Route 1, Day Three: Virginia to North Carolina

On New Year’s Eve, we spend the day driving from Dumfries, Virginia, about 30 miles south of Washington, D.C., to Apex, North Carolina, about 15 miles south of Raleigh. We pull out of the Candlewood Suites at 12:17 p.m.


We pass a handsome two-story brick building named Williams Ordinary.


An ordinary was an establishment that served food and offered lodging in the days of horse and stage coach travel.

We drive through countryside and built-up city areas in Fredericksburg, Petersburg, and Richmond. When we need gas Jim stops at a gas station, but it turns out it is for ‘fleets only’; there’s no obvious way to measure the fuel. Jim says he was hoping for some local color, but not that local. We push on and find a standard gas station before we run the tank dry.

In Ashland, Virginia, north of Richmond, we stop for lunch. It’s New Year’s Eve and first two places we try are closed. However there’s a hoagie place, San-danos, that’s open. The owner is behind the counter with a snug little kitchen with a grill for meat and counters for making hoagies. I didn’t know hoagies were a thing in Virginia, but he is from Delaware, so that probably explains it. I order an Italian hoagie and Jim gets a Philly cheesesteak, made fresh as we watched.
There’s a narrow wooden counter under the front window with four bar stools. We sit and munch on our sandwiches and chat with the owner. (Sorry, but I didn’t ask his name.) He had been a banker in Delaware and started the hoagie shop twelve years ago. His grandparents were Italian. As we speak he cleans up the kitchen, puts extra food in the freezer, and preparing to close for the holiday as soon as we leave.

Between Fredericksburg and especially after Richmond, the scenery changes: mostly rural, one or two lanes in each direction, no shoulders, buildings close to the road, and few stop lights. No big box stores. There are auto sales, but they are local places, without the huge lots of the national brands (Ford, Honda, Chevrolet, etc.).

We approach Raleigh, North Carolina with dusk falling. Route 1 enters the beltway, I-440, bypassing the downtown. I must admit I’m relieved not to go through another city center. It’s dark, I’m tired; it’s been a long day of travel with the speed limits changing from 55 to 45 to 35 and back to 45 to 55.

We stop for the night south of Raleigh, in Apex. We tell the motel desk clerk what we are doing and he smiles. He has driven US Route 41 from Wisconsin to its end in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He says the highway just ends and you turn around and go back. Well, that’s what Route 1 does too.