...in October. We left about 7 PM the last day and said we would spend the night in a motel along the road. Little did we know that during "leaf season" rooms were nearly impossible to find. We tried and tried. The only room offered was at a Red Roof Inn at about 3 times the normal price.

We pulled into a Super 8 in Roanoke at 2 in the morning. This particular hotel and its neighbor a Motel 6, were built facing the interstate but it was a long drive to get to them from the exit. They began life as a Hampton Inn and a Comfort Inn and were nearly new but the location killed them.

Other than those and a couple of others we still had trouble finding any rooms. We did not know what leaf season was until then.