The Northern Leg Wrapup

Today's looking to be a rather dull day of sitting around K's grandmother's house not doing a darned thing and I finally got that wireless signal to play nice, so I thought I'd do a little wrapup of our trip's northerly-headed leg.

States driven through: Seven (Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and Ohio)

Percentage of the directional states visited in one trip: 60 percent (The only two we didn't hit were the two Dakotas.)

New Beers tasted: 15 (And two of those were not only new to me, but to anyone of thousands rating on Ratebeer.com because I had to add them to the database while drinking. One of those beers was one of the best I've had in a while (Golem from Wedge Brewing in Asheville) and the other wasn't.)

Approximate miles driven: 1305 (Didn't reset the trip odometer when we set off, so I had to work the math of about how many gallons I've used (filled up before we left so I can guess fairly closely) and multiply by my average gas mileage for the trip, which the car tells me. I double checked with Mapquest and with our driving around Asheville and side trips during the past two days, the number is quite reasonable.)

Miles we would have driven had we just driven straight to Parma Heights from home: 815

Gas money that would have saved me: $44.60 (Anyone jealous that 490 miles only requires less than 11 gallons of gas for me?)

Percentage of fun lost had we done that: 95

Cost per percentage point of fun for this leg of the trip: 47 cents

Assorted observations:

1. People in Ohio are slow pokes. Not only did their state government set their speed limits to one of the slowest scales in the nation (top speed on the the most desolate stretches of Interstate is only 65), but most people also stick to those speed limits. The only state we drove through on the trip without at least 70 mph maxes at some point was Ohio and maybe Virginia (but I can't remember). I'm really not sure how small towns in parts of the state without lots of out-of-state traffic manage to supplement their tax income. I set my cruise control at 68 for most of the trip from West Virginia to the Cleveland area only to fly past over half of the cars in 65 mph zones. If I set my cruise for 68 in a 65 in another other state in my trip, I would have had to stay in the right lane the entire time for fear of being rear-ended. This is actually what I did for most of the trip. Gas mileage drops off too much after 68 in my car. I've had the same experience every time I drive up here. Once you leave Cincinatti behind, everyone slows down and most people stick to the speed limit. Weird.

2. People in West Virginia are really considerate drivers. At least four times I needed to turn left out of a parking lot too close to a stoplight in some town in West Virginia and every time, someone waited to go until I got a spot to make my left turn because they knew the line was backed up behind them from the red light that ended seconds earlier. No one honked and everyone acted as if this is normal. This wasn't just my tricking them by not using my turn signal either. Every time my signal for a left turn was on and they were in a position to see it and they still waved me on. Honestly, this made me a feel a little guilty for making fun of the state earlier, but honestly, backwardsness tends to have a positive correlation to the percentage of polite drivers. My part of Georgia is full of laid back and considerate (although annoyingly overly cautious) drivers and is why the state with cosmopolitan metro Atlanta ranks so low on education and so high in poverty.

3. I'm not sure I'd want to move to West Virginia, but I can't see any reason anyone who likes outdoors or nature adventure vacations would want to avoid the place. The Appalachians are gorgeous in the part of the state we drove through and I'm going to assume from the seemingly sparse local populations that there are a lot of good hiking, kayaking, and rock climbing spots there that aren't filled with the crowds you get from the more mainstream mountain areas. I guess West Virginia is a lot like Utah in that people who aren't religious conservatives wouldn't want to move there but there are plenty of reasons to visit, although I think West Virginia lacks the shining progressive beacon that is Salt Lake City unless Morgantown fills that void with the university located there.