Heading North into a Giant Traffic Jam

We left Charleston and headed North through Columbia and then Charlotte, North Carolina. The traffic was ok and we turned off I 26 onto ! 77.  It picked up a bit as we crossed into North Carolina but we hit Charlotte at the right time and it wasn't heavy. About the only thing I remember was crossing the Pee Pee River.
Entering Virginia we stated to climb the Blue Ridge Mountains and the truck traffic became heavy as the rigth lane was full of slow moving trucks and the second lane had trucks that were trying to pass. Our Chevy climbed the hill with ease and we passed vehicle after vehicle climbing to the gap,(Out west we call these passes but here they are called gaps, hence the term water gap?).
It was a beautiful drive and then we saw the sign, I 81 was closed ahead due to a sinkhole collapse. We were ready to stop anyway as we had driven over 340 miles,a a long day for us, and so we took exit 101 on I 81 for Claytor State Park.
The park was virtually empty and we had our choice of campsites. Campground D had a bunch of pull throughs and even though the online site said that the maximum was 35 feet we didn;t have to unhook our truck as we stayed attached and just slid.
Going to the kiosk I discovered that while camping cost just 26.25 we had to pay 5.25 in a pet fee for our dog! 5.25 for a shi-tsu! I talked with another camper and he said that you only had to pay 15 dollars for a week, how kind of Virginia, I thought as I decided to spend as little as possible in a state that charges for dogs.
It was pretty there and we did have a nice walk to the lake. We saw cardinals and titmouse and lots of eastern towhees and it was cold so cold! The temperature dropped to forty degrees that night and it frosted in the area but not where we were at. We left the next morning having no idea of the mess we were heading into.
The news had reported on the sink hole and the first sign we saw said a detour had been made so we thought no big deal right. The sign read that the detour was from exit 195 and then back on I 81 on mile marker 200. It didn't sound bad until I had to stand on my brakes as the truck in front of me suddenly stopped at mile marker 187, oh no a seven mile traffic jam!
A Virgina DOT pickup backed past us with its sign telling people to slow down, and I realized that the Virginia people didn't have a clue. It took us an hour to go two miles. As the next hour passed we reached an exit for I-64,(mile marker 191 and still four miles from the detour), and using the GPS and truckers atlas Renita found a route so we headed west and then north on  US 11(At that point we wer still four miles from the detour exit).
It turned out to be a great decision as we only had to stop for a few minutes as we crossed under I 81 and we found the spot where the traffic was exiting the jam and merging onto 11. We made it past the jam! We did have to stop a few places but after 20 miles of detour we reentered 1-81 and sped back up!

We had planned on driving to a rv park at the north end of the Blue Ridge Parkway but Renita consulted the Woodalls and found out it was rated a two, which is real bad! It was priced at 38-68 bucks a night and as I was tired I had almost resigned myself to finding a walmart when She found another park at Winchester, Virignia.

It was far enough north for us to visit Antietam and Harpers Ferry but still close enough for us to Check out Shenandoah National Park, so we grimaced a bit and paid for four mights at forty six dollars a night! At least it was a nice quiet place outside the city limits. Time to rest a bit and become tourists as we sight see some history. Clear skies.