Memories From the Past, The Mountain Road and That One HUGE Step

Copyright 2018, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

When I was a wee bit of a child, sometimes my parents, but usually, my mother, would take us to Virginia and North Carolina during the summer to visit my grandparents. 

This was before you could drive hard for one 12 hour day and get from our home in SE Michigan all the way to Rockingham County Virginia.  It used to take us 2 days to drive that route.  I remember the Ohio Turnpike (built between 1949 - 1955), and the Pennsylvania Turnpike.  As wonderful as those turnpikes were, they were not the same as they are now.  Now the tops of several mountains have been blown off and trucked away, doing away with several tunnels.  But, basically the pikes were and are the pikes, 4 lane highways, limited access and "service plazas".

This was, however, before the 4 lane wonder known as I-70 went from Breezewood to near Harrisburg. I-70 between Breezewood and Harrisburg opened around 1964 from what I have been able to determine. This was also before I-81 went through the Shenandoah Valley. I-81 was built between 1957 and 1987.

During our trips I remember driving Route 11,  which runs basically parallel to I-81 for many miles in West Virginia and Virginia. Route 11 was a two or three lane highway.  I am fairly sure we jumped on Route 11 around Winchester, Virginia.  We took Route 11 south into Rockingham County.

The route between Breezewood and Winchester was unclear, as in, my mother, nor I can remember the route numbers.  So after several hours of research, and chatting with friends, I feel it is likely that when we got off the Pennsylvania Turnpike that we drove the PA 126, to 643 to 522, through the towns of Hancock, Berkley Springs West Virginia and Winchester Virginia where we connected to Route 11.

And, I remember the trailer home on the top and side of a mountain somewhere between Breezewood, Pennsylvania and Winchester, Virginia.  This was basically a two lane highway at that time.  The roads twisted and turned up and down the mountains.  This is not the Rockies, but, mmmmmm, if you went off the side one could still get rather beat up, and mmmmm, hurt.

Yes, I remember that trailer home, and let me tell you, it was right on the very edge of the mountain.  What I remember, correct or not, was that the back door of this trailer opened and there was a drop straight to the ground, as there was no deck or porch or stoop or anything.  Just air!  OK. Lots of air!  The door hung over the mountain side, eh??  Every time we drove by that trailer home we would gasp in amazement, and my mother would say, in wonder and with a bit of a black sense of humor (hmmm, like mother/like daughter?), "Can you imagine, stepping out that back door after a few drinks?  That would be a doozy of a first step!"

And, every time we asked that question, we would go to a fit of giggiles.

Ah, the memories - -

* (No, that is NOT Tana, in case you were wondering!   LOL)

** Image of trailer thanks to Pixaby and  Wokandapix.

*** Image of I-70 thanks to Wikipedia.  (Link broken as of October 2018)

**** Yes, I am aware that highways that were 2 lane become 4.  Four lanes may become 6 or 8.  As our population and traffic increase, so do the lanes.  So, what I refer to as a 2 to 3 lane highway, may in fact now be many more lanes.  This is a piece on memories, eh??  Happy travels.

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