Back to Day 21

1:30 PM

Note: I wanted to title this post “The Battle of Fredricksburg”, but Dana thought that would have been a better title for yesterday.

Sitting down to lunch at The Soup and Taco in downtown Fredricksburg. This is a great town. Lots of history, and the main streets have an original, old-fashioned feel. There is even a drug store with a lunch counter, and it looks like it’s been there forever, not like someone designed a new one to look that way.

This has been the best biking day yet. Really nice roads – not too busy, not too hilly, not too confusing. Right before Fredricksburg we found the Chatham House, which is an old plantation house that became a Union army hospital and then fell into ruin and then was reborn and eventually became part of the National Park system.

We took the house tour, and the garden tour, and watch the 15 minute video. Here I am wondering why Dana doesn’t see my need to hire a professional landscaper when we get home.

Immediately after leaving Chatham House we crossed the Rappahannock river into downtown Fredricksburg.

The first thing we saw was a bike shop. Dana’s derailleur has been acting up again, so we went in and they tweaked it for him. I bought a front pack, as I have been admiring his for 750 miles now. I am very excited about installing it on my bike later.

In the bike shop we met Mimi, who recommended The Soup and Taco for lunch, so here we are. After lunch we will walk back up Caroline Street to Tea Tyme and What Nots for dessert. It’s our anniveresary, we might as well treat ourselves well.

7 PM

In a Quality Inn in Spotsylvania. Two items of note here:

• This is our third straight night in a Quality Inn. We have achieved the Quality Inn trifecta.
• I just love the sound of the name Spotsylvania.

We have perfected the science of unpacking our panniers, storing our bikes, and arranging our biking clothes for tomorrow. After 22 straight nights in hotel rooms, the stuff almost organizes itself.

When we left Fredricksburg, we passed another Civil War battleground, and saw the famous stone wall that gave Stonewall Jackson his name. They had this diorama in the gift shop. And here everyone thought my blog post about dioramas had nothing to do with this bike trip. Hah!

Then we passed another battleground, where all of the Confederate troops had their trenches. Then we rode for a while on nice roads, not too busy, not too hilly, through farmland.

Note: I promised Dana that I would add this… Every time we go up a hill, I mutter about how there shouldn’t be anymore hills. OK, I’m being a bitch, but then again, he wants me to go faster, and I cannot go faster on these hills. On the other hand, I am now climbing most of the hills, which according my own rules means they are not really hills. But call them what you will, they still slow me down to about 5 MPH.

Toward the end of our day, we found the Stonewall Jackson shrine, at the Fairfield Planation, site of the Battle of Chancelorville, at Guinea Station, where Jackson was killed. There is a commemorative stone there, although he is buried in Lexington, VA. The original plantation office building is still standing.

I would have liked to go another 13 miles today, but Dana wanted to stop because it was already 5:30 when were at the shrine. Today’s lack of mileage is more due to our stopping so much – 2 plantations and 2 restaurants in Fredricksurg – but I wish we could do more. It’s about 60 miles to Richmond, and since there isn’t much to see between here and there, hopefully we will make it.

And, although I am not ready to forgive Dana the hills yet, it is finally getting flatter. Not exactly flat, but flatter.

8:30 PM

We just finished our romantic anniversary dinner – Italian food delivered to our motel room, with Dr. Pepper from the soda machine in the office. We don’t put too much stock in the whole anniversary thing, so this is just fine. The less it takes to make you happier, the happier you can be, right?

Dana just did some map math, and he figured out that if we average 50 miles per day, we will be Key West in 33 days. Since I was going to claim success if we made it to St. Augustine in 57 days, I think Key West in 55 is a victory. Then again, we’re not there yet.

And we installed my new front pack! OK, I tried to install it, but I got the screws confused so Dana did it while I bought soda from the machine in the office. So sad, but I’m still excited about the pack.

On to Day 23 

Back to Day 20

6 PM

In a motel in Stafford, VA. We really wanted to make it to Fredricksurg today, but it’s another 23 miles from here, and we are beat. The hills are definitely getting smaller, but they are not gone yet. Dana has finally admitted that perhaps he was mistaken when he said there would be no hills after 600 miles. (Actually, he was just plain wrong, but he hates being wrong, so let’s just say he was mistaken, shall we?)

We began our day riding through Fort Belvoir. Other than having to show ID, the guards were very nice to us. And the grounds were beautiful – sort of a new, cleaned up version of Devens. Our problems began when we left Fort Belvoir, and had to ride on route 1.

We knew route 1 wouldn’t be good, but there was a sidewalk for much of it, and after only 3 or 4 miles of hell, we got onto some side roads and ended up back in Occoquan, where we had dinner last night. We had fruit smoothies there today, then headed back to hell.

My problem with the ACA routes up until now was that they go so far away from civilization, it’s all hills and no services. Today’s ride made up for the last 700 miles of that problem. Miles and miles of almost highway, with no shoulders or sand-covered shoulders. At one point Dana called me a wimp for not wanting to ride in 50 MPH traffic on the sand-covered white line. We began speaking again about 10 miles later.

Our big worry for today was getting through Quantico. As we were approaching Quantico, on yet another big, loud, shoulder-free highway, my biking group from home called. They were having their end-of-season ride and lunch. Here I am talking to them on the side of the road

Here is a picture of their lunch. They offered to save me a lobster, but I’m thinking that’s a bad idea.

But right after that we had this lunch (with the best shrimp and corn chowder I’ve ever had)

in this roadside clam shack

Then we braved our way into Quantico. Joplin Rd goes right around the military grounds, and would have been a fine biking road, except that a number of cars were afraid to pass us. So by the time they did, there were a bunch of angry cars behind them. We got sworn at 3 times, got the finger 5 times, and one car actually tried to swerve in front of me. And we put up with that for 9 miles, which I know because Dana and I had a bet about how long the road was. (I won, in case you care, which I’m sure you don’t.)

We then entered the Quantico Military Cemetery, which the guy at George Washington’s distillery told us is beautiful, and he was right. Here is Dana checking maps outside the bathrooms, which were very nice, too.

Our route out of Quantico took us back to route 1, which was packed with angry rush hour traffic. But right there in the middle of it all were the remains of the first Catholic church in Virginia.

Just crossing the road took some maneuvering, and then I insisted on walking most of our 1 mile, because again, I was a terrified wimp. We were looking forward to getting off route 1 onto Garrisonville Rd, but that was even worse – angry route 1 traffic meeting up with angry I-95 traffic on a plethora of on- and off- ramps.

So by the end of what Dana is now referring to as “highway to hell” day, we didn’t have another 23 miles to Fredricksburg left in us. But tomorrow we will take our butt and lunch break there. It’s our 23rd anniversary, and this will be our first anniversary spent in VA, or anywhere exciting for that matter. We will then continue on towards Richmond, and we should be in Richmond sometime Sunday.

If the hills shrink, and we can avoid the highways, we should get up towards 60 miles per day soon. Let’s see what happens.

On to Day 22

Back to Day 19

Friday, 7 AM

Sorry we didn’t post last night. The hotel internet was ridiculously slow. Dana figures people were all trying to use Netflix or something. What’s bad is that we still have to plan our route through Quantico. What’s worse is that we couldn’t watch another episode of The IT Crowd.

Here’s yesterday’s post….

5 PM

In a motel outside of Mount Vernon. I totally screwed up the hotel planning for tonight. We should have gone another 15 miles today, but I read the maps wrong and didn’t think there were any hotels. We’ve been trying to coordinate the Google maps with the ACA maps, discussing them from across the room. This time it backfired on us. From now on, we will both look at all of the maps together. Meanwhile, I’m sitting here feeling guilty and lazy, while Dana is very happily napping.

Since we knew today would be easy, we had breakfast in Alexandria, and when Dana went to pay, he realized he’s lost his Visa card. I called the barbecue place we ate at last night, and they had it. Here’s the place – great food, great sculptures on the walls, and they were very nice about the lost credit card.

Then we rode the bike trail to Mount Vernon. It was packed with tour buses of seniors (as in both “high school senior” and “senior citizen”). We did not get a tour of the estate, but we sat around for a while, eating ice pops.

We continued onto our hotel, and found George Washington’s grist mill and distillery. So I figured we should take the tour, since we had some time, and I want to do more touring anyway. We learned how George Washington built and ran a very successful whiskey distillery for the last 2 years of his life. And here’s a picture of the water wheel used to mill the corn and wheat. We came all the way from Lowell to learn about water power!

We saw this t-shirt.  If you change the A to an E, it explains one of my major fears for this trip.

After checking in, we crossed Route 1 to have lunch at Roy Rogers, then came back across to buy ice cream, and tomorrow’s Gatorate, at the 7-Eleven. Then I showered and changed into my bathing suit and did laundry! I’m SO excited about having the laundry done!

So… an afternoon at Roy Roger’s, 7-Eleven, and the laundry room. As second honeymoons go, I don’t think this one ranks 5 stars. But as I pumped quarters into the washing machine, and crammed it with every outfit we both own at the moment (4 each), I thought how this should be teaching me to be happy with less, and to really appreciate what I have at home. But honestly, when we get home, I’m probably just going to fall back into spoiled comfort.

Tomorrow we will try to make it to Fredricksburg. We have plotted our route through Quantico, and with luck it will be a 55 mile day. If we get lost, or there are too many hills, we may spend the night in Stafford, but I think getting to Fredricksburg will alleviate some of my hotel-finding guilt.

10 PM

Just came back from dinner in Occoquan with Laurie and Bob.  Occoquan is a very quaint little town on the Occoquan River – which I suppose makes sense. We ate right on the water, and it was a wonderful evening. We will be riding through Occoquan today, which is sort of frustrating, and every mile in the car reminded me that I will have to do it again on the bike. We asked them for a ride through Quantico today, which Laurie thinks that’s cheating. At this point, I’m OK with cheating – but if we cheat, I will be honest about it.

On to Day 21