<p>Hi all, we will be going to Family wknd and would like suggestions on taking an alternate route..bypassing DC..leaving from Frederick MD area. Looking at a map I see 70 west picks up 81 south. Has anyone taken this route before? Thanks for any help!</p>
<p>We have done the 81 route. If I remember correctly - you will pass by or close to JMU and Virginia Tech as you take this route. It is quite scenic, but there was also considerable truck traffic on this route. </p>
<p>I know it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but ths 2009 accident remains in my mind when I think about taking 81:</p>
<p>"A fiery car crash wasn’t the way life should have ended for Holt and Stone Weeks, according to family.</p>
<p>The two young North Bethesda natives died on Interstate 81 in Virginia on Thursday evening when their car was slammed between two tractor-trailers just south of Interstate 66 in Shenandoah County. According to Virginia state police, the truck which rear-ended the brothers’ 2007 Honda CPE forced the car underneath a tractor-trailer in front of them. That set off a chain reaction in which a third and fourth tractor-trailer were hit, rupturing one of the trucks’ side fuel tanks.</p>
<p>Fire spread quickly through the vehicles, burning the Honda beyond recognition, according to police."</p>