US-50 East 2022:
Day 6 - Ohio

	Wednesday, September 21, 2022: We had another restful night in the tent and awoke just after sunrise.
	Back on US-50, we slogged along through the early rush hour traffic through Chantilly, VA.
	Out of the city, Debbie spotted these two turkey vultures high up in a tree along the side of the road.
	We both enjoyed the miles and miles of stone wall along the road.
	The Virginia countryside had grass for grazing, ...
	... vineyards, ...
	... and towns with British telephone booths?
	There are times when you want to be able to shout at the camera and say "Computer, enhance." If you can't tell, this blurry photo is a quick reaction snapshot of a bald eagle that was flying over the road. Debbie is just that good.
	In Winchester, Virginia, we saw this gigantic house. It is currently an apartment building, but it was originally built in 1899 for William H. Baker as a single family home.
	This hexagonal building was so striking that we actually did a U-Turn to go back and get a photo of it. Known as the Historic Hexagon House, it is the headquarters of the Shenandoah Arts Council, a regional group dedicated to giving artists of all ages a place to exhibit their art.
	There are 20 apple statues around the town of Winchester, but we only saw two. This one, decorated with images of trains, was outside of a funeral home on Amherst Street, ...
	... and this one with a stethoscope was at the entrance to the Winchester Medical Center. These were placed around town in 2005 to celebrate the city's history of harvesting more than ten million bushels of apples every year.
	Check out the detail on this manhole cover. It says "City of Winchester, Rouss City Hall, Founded 1744, Storm."
	We were back in West Virginia shortly before 10 AM, ...
	... and we hadn't strayed from US-50 at all today.
	That is a very colorful welcome sign painted onto the side of that building.
	Welcome to Romney, West Virginia. In addition to be West Virginia's first town, established December 23, 1762, ...
	... it also has a Dairy Queen. We ordered a hot fudge sundae for Debbie and a Blizzard for Tom and were back on the road in no time.
	The mountains had an almost perfect semicircular indentation breaking up their perfectly flat top.
	We finally got an Adopt-A-Highway sign for West Virginia.
	One of the great things about road trips is that you learn that there's a chunk of Maryland that dips down into the northern part of West Virginia.
	So far, we'd seen nothing different about the US-50 signs in any of the states that we'd driven through, but we're still going to take a photo of it in every state just in case.
	After eleven minutes of unexpected Maryland countryside, we were back in West Virginia.
	This bridge over the Cheat River seems to be in really good shape.
	We still had 47.5 miles remaining of US-50 in West Virginia. The "D" in the West Virginia state emblem at the top of the mile marker indicates that this is Corridor D of the Appalachian Development Highway System. This highway system was established in 1965 to improve economic development in this historically isolated region of the country, and ten percent of the authorized miles still remain to be built.
	Oh. Heads up. There's a bridge coming, ...
	... over a big river, ...
	... and it's a pretty bridge. Could it be?
	Yes, we were now in Ohio, so that river must have been the Ohio River.
	We were very briefly on the Ohio River Scenic Byway, but don't worry, we'll come back to it again.
	These are the two highways that make up Corridor D of the Appalachian Development Highay System that we were talking about earlier. Yes, this might be on the test.
	The John Hunt Morgan Heritage Trail runs for more than 500 miles from Kentucky, through Indiana, and into Ohio, following the path of Confederate General Morgan on his failed raid into Union territory in 1863.
	The Globe Furniture store reminded us of the Patterson's Appliances store from our favorite movie, "That Thing You Do!" At least someone who works here remembered to turn off the sign.
	Check out this US-50-themed business sign in Chilicothe: Fifty West Brewing Company. Nice!
	Just before 5:00 PM, we pulled into our destination for this day: Paint Creek State Park near Bainbridge, Ohio.
	Our campsite was right along Paint Creek Lake, with a great deck area overlooking it.
	That's a happy boy!
	It was such a great evening, and there weren't any bugs that we could tell, so we cooked dinner outside on the picnic table with the camp stove.
	We had Shepherd's Potato Stew with Beef, which we decided was a little too mushy. Not bad, but definitely not a favorite.
	As the sun went down, we got the tent set up, and lowered all of the flaps on the west side so we could watch the sunset and still see the lake.
	There was a chance of rain in the early morning hours, and we didn't want to be worried about it raining without the rainfly in place, so just before bedtime we added the rainfly to the top of the tent. We left the window flaps down, which let in a nice breeze and was quite enjoyable.  Day 7 >