Byways

Knowing we would hit the Beltway right around 5 PM, I made an executive decision to override the map app and go rogue. "I just know we're going to get on I-70 and watch the time keep creeping up," I told Heidi as I took exit 3B and headed south to Berkeley Springs. "I hate being in stop-and-go traffic at the end of a long trip." 

Just then the traffic ahead of us slowed to a halt, and the map app insisted that we make a U-turn. I held my ground though, crossing over the C&O Canal, and 15 minutes later we rolled past the familiar sites of Maria's Garden, The Cat Cafe, the Star Theater, and the old bathhouse and pool. Then it was Tony's Butcher Block, Midway Bowl, and Capacon State Park, and clear roads through the mountains all the way to Winchester.

Our ETA stayed stable at 6:12 all the way through the horse-country towns of Delaplain and Marshall until we hit I-66, where our arrival time ping-ponged up and down by 20 minutes every few miles or so. When we were offered the option of getting on the Beltway, I resisted again and drove straight into town. We hit one more backup, but by then we were almost home, and we knew the shortcuts to take.

Pulling into our parking space at 6:08, I considered all the ground we had covered on our 400-mile journey from north to south, and grateful for our safe arrival, opened the back hatch and started unloading the car.