Allegheny and Blue Ridge Mountains

The drive through the Allegheny Mountains and northern Blue Ridge Mountains, from eastern Ohio, through southwestern Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Maryland, is stunning, forested rolling mountains, winding hilly roads with spectacular vistas at every crest, along every ridge, fading folds of flowing earth disappearing into distant haze, small ancient farms tucked comfortably into valleys and hollows, occasional small herds of cattle or horses grazing on the cleared sides of hills, the fall cutting of hay.

Of course the cost of this bucolic canvas is navigating Interstates 70 and 68, a ribbon of gray concrete winding through the valleys, up the mountains, along the ridges, back down, crowded too often with too many too fast cars, trucks, RVs, semis, a white-knuckle weave through traffic that varies in miles per hour at every rise and drop and pass and curve, lower back aching, shoulders sore. But then the road rises and curves and a semi slows and suddenly another view.