"Snowbirds Part I (December 2005)" Virginia Travelogue by grandmaR

Crossing the Potomac

Bob took down the flag and disconnected the car batteries the previous day/night. He also went down to the boat and cleared the snow off. I have given the key to the folks down the street from us, but I'm not sure they know how to lock the door.

I finished packing my last suitcase, and he had breakfast and got the car loaded and put bags over all the amaryllis plants, and put the antifreeze in the toilets by about 9:30, so we started off at 9:37. We got as far as Leonardtown and I asked if he had our son's Xmas present from Harry and David which had been delivered to us through my error (a mistake I made twice but which I caught the second time with the game), and he didn't so we went back to get it.

He also didn't have my cranberry juice or some bagels that he left for me on the stove, but I don't think we've left anything else disastrous in the refrigerator this time. There was a half jar of applesauce, but that will just go quietly moldy in the jar.

We crossed the Governor Harry Nice Bridge over the Potomac into Virginia ($3 toll) at 10:30 ..

Santa on the roof of Buck Horn

..and were on I-95 passing the Kings Dominion sign that said "See You in April" by 11:20. We saw LOTS of police cars on the road usually with 2 or 3 cars stopped with them.

I thought I remembered that the bypass around Richmond didn't have much in the way of eating places, so we stopped in Ashland at 11:30 and had lunch. We had a LARGE number of choices there - Pizza Hut, Arbys, Applebys, Ponderosa, Burger King, Perkins, Cracker Barrel, Ruby Tuesday, KFC, Long John Silver, and a place called Buck Horn - but I thought we'd get something quick at Waffle House (which was correct - it only took us 30 minutes) and also I didn't think we had eaten there recently.

Waffle House menu

We both had hot tea ($1.29), and the bacon lover's BLT ($3.49). I also had hash browns scattered on the grill with tomatoes for $1.74. I think I should have just had them plain. The bacon lover's BLT was full of bacon - not quite so much as at Captain Bob's in Bimini, but pretty good. Bob didn't notice the big sign on the door that said cash or traveler's checks only - no charge cards. He was getting the charge card out when I told him, so he gave the girl $15.00 and we were on our way again before noon.

Suspension bridge over the James River

There turned out to be a bit more in the way of facilities on I-295 than I remembered, particularly down in the Fort Lee area around Petersburg, but we haven't been down that part of the road in quite awhile. Since we have over 500 miles to drive today, we couldn't stop and see Fort Lee. We crossed the James River on a big suspension bridge at 12:30

Crossing into North Carolina

...and crossed into NC at 1:30. The picture was taken through the windshield and the sun reflects off the small imperfections - it isn't snowing or raining.

Bob wanted to stop for fuel at Rocky Mount, but I fell asleep, and he missed it, so we eventually stopped at about 2:40 at Smithfield. We got off at the first interchange but the stations there had no diesel, so we went on to the second interchange where diesel was 2.69/gallon. Bob put some additive in the tank here. The NC State Troupers are out on the roads just as much as the Virginia ones.

South of the Border billboard

We started seeing South of the Border billboards, and crossed into SC at Dillon before 4:30. We had been going through periods of sun and clouds, and now there was a heavy cloud layer with the sun above it streaming through the clouds, so I took a number of pictures of the sun setting (top photo)

Our son/grandchildren's kitten

Next - South Carolina (visiting our son - North Charleston, Summerville and Monk's Corner)