The 1998 Linux Expo
Durham, NC
27-31 May 1998

To get to Durham, North Carolina, we took I-64 east, I-77 south, got off at Exit 8 to head east on a connector road called VA 148 to US 52 South, and took I-40 east and I-85 north to get off at Exit 174 (Hillandale Road) to the HoJo.

Along the way there, one of the cars got a flat near downtown Charleston, West Virginia, which took about an hour to fix; the other car left for the hotel and waited for the first car to show up. Both rear tires got replaced, and one of the front tires got replaced afterward just to be on the safe side. And just as we were starting on the way back to Louisville, that car's brakes went out so they had to be replaced.

On I-64 in Kentucky and West Virginia, there was some construction going on at the time.

In West Virginia, I-77 is a toll road (we had to pay $3.75 each way) known as the West Virginia Turnpike. The southbound road is very bumpy, but the northbound road is a little better.

In Virginia, I-77 goes through the mountains twice and is very foggy at night. On the VA-WV border is the East River Mountain Tunnel, and on south is the Big Walker Mountain Tunnel. Wheeeee!!! A photo of one of its portals is shown on this page. Also, A short stretch of I-77 south is multiplexed with I-81 north, US 11 north, and US 52 south. Check out this amusing and potentially confusing signage. :)

The ten-mile two-or-three-lane portion of US 52 in Virginia is pretty curvy. Jacob described driving that road at night in the fog as like an arcade game, to paraphrase him. It gets slightly easier to drive as you travel south to Mount Airy, after which it becomes a freeway, most of which is part of ISTEA/NHS High Priority Corridor 5 and will eventually have I-74 signs on it. A connector road from US 52 south of Mount Airy to I-77 should hopefully be finished sometime next year (according to the N.C. Department of Transportation, Division Of Highways [select Surry County on this page and do your search]) which will save even more time.

Lynx.