Return to Tank Crossings

Valentine's Day 2013: As with most years, I had no date, and with several unrelated things bothering me at the time, I decided to go driving after work to clear my head. I wanted to revisit the section of VA 40 between McKenney and Blackstone, which I drove in late 2010 but took few pictures. I started off my journey on I-85/US 460.


Most of the US 460 reassurance shields on I-85 are modern cutouts.


This is where the south end of the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike used to be.


I-85 eventually increases to 70 MPH after shedding US 460.


I departed I-85 at VA 40 and headed into McKenney.


Leaving McKenney, VA 40 is very quiet.














Look, another route.








Entering Fort Pickett.






Tank crossings!






Other signage.




The base's airport runway is over that hill. I couldn't get a good angle.


Big curve.


VA 40 enters the town of Blackstone, where this old trailblazer, and another one like it heading westbound, still remains posted.


This should be US 460 Business on the left, and a VA 40 shield on the right.


I turned east towards home and headed out to the bypass.








The bypass meets the business route.


US 460 eventually takes you back to I-85.


Today, though, I was going to take my favorite road of all time, VA 153.


Beginning northbound on VA 153, with no reassurance shield. The reason I like this road so much is that it can safely have military vehicles drive from Fort Pickett to Richmond on it at 55 MPH; indeed, its name in Amelia County is Military Road. A car like mine can go close to (mumble) MPH on many sections of it; I was going 65 MPH most of the way and felt like I was crawling.


On VA 153, 65 MPH is just too slow for me. ethanman62187 likes this.






Meeting old VA 38, which I traveled in Februaries past.


If I still had VTEC...


Meeting VA 38 and SR 602 at Scotts Fork. SR 602 eventually goes to VA 36.


Heading eastbound on SR 602 (Bevils Bridge Road), which is decidedly not primary material. I'm descending to the (unmarked) Bevils Bridge Appomattox River here.


And ascending from the river, now in Chesterfield County, where SR 602 becomes River Road.


That's it. Again, no clinches...just a man, his car, and the road.

The I-64 Trip To Get Some Wheels For My Car

Finally, my first road trip of 2013. It didn't occur until February 1, mostly because I'd been focusing more on my cars than roads. Indeed, the primary focus of this trip was to buy a set of stock rims for my 1993 Prelude so I can still be able to drive the car while I'm fixing the wheels that are on there now. While I want to have some trips this year that are clinchfests, there will be others like this that have other primary purposes.

I began taking pictures on I-95 northbound, after I had missed my exit for VA 10 (exit 61), where I had planned to hit I-64 further east via I-295. Instead, I just kept going towards Richmond.

I hope you like overhead signs. This entry has a lot of them.

Broken light fixture.

Approaching downtown Richmond.

Bleh.

On the James River Bridge.

The world's tiniest patch. It covers an 11, the pre-1992 exit number for I-64.

...I missed the exit for I-64, so I had to get off at the next one (US 1/301) and turn around, something that requires making several (well-posted) turns in downtown Richmond.

Now on I-64, heading for Hampton Roads.

For the most part, I did a pretty good job of not getting my car in the pictures, but this was an exception.

I-64 meets I-295 at exit 200. If you're waiting to see actual Norfolk, you're in the wrong blog entry.

US 60 is parallel to I-64 here, but the C/D road on I-295 south takes you there.

Now in New Kent County. I-64 is more rural here, but there was still lots of traffic.

Exit 211 is for VA 106.

I tried to get this combination I-64/VA 33 reassurance assembly after several exits, but kept waiting too long. This was the only one that actually got them.

Now in James City County, at the second of two consecutive exits I-64 has for VA 30.

We're in the Williamsburg area.

The eastern interchange with VA 199 actually has the road's names.

I like the way this photo turned out, despite the VA 199 overhead being cut off, because you can see I-64's undulation ahead.

Yellow-out is what happens when you need to make the arrow a different direction.

There's no greenout here. Just excess space.

They should have used some of the extra space from the previous overhead for this one. I-64 eastbound does not have a direct exit to VA 238, but it has an onramp from it, and I-64 westbound does have an offramp for it.

Now in the deceptively long City of Newport News, where traffic starts to get thicker.

As usual, my camera didn't pick up all the numbers on the VMS here. I-64 said 47 minutes, while I-664 said 68. Of course it's going to take longer to reach the oceanfront when you're going parallel to it on 664 as opposed to relatively closer to it via 664, but 664 is a much, much, much smoother ride and is less often congested than 64.

The times here for VA 168 (which is where I was headed) said 67 minutes via I-64 and 63 via I-664. Both were congested. My own fault for going this way in rush hour traffic, but if I took the World's Most Depressing Stretch of US 460 one more time...

Especially huge overhead.

There's 664. Upon turning onto it, I stared directly into the sun...

...until I hit the traffic jam. There was a stalled vehicle in the left lane of the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel, so traffic had to squeeze into the right lane.

The rarely-seen Y intersection advisory sign on the offramp.

I wish. It was more like 60 feet per minute. My clutch was sure enjoying that. [/sarcasm]

Vehicles are already stopped, regardless of whether or not they have hazmats.

Merging traffic didn't help.

I was hoping to clinch a route or two while I was down here. Nope.

The yellows were flashing. And look, a red light on an interstate.

The stalled vehicle is being attended to in the background.

Hooray, I can go again. Down into the tunnel I went.

Now out of the tunnel.

On the south side of the river now.

After that, the combination of bad drivers and darkness made me unable to get anymore pictures, but I retrieved the wheels and got home with no incidents. I-64 westbound has a bad bottleneck at exit 255, where it drops from 4 lanes to 2 and traffic enters at the same time, but other than that there were no other delays. The MMMBT is even nicer at night.