Day 27: November 30, 2020
Flaky Finale
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I've sometimes said that rain on the last day of a trip isn't all bad since it makes you less reluctant to go home. That applies less than normal to the current trip since even on the last day I was attempting to see places Frank and Gertrude saw a hundred years ago. But rain it certainly did. It was never heavy but it was never ending -- until it turned into snow. This was a day of taking blurry pictures of wet subjects.

The first is of the remnants of what I believe is the only S-bridge on the National Road in Pennsylvania. It's just a few miles west of Washington where I spent the night. I can't be certain that Frank drove over this bridge since I haven't found out exactly when it was bypassed. It does appear to have been well after the 1920s so it seems likely that the Robbins crossed Buffalo Creek on this stone bridge.

West Virginia's Madonna of the Trail is not much bothered by a little rain. Frank almost certainly drove the Model T over Wheeling's suspension bridge. I've driven several different vehicles over the bridge myself but it's looking more and more like no one will ever drive anything over it again. Due primarily to continued disregard for posted weight limits, the bridge was closed on September 24, 2019. Officials reportedly continue looking for a way to reopen it but many think that unlikely and see its future as a pedestrian only bridge.
I'm fairly confident that Granddad drove over all three of these Ohio bridges. The first is the Blaine S-bridge which I have never driven over. The second is the stone bridge on the road through Loydstown which I've driven over several times including today. I have also driven over the Salt Fork S-bridge several times but not since 2013 when it was closed.
On the surface, Cambridge's Dickens Victorian Village appears unaffected by the pandemic but some minor changes have been made and some related events have been canceled
The Peters Creek S-bridge was another likely likely crossing point for the Robbins. It also seems likely that they drove over the Y-bridge in Zanesville but it wasn't this one. The bridge they would have crossed was one built in 1902. The bridge I crossed today opened in 1984. It is the fifth.
The rain had become snow sometime before I reached Columbus. I thought I might show that with a drive-by shot of the capitol but it wasn't very effective. The steady rain had me considering stopping for the day well before Columbus but more of the same was predicted for the next day so it didn't seem worthwhile. By the time I took this picture, I was pretty much committed to finishing the trip today. It seems a strange coincidence that Granddad and Granny encountered snow near this point on their trip despite being on the opposite end of winter (March 3) from me.
I know Granny didn't have this tall tower to help her identify Mechanicsburg and doubt she had as sign half as nice to identify Urbana. The Robbins had their supper in Urbana and I did too. This is not the original building but Granddad and Granny would have needed to wait just six years to purchase a nickel hamburger from Forest Crabill. For me, this (x4) was supper.
I made it back to Woodington before dark and paused at the church from where I'd started twenty-seven days ago. Winter was very much in evidence beside the parking lot. I rarely do celebratory trip-end selfies but I'm doing this one in homage to the one we took back in 2001. I didn't catch the mileage in Woodington, but it was 4729 when I got home so must have been around 4639 there. That's about 191 miles more than 2001 which means I may have had a more accurate route -- or got lost more.
I see that we drove home in the rain in 2001 so a foul weather finish is something of a tradition. Full on darkness came soon after I left Woodington and this is what I saw driving OH-49 south from Greenville. There were times on this trip that it seemed a bit romantic to imagine how Granddad felt steering that Model T along the scenic roads of the day. This isn't one of them. Driving in snow at night in 2020 in a heated Subaru bears little resemblance to doing it in 1920 in an open Model T. And I'm very much OK with that.
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