Scenic Raleigh 2010 in a larger map
After successfully navigating my way up to Boston via a predetermined route I chose myself, I decided to go bigger for a trip down to Raleigh, North Carolina to attend the Triangle Game Conference. In looking for roads for my drive up to Boston, the Wikipedia page for the Taconic State Parkway made reference to another road, Skyline Drive. When I saw this was in Virginia and emptied out into an even better road called the Blue Ridge Parkway I immediately set to work figuring out if this would be a viable day trip. At first it wasn’t looking good – the route was coming up as 18-20 hours on the road. Yikes. But I eventually tweaked things around enough to get it down to 15-17 hours and decided to leave very early in the morning to miss traffic and I banked on it being Easter Monday. It was a lot of factors that needed to be accounted for in order for this to work, and I was still looking at some serious road time. Fortunately, the vase majority of it would be spent on twisty, scenic mountain roads.
But still – 15 to 17 hours is a long time to be driving a car. It’s one thing if you’re a passenger, or have someone to swap driving duties with, but I was running this solo. There are three things that, for me, make doing this possible. Number One is that I have a really fun car to drive. It’s fast, the steering is responsive, and it just begs to be driven. Number Two is that I drive with good body posture, and have a seat to support it. I place both hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel, and that keeps my shoulders level, which are supported by wings in my seat. My back is kept straight with lower lumbar support and my legs are properly angled thanks to lower seat controls. Being able to let my seat hold me so well means my body does not get sore or fatigued after long hours of sitting (still, stretch breaks are nice). Number Three is that I wear gloves when I drive. Really, it’s amazing what a thin layer of leather will do to keep your hands from both cramping up and just getting sore from resting on the steering wheel.
I left at 5am and arrived in Raleigh at roughly 9pm. While that’s 16 hours about 2 of them were spent stopped either for stretch breaks and/or food/gas. So around 14 hours of total driving time. And I arrived still able to go out to a bar for a while and stay up until 2am working on my laptop. While the weather was beautiful and sunny, the temperatures soared to 90F by the afternoon, which was too hot for me and my car’s crappy oil cooler.
Now let’s look at the drive itself.
Highways to the Skyways
As I said, I departed my house at 5am and started my trip down to Skyline Drive. Leaving so early helped me avoid traffic all through NJ, DE and MD – up until I hit the beltway around DC. Since I use my laptop for turn-by-turn voice navigation, I was able to use my iPhone to check ahead of me for traffic snarls. Nothing popped up except for this one beltway yellow zone, but there was no way to easily get around it since it was only about 5 miles from my exit, so I just sat through it for about 15 minutes and then I was off zooming again.
I of course zipped along the highways at around 80mph – it seems for some reason every police car on duty was trapping in the opposite lane, as I must have passed at least 4 leaving NJ alone that had already pulled over traffic in the other direction. I wasn’t complaining! The one speed trap I passed in my lane in MD was when I was looking at my iPhone for traffic updates, and had slowed down to around 70mph. Lucky!
My laptop GPS had predicted I would arrive at Skyline Drive around 11am, and I got there a little before 10am. So I was already trimming down time, but that didn’t make me any less eager to tackle these roads with all the speed I could muster.
Skyline Drive
There are two things that dampen the awesomeness of Skyline Drive. One is that it’s a toll road. You have to pay $15 for a week pass in order to get on the road, mainly because it’s the main access road for Shenandoah National Park so you’re really paying a park access fee. But once you’re past that and on the road, you’re immediately greeted with stunning mountain vistas that stretch out as far as the eye can see – or the morning mist allows you to see anyways. The image above was the first scenic viewpoint, like 2 miles from the entrance. I’m not even up that high yet! There are scenic views practically every 5 miles or so, and the road itself is 105 miles long.
The second thing that sucks about Skyline Drive is that the speed limit is set to a crazy slow 35mph. Again, this is a park’s main access road and as such there are lots of hikers and bikers. There are also corners where vehicles must stop to turn into view areas on the other side of the road. No, this isn’t like Route 1 in California where 35mph is really as fast as you would want to go – these sweeping corners beg you to take them at 40-60mph to really feel those wonderful lateral-G’s. A lot you can, because they don’t turn around blind bends, but there are also plenty you want to take with caution. Not just because of people or other vehicles, but wildlife. I only saw two deer alongside the road, but Skyline Drive literally winds through the middle of Shenandoah, and apparently they have the largest concentration of black bears. You hit a deer in your sports car, and you wreck the car. You hit a fucking bear in your sports car, you wreck the car… and then the bear gets up and eats you.
Also, don’t forget that you’ll be sharing the road – and other than the scenic vista areas Skyline Drive has very little in the way of turnouts, even though it does compensate rather well with a frequent amount of passing zones. Still, you’re going to get stuck behind slow-moving traffic, and you’re going to have to deal with it. Luckily for me, such traffic never consisted of more than one vehicle at a time, with the exception of three motorcycles riding as a group I had to pass once. The other downside to this is that you don’t ever really want to stop to soak in the views, because then the guys you passed catch up to you, and you have to pass them. Again. So most of the pictures I took consisted of pulling over, sticking my camera out the window, snapping a shot and then peeling back out onto the road. Not all the people you ride tail on will get out of the way, either. Some did turn into a scenic vista so I could pass them up, but a lot just ignorantly or unthoughtfully just puttered right along until you hit a passing zone.
Finally, Skyline Drive is heavily patrolled by park police – at least, that’s what the Wikipedia page warns. I’m thinking it was the holiday that had only one or two cops on duty, but I didn’t run into a single cruiser until the last 10 miles or so of the road. I was just about to pass a van in a passing zone when I realized the car coming towards me was a police cruiser. Again, luck was on my side that day being stuck behind a slower vehicle.
Blue Ridge Parkway
Skyline Drive literally dumps out directly into Blue Ridge Parkway, and the first thing you notice about the road is that the speed limit is now 45mph, which let’s be honest only means that your ticket fine will be slightly less expensive. Everything else about the road is pretty much the same – the corners still invite you to tackle them at around 60mph, and the views are stunning enough that you want to fight the urge to drive that fast and seem to waste it all. It’s a constant battle between driving the road and enjoying the sights the whole time. Both these roads are also wonderfully engineered, with banked on-camber turns that let you keep your speed in and out.
Blue Ridge starts out winding through the mountains, and the forests are largely evergreen so you get that wonderful heady smell of pine permeating the air. As the road goes on (it’s full length is 469 miles through both VA and NC) you slowly start to climb up atop the ridge line of the mountains. It’s really cool to look across a valley and see the road continue up, knowing you’ll be driving on it in a few minutes. Eventually you’ll notice that if you look out both sides of your car you’re staring down into valleys and are about two thousand feet or so above sea level. If you hit a gentle corner, the camber of the road tilts you just enough so the ground falls away on your side, and now when you look out the windows it’s like you’re flying… in a car. Absolutely stunning.
Again, you’re sharing a road with traffic, except for this segment of the drive I frustratingly started finding myself catching up to people literally right after I get out of a passing zone and am forced to follow along behind through corners I could have carved at twice the speed I was traveling. A few times I was fed up enough to turn out into a viewpoint and sit until whatever car was behind me came into view, and then pull out and whip along the road until I caught back up to the car ahead of me. But I rarely did this because I was afraid I would miss the chance to pass them.
And let’s get another thing clear – passing someone in a passing zone while going over the speed limit will still get you a ticket, but at least you won’t get the extra charge of careless/reckless driving for crossing a double yellow. Yes I did want to be a jerk and just zoom past people on the inside of a broad outer turn I could see around, but I couldn’t see around the next corner. And while I wasn’t afraid of hitting anything coming around that corner, I was afraid a cop would round the bend. So I either pulled off or just steamed and dealt with it.
Speaking of cops, I didn’t spot a single one along the entire length of Blue Ridge that I traveled. I didn’t stay on the whole road, but I was able to average about 55mph for most of its length with no trouble at all. Again, no doubt a mix of pure dumb luck and Easter Monday. But even still, this isn’t a major highway despite being called a “parkway” so it’s no doubt relatively lightly patrolled – unlike the VA highways. I passed half a dozen cops on I-95 coming home through VA alone.
You want to drive these roads
Despite the fact that really driving them as they were meant to be driven is rather difficult, the views along the way at least make up for the fact that you’re stuck behind a minivan almost half the time. If you have any excuse to travel through Virginia, find some way to do it on these roads. It will take longer, but you’ll thank yourself later for the experience of doing so.
Right now it sounds like Expression Engine is the preferred blogging platform out there right now.
(from what I’ve read) Is that what you’re using on your blog?
Hi there to all, the contents existing at this web site
are in fact awesome for people knowledge, well, keep up the nice work fellows.
Thanks for finally writing about > Roadtrip Review: Scenic Raleigh
Drive < Liked it!
Hello there, You have done an incredible job. I will certainly digg it and personally suggest to my friends.
I am confident they’ll be benefited from this web
site.
I’m extremely impressed with your writing skills as well as with the layout on your blog.
Is this a paid theme or did you customize it yourself?
Either way keep up the excellent quality writing, it’s rare to
see a great blog like this one these days.
If you wish for to get a good deal from this article then you
have to apply these techniques to your won web site.
This paragraph will help the internet viewers for creating new blog or even a
weblog from start to end.
bookmarked!!, I really like your website!
Thank you for the good writeup. It in fact was a amusement account it.
Look advanced to more added agreeable from you! However, how could we communicate?
Hey there! I know this is somewhat off topic but I was wondering if you knew where
I could find a captcha plugin for my comment form? I’m using
the same blog platform as yours and I’m having trouble finding one?
Thanks a lot!
This design is incredible! You certainly know how to keep a reader entertained.
Between your wit and your videos, I was almost moved to start my own blog (well, almost…HaHa!) Wonderful job.
I really loved what you had to say, and more than that,
how you presented it. Too cool!
I believe that is one of the most important information for me.
And i’m happy reading your article. However should
statement on few normal issues, The website style is ideal, the
articles is in reality excellent : D. Just right activity, cheers
It’s a shame you don’t have a donate button! I’d certainly donate
to this fantastic blog! I suppose for now i’ll settle
for bookmarking and adding your RSS feed to my
Google account. I look forward to new updates and will talk about this website with my Facebook group.
Talk soon!
What’s up friends, nice piece of writing and nice
urging commented here, I am genuinely enjoying by these.
Hi there it’s me, I am also visiting this web site regularly, this site
is actually good and the viewers are really sharing good thoughts.
Oh my goodness! Awesome article dude! Thank you, However I am experiencing problems with your RSS.
I don’t know why I can’t join it. Is there anybody else having the same RSS issues?
Anyone who knows the answer can you kindly respond?
Thanks!!
I have been browsing online more than 4 hours today, yet I
never found any interesting article like yours.
It is pretty worth enough for me. In my view, if all webmasters and bloggers made good content
as you did, the internet will be much more useful than ever before.
Spot on with this write-up, I really believe this website needs
a lot more attention. I’ll probably be back again to read more, thanks for the information!
In fact no matter if someone doesn’t know then its up to other people that they will
help, so here it occurs.
You’re so awesome! I don’t believe I’ve read anything like this before.
So good to discover another person with a few original thoughts on this issue.
Really.. thanks for starting this up. This website is one
thing that is required on the web, someone with some originality!
My brother recommended I might like this web site. He was entirely right.
This post actually made my day. You can not imagine
simply how much time I had spent for this information! Thanks!
Captain selection in matches where teams are playing with the pressure of avoiding elimination.
Hi! I could have sworn I’ve been to this website before but after going through some
of the posts I realized it’s new to me. Nonetheless, I’m definitely pleased I found it and I’ll be book-marking it and checking back frequently!
I am curious to find out what blog platform you’re working with?
I’m having some minor security issues with my latest website and I’d like to find something more secure.
Do you have any suggestions?
An outstanding share! I have just forwarded this onto a coworker who has been conducting a little homework on this.
And he in fact bought me dinner because I discovered it for him…
lol. So let me reword this…. Thank YOU for the meal!! But yeah, thanx for spending time to talk about this matter here
on your website.
This is really attention-grabbing, You’re an excessively professional blogger.
I’ve joined your rss feed and look ahead to searching
for extra of your excellent post. Additionally, I’ve shared your website in my social networks
I just like the helpful info you supply on your articles.
I’ll bookmark your blog and test once more here regularly.
I’m somewhat certain I will learn lots of new stuff proper right here!
Good luck for the following!
If some one desires expert view concerning blogging and
site-building afterward i advise him/her to pay a visit this
blog, Keep up the fastidious job.
Incredible points. Sound arguments. Keep up the good spirit.
Thanks very interesting blog!
If you desire to increase your experience simply keep visiting this web site and be updated with the hottest
gossip posted here.
I for all time emailed this webpage post page to all my associates, for the reason that if like to read it after that my friends will too.
This is the perfect site for anybody who wants to understand this topic.
You know a whole lot its almost hard to argue with you (not that I personally will need to…HaHa).
You certainly put a brand new spin on a topic that’s been discussed
for years. Wonderful stuff, just wonderful!
These are genuinely impressive ideas in concerning
blogging. You have touched some pleasant things here. Any way
keep up wrinting.
bookmarked!!, I love your website!
Its like you read my thoughts! You appear to grasp so much approximately this, such as
you wrote the e-book in it or something. I believe that you can do with some p.c.
to pressure the message home a bit, but other than that, this is excellent blog.
An excellent read. I will certainly be back.
Hey! I’m at work browsing your blog from my
new apple iphone! Just wanted to say I love reading through your blog
and look forward to all your posts! Keep up the outstanding
work!
This design is wicked! You certainly know how to keep a reader amused.
Between your wit and your videos, I was almost moved
to start my own blog (well, almost…HaHa!) Great job.
I really enjoyed what you had to say, and more than that, how you presented it.
Too cool!
It’s going to be finish of mine day, except
before finish I am reading this great article to improve my experience.
Howdy! I’m at work surfing around your blog from my new iphone 4!
Just wanted to say I love reading your blog
and look forward to all your posts! Carry on the fantastic work!
Excellent blog right here! Also your web site so much up fast!
What host are you using? Can I get your affiliate
hyperlink for your host? I desire my website loaded up as fast
as yours lol
Hello, I enjoy reading all of your post. I like to write a little comment to support
you.
I loved as much as you will receive carried out right here.
The sketch is attractive, your authored material stylish.
nonetheless, you command get bought an nervousness over that you wish be delivering the following.
unwell unquestionably come more formerly again since exactly the same nearly a lot often inside
case you shield this increase.
What a data of un-ambiguity and preserveness of
precious familiarity concerning unexpected emotions.
Post writing is also a excitement, if you know after that you
can write otherwise it is complicated to write.
My brother suggested I may like this website. He was totally right.
This post truly made my day. You cann’t consider just how a lot time I had spent for this
info! Thank you!
If you wish for to get a good deal from this piece of writing then you have to
apply these methods to your won weblog.
I am really impressed with your writing abilities
and also with the format on your blog. Is this a paid
theme or did you modify it yourself? Anyway stay up
the nice high quality writing, it’s uncommon to look a great weblog like this one
today..
Hi to every body, it’s my first go to see of this weblog; this website includes remarkable
and in fact excellent data in favor of visitors.
Wow, this paragraph is good, my sister is analyzing these things, so I
am going to convey her.