Destination yesterday: Ellicott City (near Baltimore), Maryland
Miles today: 216
Miles to date: 652
Where are we again? Charlottesville (near Richmond), Virginia
Fun fact: You all know that car license plates in the USA display the State’s motto: in Massachusetts, for example, they all say ‘The Spirit of America’; in New York they all say ‘The Empire State’. But our personal favourite is the Virginia State motto which, proudly displayed on all its cars, reads: ‘Smoking Makes You Look Cool’.
What we’ve been up to: Well, yesterday morning was our last day in DC, and so, after breakfast in the hotel (which, due to some mix-up, turned out to be free) we headed off with our luggage to the Foggy Bottom Metro station. We were on our way to Ronald Reagan Airport to pick up our rental car, but we decided to make two brief stops on the way: first, to visit Arlington National Cemetery, burial place of JFK and RFK, as well as thousands and thousands of America’s war dead, and second, to take a peek at the Pentagon. Because of the heat and the weight of our luggage, we only managed to stay about 10 minutes at the Cemetery; at the Pentagon, we stayed only 5, basically because Vikki took a photo of the ‘Pentagon’ sign inside the Metro which immediately prompted an announcement over the tannoy to the effect that “the person that just took that photo had better erase it right now, or else we’ll start getting Guantanamo on your ass.” So we got out of there pretty fast, and made our way to the Budget rental car counter where, to Vikki’s delight, we found they had upgraded us from the cheap old banger we had pre-booked to a red Ford Mustang convertible. Nice!
So, off we drove to Ellicott City, an old mill town a little outside of Baltimore, to visit Joan and her mother Kay (see photo, above) who had so kindly offered to put us up. Joan has quite an amazing house: a huge white wooden thing built c.1850 and situated at the crest of a hill on 12 acres of (admittedly impenetrable) woodland. They took us out to dinner (our treat) at a restaurant on what appeared to be a business park about 20 miles away, where they introduced us to the fine art of eating crabs in the Maryland style. We had a dozen small ones, steamed, and coated in some spicy/salty seasoning; and boy was it messy! Let it suffice to say that there’s a reason they cover your table with brown parcel paper and give you a bib. It was good fun though, and very tasty. After that we went back to see Kay’s home – an apartment in a 2,200- person retirement village! – before heading back to Joan’s for a go on her porch rocking chairs, and then to bed.
Today, we were up bright and early, conscious of the fact that we ought to get going before Joan had to go and pick up her mother and take her to church. After Joan had showed us how to take the top down on the car, we headed off at about 9.30, went up through Maryland, into a small part of West Virginia, and out into the northern tip of Virginia so as to reach The Skyline Drive, along the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia (a.k.a. ‘The Trail of the Lonesome Pine’). This is a federal parkway, built as a job creation scheme in the Great Depression and, on this road, you can stop off every few miles for spectacular views of the surrounding mountains. It was all very green and pretty; but the fact that the 70 mile stretch we drove is composed entirely of hairpin bends meant it was pretty slow going.
All this wiggling about has meant that we haven’t quite made it to Richmond today as we had originally planned. However, we did manage to fit in a visit to Thomas Jefferson’s house at Monticello (including the ruins of the slave quarters – which they seemed to find hard to explain!). Anyway, right now we’re holed up in a Comfort Inn just outside Charlottesville (home of the University of Virginia) with a six-pack of Dominion Ale and a Domino’s Pizza Delivery. So the only bad thing is that we’re about 50 miles WNW of Richmond – which means 50 more miles on the way to Wilmington, North Carolina, our destination for tomorrow.
'Til then.
Ted's photo blog
A picture of me, Ted, kicking back with a beer and planning tomorrow's route to Wilmington.
