Yes, the above blog title is the marketing campaign of choice for Rock City, a spot atop a mountain overlooking Chattanooga, Tennessee. The thing is, you can’t really see seven states from Rock City. You can see two. Perhaps three on a very, very clear day, but I doubt it.

Instead, I’m talking of the drive home from D.C. on Thursday. Having been bored nearly to tears on I-81 through Virginia on Saturday, I knew if I was going to survive an 11- to 12-hour drive again, it was going to have to be on a different route. The wrench in the plan was that I was on deadline: I had to get to the Sears Outlet store before it closed on Thursday if I were to get a cheap washer and dryer to replace the set that the buyer stole from negotiated out of me and get them on the moving truck in time. I like to cut it close.

Those of you following me on Twitter got the cliffnotes version of the route I chose instead. For everyone else, I shall recreate with the help of some road signs. Let’s just say I haven’t much mastered the art of shooting while driving.

So, without further adieu, a photographic recreation of my road trip.

It’s hard to see, but this was the state I chose to avoid on the drive home:

Western Virginia is not nearly the lush mountainous land you might imagine it to be:

And you’ve all heard about this excursion already:

Maryland was where I laid my head each night and where I began my journey home on Thursday:
I drove all the way across Maryland, through that very skinny part that makes you wonder how bits of Maryland didn’t just become bits of Virginia or West Virginia, or in this case:

Yes, I drove into Pennsylvania. Just for shits and giggles and not because I needed to cross it off my list of states to see. I’ve driven through it before.

Seconds later I was back in Maryland and minutes later:

West Virginia totally gets a bum rap. It was by far the most scenic drive of my trip and worth the drive.

I got to see Morgantown, home of West Virginia University (my third ACC college town of the trip and perhaps three too many). I also hit Huntington, home of Marshall and perhaps more excitingly just minutes from this state:

Also visited just for shits and giggles.

I had no choice but to drive across this state:

Which is about the place where my drive started to drag and my eyelids got heavy. Fortunately, a left turn just past Lexington took me here:

So there you have it. A fairly nonscenic view of my road trip. I would have taken pictures of the more beautiful things I saw along the way, but that would have just been unsafe.

Well, here is one bonus. On the recommendation of the Modern Dad, I stopped to see the West Virginian state capitol.

I know, right? West Virginia?