[HunterGreene]

Originally Posted by Rampage

On Saturday, my son and I did our pre-run of the RT26 portion of the October 19th route. We picked up RT 800 off of I 70 at Barnesville. This was the biggest snaffu of our whole afternoon as this weekend was the last days of their annual Pumpkin Festival which meant we spent 20-30 minutes in bumper to bumper traffic just trying to get through town. Who knew that so many people were interested in pumpkins? There were license plates from PA, WV, OH, NY and IN. On a positive note we did get to see some of the champion pumpkins that were on display in the middle of the street downtown. Seriously, you could live (well at least camp out) in a couple of them. They were huge.

After we cleared Barnesville, we headed down RT 800 to Woodsfield to pick up RT 26. 800 is good with some nice sweepers and a couple tight areas. The only obstructions were a couple Amish buggies. Once we got to RT 26 it was smooth sailing. The weather was beautiful, traffic was light and a few of the trees are starting to show some gold. There are sections of the road that have been patched but they are smooth. There were two areas with road "work ahead signs". Both of these were south of the RT 260 junction. One area was a stretch about two miles long that was freshly resurfaced was very smooth. There were no center or sidelines painted on the new asphalt yet. The other work zone is a bridge that is down to one lane. There is a automated traffic light on site that you have to wait on to get across.

Other than those two areas the road was in great shape and you could maintain the 55MPH speed limit everywhere except the tight stuff. We got behind one pick-up pulling a horse trailer that cheated us out of taking a section of twisties at speed. We pulled over to let her get a lead but once we got going we caught her again in a couple minutes. Fortunately, she turned off shortly thereafter.

The run from Woodsfield to Marietta took about an hour and a quarter including a twenty minute stop at one of the covered bridges where we took a few photos.

If the weather on the 19th is as nice as it was Saturday we will have a great time! We cannot wait to go back.

Glad to hear the construction isnt too bad. Given that its 3 weeks until our run, I would be willing to bet that those projects will be cleared by the time we get down there (if the weather holds). Thanks again for scouting ahead!