“Where the hell’s 340?” he said. He had no choice, there were cars behind him. He accelerated and went through the now green light and continued down the road.
“I didn’t see it,” Michele acknowledged, “but the sign we saw just before that one said 340 was in this direction. Didn’t it?”
“I sure thought it did,” said Fitz. “Oh, lookie, now we’ve got construction.”
“Drive on as far as the construction goes,” Michelle suggested, “and if we don’t come across 340 by that time, let’s turn around. We’ll grab some lunch at that KFC we just passed and find out where the hell we are.”
Fitz nodded. They did not come across 340, or a sign for it, let a sign pointing them toward the Skyline Caverns, which they would have accepted as well, so he did a U-turn as soon as the one-lane traffic caused by construction – well, caused by cones, there were no construction people in sight – petered out, and retraced their steps.
“You sure you want KFC?” he asked. “I thought we were only going to eat at local restaurants and cafes on this trip.”
“Except if we go in search of a local restaurant we may get even further lost,” said Michele. “Anyway, this is an emergency.”
Fitz grinned and they went inside.
It had started out all right. They’d been following the directions Michele had printed from Mapquest, and were within a few miles of the Skyline Caverns according to those directions. The caverns were adjacent to the town of Front Royal. Then she’d seen a sign advertising Front Royal’s Visitor Center, and decided she wanted to visit that first, to stock up on brochures. Fitz had obliging turned the car to follow the arrow.
She’d expected the Visitor's Center to be within a block or two of the sign, the way they normally were, but they ended up driving all the way into the middle of town, several times thinking they must have driven past it, before seeing another sign with an arrow urging them ever onward.
The Visitor’s Center was a large building, with one room given over to showing antiques, the other lined floor-to-ceiling with brochure racks. Michele had stocked up happily.
They’d also picked up a map of the town, an 11 X 17 sheet of paper with the map of the town in the center and lists of attractions, accommodations and restaurants bordering it on either side. Fitz now poured over this they ate their KFC.
“There sure are a lot of vineyards in this area,” he commented. “Any interest in seeing them?”
“Not really. I picked up their brochures…I’ll mention them in my articles, but I don't want to dwell on them. Civil war stuff and caverns, that’s the main point of this exercise.”
“Well, there’s Belle Boyd’s Cottage, and the Warren Rifles Confederate Museum,” Fitz said. “And here’s the Caverns.” He placed an index finger on them. “Now, where the heck are we? Ah..this is the road we’re on. Now I’ve got it.”
After a relaxing lunch which allowed them to ease their frustration, they got back on the road again.
“Many years ago,” mused Michele, “I visited my sister in England – she was living in Oxford at the time – and we decided to drive into Wales to see castles. I had a list of castles and the roads they were supposed to be on, but we didn’t bother to do much preparation because we figured there’d be signs everywhere. So we drove into these towns, and there’d be like one sign at the very entrance of the town, saying “Castle this way,” or something, and then we’d drive and drive and drive and never see another sign, until we’d driven clean through the town. Then we’d turn around and all of a sudden there were signs galore. We always assumed that the signs were situated for the convenience of people coming from London – since that’s where most tourists probably come from – and we of course were driving in from Oxford, where the locals presumably lived.”
They found Skyline Caverns with no further difficulty. Michele unlimbered her camera and began photo-taking outside, starting with the large sign luring people in from the road. It flanked a historical marker which stated:
Near here Stonewall Jackson
Was met by the spy Belle Boyd
And informed of the position
Of the Union troops at Front
Royal, May 23, 1862. Jackson
Was advancing northward, at-
tempting to get between Banks’
army and Winchester
They took the guided tour through the cavern. The main attraction was a formation that was unique to this cave – anthocites. No other cave in the world had this delicate, spiky, beautiful formation. After finishing with the caverns they took the miniature train ride, and then went through the Mirror Maze, an attraction strictly for small children, Michele concluded.
“Let’s check into a B&B here for the night,” Michele said. “And explore the rest of the town and surrounding area. In particular Belle Boyd's Cottage and that Confederate Museum. Then we can go on to Luray tomorrow. So, one cavern, and one town, a day.”
Fitz nodded. “You’re the boss.”
"I am," said Michele, smirking in her best imitation of Steve Ihnat's Garth of Izar from Star Trek. "I certainly am."
Late that evening, after Michele had downloaded and formatted all her photos and written outlines of the articles she'd write about what she'd seen, she relaxed in bed with Fitz. They both had their laptops on their knees and headsets over their ears. Fitz was watching a documentary on lacemaking through the ages, while Michele was simultaneously watching one of her favorite movies, The Thin Man (starring William Powell and Myrna Loy) and working on her next erotic story…
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