Tight places and train wrecks (old ones--don't panic)

Chilly but grateful I am.

This is the last available parking space in this truck stop--which is the only truck stop withing fifty miles of the place I have to be tomorrow morning. After circling the parking lot four times, I was about to give up and start looking for a rest area when somebody pulled out of a space right in front of me. It took me entirely too long to squeeze into that spot in the dark, but when I was done I had a place to sleep. With a restroom within walking distance.

I have no complaints.

You may remember me talking yesterday about the fascinatingly cozy spot I had to back into for my last pickup. Well, dropping it off was almost as much fun. The factory was bigger, but getting to it involved another residential street. I could have shared it with an oncoming bicycle, but nothing much bigger. Making the turn from the highway (two lanes, in the middle of a small town), I got around the car parked at the corner with almost a foot to spare.

Got to the factory with no problems. Then I had to back blind around a dumpster and up a narrow alley to a dock jutting out from wall in the side of said alley. I missed the stairs and landing jutting out from the opposite wall by a good six inches.* Got unloaded and pulled out without incident, then headed back out. Someone politely pulled into a driveway to let me by, and six others politely stopped and backed up to give me room to get back onto the highway.

They must REALLY like having those jobs around. I was a lot of bother.

***

On my way here, I passed through Danville, Virginia. Nature called, and there was a rest area, so I pulled in.

It wasn't actually a rest area, though--not technically. It was a Visitor Center associated with the town. Which meant, among other things, that it wasn't on its own little island. For about thirty seconds I was afraid I'd turned the wrong way at the top of the exit ramp. That moment passed, though, and I could enjoy the other mild oddities.

The big-vehicle parking spaces aren't pull-throughs. You pull in, then you back out. Just like a supermarket. Only this truck is a bit bigger than a minivan. And I've already spent too much time talking about how blind you are backing up in these things.

Fascinating. Fortunately there weren't any other big vehicles taking up a space, so I wasn't too worried. And that restroom beckoned.

There. Important business taken care of. So I poked into the center proper. Most of it was the standard brochure racks, but there was one little alcove with some old black-and-white pictures on the wall. Of a steam locomotive.

Ah, yes. The Wreck of Old 97. I had almost forgotten it. The people who'd written up the brochures for it admitted that most people would have forgotten it, if it hadn't been for the song. (Makes sense. How of you could name a wrecked Great Lakes iron boat other than the Edmund Fitzgerald?) The most interesting tidbit I picked up was that "Old 97" was the train, not the locomotive. The locomotive was 1102. And after they fished it out of the gorge, they fixed it up and ran it for many more years.

Spooky.

So. An interesting stop, an adventure in backing, a nice drive through snowy Appalachia, and the last parking place between here and Williamsburg. I've done worse.

G'nite.
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*To be fair, if I'd looked the situation over carefully enough before backing I could have gotten twisted around to where I had a better view. Get Oout And Look really is a good, ahem, GOAL.