Day #6: Bulls Gap, TN to La Plata, MD

Our fifth and last Best Western night and it appears we have traversed the country while avoiding bedbugs at every stop.  The first order of business was a hot breakfast at our Best Western.  It included everything Kimberly had told me about when we checked in the night before, though I never did see the pancakes she mentioned.  No specific stops planned for the sixth and final day of travel except for Fredericksburg near the end of the journey.

We were surprised to wake up in Tennessee to, off all things, fog.

Didn't I leave fog behind in the Central Valley?

We ran in and out of fog all the way through Tennessee from Bulls Gap to Johnson City, and it finally burned off for good at around 10:00.  Shortly after we passed through Knoxville, I-40 finally splits off to the south east toward Asheville.  After over 2000 miles we bid adieu to our highway companion and veered up to the northeast on I-81.  With the Appalachian Mountains to our right we wrapped up our final Tennessee miles and angled up into Virginia.

Yes, Santa Claus, there is a Virginia.

The Virginia landscape is lush and hilly.  Big swaths of forest interspersed with agriculture (including tobacco farms.)  The miles rolled on as we got nearer to our final destination, with only a couple of rest and coffee stops (for TJ) breaking up the time on the road.  When we estimated that we were about two hours from Fredericksburg I called HHJ and we arranged to meet her and T-Ray at the Visitor's Center in town.  Not long after we turned east on I-64 we came upon a scenic pull-off where we got a beautiful view of a valley.  Unfortunately, the fog from earlier in the day left a bit of haze that muted the view.

Signs at this scenic spot provided some additional history about the site:

We then continued on our way.  Instead of taking the larger I-64 to the southeast to I-95 in Richmond, we decided to cut out some distance by taking some smaller state highways to Fredericksburg.  So after Charlottesville we wound our way through some Virginian back roads.  Even with Mags on board we got a little lost, so the sequence of the exact roads we took are not clear to us now.  But we at least took VA highway 15 to Orange, 210 to Wilderness, and 3 into Fredericksburg.  

A rural Virginian road on the way to Fredericksburg

Fredericksburg was an important site in history during Revolutionary War times.  George Washington's mother and sister both lived there.  It was later the site of four major Civil War battles.  After one battle is was used by the Union as a medical station for over 20,000 wounded soldiers, who were treated over a period of a couple weeks by five doctors.

Today Fredericksburg has several streets with charming shops, restaurants, cafes, ice cream shops, and museums, and draws numerous tourists.  We parked the Taurus next to the Rappahannock River and walked a couple blocks to the Visitor's Center.

The Rappahannock River in Fredericksburg

HHJ and T-Ray met us at the Visitor's Center as promised and a happy, if muted, reunion took place.  We walked the streets a bit and heard music coming from the old town square, where a group playing old songs from the 19th century were performing.

We then went to the Fredericksburg Area Museum, which had exhibits that included artifacts and displays from both Revolutionary War times and the Civil War.  Since TJ and I had not had a lunch, we decided to have an early dinner and decided to try the Cafe New Orleans.  T-Ray got the fried calamari special, TJ and HHJ got the red bean and rice wrap, and I opted for the fried catfish po' boy sandwich with sweet potato fries.  All were excellent!  

Scenes from Fredericksburg

We were safe in case of nuclear attack

After dinner it was past 6:00, and if I wanted to see the new house in some form of daylight we needed to get going.  TJ and I returned to the Taurus and programmed Mags with the new address.  She took us through a winding rural two-lane road that connected with 301 about four miles shy of the Harry W. Nice Memorial Bridge, an impressive structure that spans the Potomac River into Maryland.  

The Harry W. Nice Memorial Bridge over the Potomac

The Potomac River

We traveled the final 12 miles of our journey and arrived at the new house just in time to see it in the last few minutes of daylight.  During my tour of the house I discovered that I was not the only new member of the family to our new home.  First, we found ants near the kitchen, undoubtedly driven in by all the rain they've been having the past couple weeks.  Second, this:

T-Ray holds Neko, an interloper adopted without my knowledge

I plan to take pictures of the house and add them to a post tomorrow.  After all, TJ is here until Tuesday, so there will be further adventures now that we are in Maryland.  

Our trusted chariot

It was quite a journey.  A trip that saw us put over 2,800 miles on the Taurus, drive through 10 states, and take 463 pictures.  Thank you for being a part of the journey.  But stay tuned, the journey isn't over yet.