QUOTE(type47 @ Mar 1 2007, 03:21 PM)
welcome to the Washington, DC area. i'd be glad to be a contact within 40 miles of DC. if your route includes Rt 95, Rt 495, Rt 66 or the DC area, avoid rush "hour" to save the clutch.
If you are going towards Austin TX, start heading west right out of New York. Do yourself a favor, and don't get any where near the Philly, Baltimore, DC corridor on 95. You may miss the rush on one, but you will hit it on the others, and then it is the suck.
Rt US81 is always a pretty drive. It will route you away from the hell that is the above corridore and traffic. It will put you parellel to Skyline Drive though the Shenendoahs in VA (and it is totally worth taking the Skyline Drive detour, though it will add a few miles to your trip). US 81 is a long damn road, taking you roughly in the direction that you want to go.
Check out "Natural Bridge" in SW Virginia (right off 81) It is freak'n amazing. George Washington "found" it while he was working as a surveyer before the revolution. He carved his initials into the rock, and they are still there.
Depending on what route you take, going to see Fort Mountian (Fort Mountian State park) in Nw Georgia is pretty cool too. It is a stone wall that indian legend say was built by "white gods" long before columbus. Probably Vikings, but no one knows for sure.
If you have never been, Harpers Ferry is worth seeing, and is only a short drive from 81 in Maryland.
And of course there are about 914 civil war battlefields (including Gettysburg and Antietam) not very far from your route.
Zach