Must See and Must Do things to do around the Tri-Cities (Bristol: law, money)

[DaveinMtAiry]

Originally Posted by kamoshika

That's really more of a quick jaunt than a day trip, but it is a beautiful drive. You could easily hit Roan Mountain (both the town & Carver's Gap), Watauga Lake (via Wilbur Dam Road), and Sams Gap in a half-day. The drive to the town of Roan Mountain is scenic in places but not as nice overall, IMO, as the one to Sams Gap. But if you do venture over to Roan, be sure to check out the state park's visitor center and the Dave Miller Farmstead. You could have lunch at The Waterwheel Cafe between Hampton and Roan Mountain.

Yeah I have to get back to my earlier premise that this is a fact finding trip to see if we like JC, not a vacation to see the sights. So yeah a quick jaunt is the way to go So Sam's Gap it is, thanks!

[DaveinMtAiry]

OK we're here. All this planning to get the best weather and place to stay and we find ourselves at a hotel with barking dogs everywhere (Dog Show in Gray) and it was 56 and raining when we checked in. Now we have 2 dogs so I'm no hater but the one in the next room apparently does not like being left alone while the owners go out drinking. He was crying until after 11

German restaurant downtown was FANTASTIC

[kamoshika]

Welcome! Sorry about the weather, which is unusually cool for mid-May. Hard to believe we hit 91 just a few days ago (Tuesday). Don't know how long you're staying but the weather tomorrow should be quite nice and getting a lot warmer as the week goes along. And hopefully most of the dogs will be gone after tomorrow, the last day of the show.

Be sure to keep us posted on y'all's experiences & observations while you're here.

[DaveinMtAiry]

We pull out tomorrow so the good weather will be for others. About to head to a real estate office to get info, then look at homes (from the outside), then a trip to Jonesborough, then to Sam's Gap. Tonight we are headed to the dinner theater in downtown

I did look for and found the new park. Big improvement but not done yet so hard to give a final report.

[DaveinMtAiry]

Well we got back to the room and promptly overslept our dinner theater plans. LOL. Spent the day driving around looking at a few houses in JC and then Jonesborough before having lunch there. I"m not moving to Jonesborough because I can't spell it.

Then we took a drive up 26, not sure if we got all the way to Sam's Gap, we turned around at Flag Something Road and I know that's close. We figured up there the exits would become few and far between so we bailed, maybe a little early. Stopped at the scenic view on the way back, that was great.

Tomorrow we have figured it's not a huge detour to see Roan Mt and the lake that begins with a W on the way back home to Maryland up 81. We like downtown Bristol and the music theme a lot, the thing for me is you couldn't see the mountains in Bristol. South JC was my favorite spot.

[Beretta]

Sounds like you are having a grand time. That's funny about Jonesborough! When I was growing up it was just Jonesboro; it's tougher on the kids nowadays! haha Too bad you missed the Blue Moon but glad that you got your rest. That lookout at Sam's Gap is fantastic! The lake is Watauga. Glad that you checked in. Glad you liked Frieberg's, it is one of my favorites!

[DaveinMtAiry]

So I guess we bailed too eary on Sam's Gap, turned around at Flag Pond Rd and didn't see a view. Not to worry we got our view the next day as we went up Roan Mt. No THAT was something. We then stopped by the lake W (I gotta learn that name). Then we headed home and this is where the concern came.

WFT is up with Interstate 81???? It was work on the way down but I just chalked that up to the rain. But on the way back the same thing. It's obviously a major truck route and the fact that it's only 2 lanes meant you had trucks trying to pass other trucks on the inclines, which obviously were everywhere. So you end up with a line of cars as far as the eye could see in the passing lane. If you tried to get over to the right lane, as I was always taught to do, it was only a minute or 2 before you came across a truck slowly climbing a hill. Now you had to try to get into a jammed packed passing lane.

So you were left to ride full time in the passing lane riding too close to the car in front of you. If you backed off cars would come up to the slow moving truck and cut in front of ypu, at 75 MPH So there you sit, in the passing lane with all the cars/ trucks right on top of each other. All it took was one guy to tap his brakes and it set off a chain reaction down the line, once my wife was driving and she locked up the brakes and had to turn towards the median to avoid the slowing cars in front. Again at 70+ MPH. It was awful and it went on for 400 miles. All in all the day started when we left the hotel at 8:30 and ended when we got home at 7:00, all driving. We got on Int 81 in Bristol at 11:30 and didn't get home until after 7. That was supposed to be a 6 hour drive, instead it was 7 1/2 hours of torture.

Is this the norm or did we catch this interstate on a busy day (Sunday)?

[Jim37680]

Originally Posted by DaveinMtAiry

So I guess we bailed too eary on Sam's Gap, turned around at Flag Pond Rd and didn't see a view. Not to worry we got our view the next day as we went up Roan Mt. No THAT was something. We then stopped by the lake W (I gotta learn that name). Then we headed home and this is where the concern came.

WFT is up with Interstate 81???? It was work on the way down but I just chalked that up to the rain. But on the way back the same thing. It's obviously a major truck route and the fact that it's only 2 lanes meant you had trucks trying to pass other trucks on the inclines, which obviously were everywhere. So you end up with a line of cars as far as the eye could see in the passing lane. If you tried to get over to the right lane, as I was always taught to do, it was only a minute or 2 before you came across a truck slowly climbing a hill. Now you had to try to get into a jammed packed passing lane.

So you were left to ride full time in the passing lane riding too close to the car in front of you. If you backed off cars would come up to the slow moving truck and cut in front of ypu, at 75 MPH So there you sit, in the passing lane with all the cars/ trucks right on top of each other. All it took was one guy to tap his brakes and it set off a chain reaction down the line, once my wife was driving and she locked up the brakes and had to turn towards the median to avoid the slowing cars in front. Again at 70+ MPH. It was awful and it went on for 400 miles. All in all the day started when we left the hotel at 8:30 and ended when we got home at 7:00, all driving. We got on Int 81 in Bristol at 11:30 and didn't get home until after 7. That was supposed to be a 6 hour drive, instead it was 7 1/2 hours of torture.

Is this the norm or did we catch this interstate on a busy day (Sunday)?

From my own observations (between Kingsport and Abingdon) Sundays are always worse for truck traffic on I-81. I suspect many of the long distance truckers start their week long run on Sundays. Truck traffic always seems lightest on Saturdays (Mondays and Tuesdays seem to be the lightest weekdays).

I saw somewhere that the stretch of Interstate 81 between I-81 and I-77 interchange (Wytheville) and the northern Virginia border has twice the truck volume as any other Interstate in the USA. I have seen news articles relating to proposed extreme solutions including building another "truck only" interstate highway parallel to I-81 or moving the freight back to a railway piggyback solution across Virginia. It is a mess created by the availability of the Interstate system and migration of freight from the railways to the more convenient and flexible long haul trucks.

I try to avoid I-81 locally by using alternate routes. I am usually not in a big hurry and prefer a more relaxed arrival at where ever I am bound. I think some folks choose to follow old US-11 up through the valley of Virginia. US-11 is supposed to be mostly 4-lane but you will still have to deal with some urban zones. I haven't been north of Wytheville in ages so I only know what others have related.

[DaveinMtAiry]

Originally Posted by Jim37680

From my own observations (between Kingsport and Abingdon) Sundays are always worse for truck traffic on I-81. I suspect many of the long distance truckers start their week long run on Sundays. Truck traffic always seems lightest on Saturdays (Mondays and Tuesdays seem to be the lightest weekdays).

I saw somewhere that the stretch of Interstate 81 between I-81 and I-77 interchange (Wytheville) and the northern Virginia border has twice the truck volume as any other Interstate in the USA. I have seen news articles relating to proposed extreme solutions including building another "truck only" interstate highway parallel to I-81 or moving the freight back to a railway piggyback solution across Virginia. It is a mess created by the availability of the Interstate system and migration of freight from the railways to the more convenient and flexible long haul trucks.

I try to avoid I-81 locally by using alternate routes. I am usually not in a big hurry and prefer a more relaxed arrival at where ever I am bound. I think some folks choose to follow old US-11 up through the valley of Virginia. US-11 is supposed to be mostly 4-lane but you will still have to deal with some urban zones. I haven't been north of Wytheville in ages so I only know what others have related.

Thanks Jim, this is great information. Not sure they need an entire truck only highway, and not sure that's economically possible, but a 3rd lane would do wonders. The real problem was the trucks trying to pass other trucks. Not sure a law making them stay in the right lane would work, you would have a giant wall of trucks and nowhere to enter the interstate. But a 3rd lane would solve a lot.

[Jim37680]

Originally Posted by DaveinMtAiry

Thanks Jim, this is great information. Not sure they need an entire truck only highway, and not sure that's economically possible, but a 3rd lane would do wonders. The real problem was the trucks trying to pass other trucks. Not sure a law making them stay in the right lane would work, you would have a giant wall of trucks and nowhere to enter the interstate. But a 3rd lane would solve a lot.

I tried to find the original news item on the net. I did not locate that article but my search led me to VDOT's site which documents the evolution of the proposal which is now 12+ years old with no tangible results on the ground.

It sounds like VDOT likes your proposal over the more elaborate proposals of STAR SOLUTIONS for obvious reasons (money). http://www.virginiadot.org/projects/...s_June2007.pdf

This is a list of the STARR SOLUTIONS proposal as of 2005: VDOT: 50 Years of the Interstate

If you ever get really bored and need some "lite" reading- all the details are here:
VDOT: 50 Years of the Interstate

Just curious- after you visited Watauga Lake did you return to I-81 in Virginia by way of Mountain City, Tennessee and Damascus, Virginia? My ancestry goes back to some of the earliest settlers in that area and I still have interests there.