Route 1, Day Eight: KEY WEST!

January 5th: we leave Banana Bay in Marathon around noon and head west on Route 1, aka the Overseas Highway. Just like rural South Carolina, with its rhythm of signs, DO NOT PASS, PASS WITH CARE, this highway develops its own rhythm of names: Big Pine Channel, Big Pine Key; Torch Channel, Torch Key.

Jim stops the car just beyond the green Key West sign

then I take the wheel for the final miles. The traffic into Key West crawls, but I’m content. I pass the end of Route 1 sign and search for parking. Just as our optimism flags, an on-the-street spot appears, with an eleven hour limit. We walk back to the highway signs: there is a constant stream of tourists taking pictures of the “End 1, Mile 0”, and “Begin 1 North, Mile 0” signs. I brag to the tourists who offer to swap phones to get group pictures: We started in Boston and drove Route 1 all the way here! It took a week. They seem suitably impressed, but of course they have no idea.

R’el emails me a photo of her and me at the same spot on the 4th of July, 2008, when she was doing a hospital rotation in Miami. We went scuba diving in Key Largo and then drove to Key West. We ate key lime pie and bought Stewart's Key Lime soda.

I buy postcards and a ‘Route 1, Mile 0’ T-shirt and we find a ‘hop on, hop off’ Cityview tour trolley. We ride the circuit twice. I find it disorienting to have water on three sides of such a small area.

We stroll down Duval Street and find a cute little bistro with an Argentinian waitress. I have shrimp and penne, Jim has chicken and scalloped potatoes. We again finish off with bread pudding with ice cream and key lime pie. The pie is different from the St. Augustine version. It’s not as creamy and tastes more like fresh key limes with a touch of rind. I like them both.
Jim signs up with Airbnb and finds a sailboat to sleep on. Our hosts, James and Roberta, are from Goshen, Indiana. Their boat is berthed at a marina on Stock Island, just east of Key West. We’re below deck, in a room slightly bigger than the double bed, which is tapered at the foot. We have a private powder room. It has a shower, but they use it for storage. The marina has showers and a washer and dryer; that’s where we’ll be tomorrow morning.

As I write this I feel a gentle sway. Ah, to be rocked to sleep in the Florida Keys.

Route 1, Day Seven: Twelve Miles an hour through Miami

January 4th and we head down the Florida coast. We stop north of Fort Lauderdale and visit two apartments that Jim’s brother Jeff owns: Coral Springs, where many of the streets are a variation on ‘coral’: Coral Ridge Drive, Coral Springs Drive, Coral Hills Drive; and the town of Margate. These towns abut the Everglades, which are so flat that a short man-made embankment hides them from our view.

We press on through south Florida. Route 1 goes right through the heart of Miami. Jim’s a good sport: we average twelve miles an hour for three hours. Once through Miami we stop at Pollo Tropical, a Caribbean-themed fast food place. I have barbequed ribs, balsalmic tomatoes (maybe not so West Indian), and boiled yucca (very West Indian), a mild-flavored starchy vegetable; Jim has pulled pork.
Just outside of Florida City civilization as we know it ends. Night has fallen and we see no lights off the highway. The “Overseas Highway” is Route 1 and the only game in town to reach the Keys (unless you own a boat or fly into Key West). We stop at the Banana Bay Resort for the night.
Ironically, a heat wave broke just before we arrived in Florida. High temperature: 55 degrees. So the outdoor pool holds no allure. The Floridians are grateful for the cool; I was hoping for some heat.

Route 1, Day Six: Sabbath in Melbourne, Florida

First Sabbath day of the new year: January 3rd. We had emailed Darin and Sarah Ragozzine earlier and now meet them at church. They lived in Arlington (Massachusetts) from 2009 to 2011 and once a month were ‘inviters’ for our ‘weekly gathering’ suppers. Chloe is now 9 ½, Abby, who was one of our nursery children, is five. Nathan was born after they left. Sarah fixes a delicious homemade meal of taco salad with chocolate cookies and gingermen for dessert. We play Go Fish and Trouble, their new Christmas game.
Preparing to sleep for the second night in the same bed feels great. We’ll get an early start tomorrow and head for the Keys!

Route 1, Day Five: Waycross, Georgia to Melbourne, Florida

On the second day of the new year we finish our drive through Georgia and head for the Florida coast. As we enter St. Augustine we stop at Fort Menendez, intrigued by ship masts towering over the wooden fence. Jim pulls over and we enter a gift shop: the first of our trip.
We tour the fort with a couple from Miami and their three children. Using a feather quill pen and a bottle of black ink our guide, Victoria, signs our entrance papers. She makes it look so easy, but our own sloppy signatures highlight her skill. She hands each of us a small scroll with questions and a twentieth-century stubby pencil to jot down answers as we go along.
In the fort we learn to dip candles. Four long strings hang straight down from thin pegs attached to a flat wooden disk with a handle. Grasping the handle, I dip the strings in a vat of melted wax, careful not to dunk the disk, then lift the wax-covered strings out and count, “Uno, dos, tres” and dip again. The pause lets the thin coating of wax cool and harden before dipping again. We each take a souvenir candle.
We learn to weave thin strips of wood into a wattle for fencing and dip a bucket on the end of a rope into the open well for water. (Don’t worry, middle-school science teachers, the well is covered with a locked iron grate.)
A young man from a Paiute tribe in Arizona gives us a humorous and informative tour of the Native American village. The Timucua people that Ponce de Leon met in Florida were gentle giants: over six feet tall, with good teeth; Ponce was about four feet seven and sixteenth-century Europeans had notoriously bad teeth. To enlist as a soldier one needed two top and two bottom teeth in order to rip open the paper cartridge of gunpowder and load a musket.
The final stop on the tour was the life-sized replica of a Spanish galleon deck. It’s tiny. Victoria, who has returned for this segment, shows us how to play ‘Close the box’, a simple counting game with dice. In the gift shop I have 20% off for answering all the questions on my scroll, so I buy a miniature version with tiny dice.

We head into old St. Augustine, driving through a small neighborhood with sandy alleys. The pedestrian mall near the old fort is packed with people and the standard tourist places: clothing and art shops, ice cream stands, restaurants, as well as the oldest school building in America. We pick a restaurant and have delicious fried green tomatoes, fried oysters, a blackened fish sandwich, key lime pie, and pound cake with ice cream.
While Jim takes a picture for some Colombian tourists near the old city gates I hear the sound of spoons playing. I put a dollar in the young man’s hat and chat. He’s from Kingston, New Hampshire. (He was pleased to hear we lived in Manchester.) However for the past six years he’s been working in Oregon. He and some buddies just bought a boat in St. Augustine. They’ll stay south for the winter and then head up to New England. “So this is your food money?” I ask, glancing at the few bills in the hat. “Yeah, I guess.”

Back on the road we head for Melbourne. It’s Saturday evening and we’ll stay at Candlewood Suites for two nights, and meet the Ragozzine family at the Melbourne Ward tomorrow. We enjoy the luxury of two nights in one hotel and establish our portable library on the window sill.

Route 1, Day Four: North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia

                                         Happy New Year's Day!
We leave Apex at 8 a.m. and travel on limited access Route 1 for an hour and a half. Rockingham, North Carolina, is a handsome town, lots of porches and houses of various sizes, including a lovely two-story Colonial brick house, and a Victorian with a wrap-around porch. The streetlamps are shaped like my Bryn Mawr lantern (sans owl)


We drive right through the town center: a two lane street with parking along the side.
After Rockingham we enter South Carolina. Immediately there is a sign for fireworks and the two lane road falls into a rhythm of signs: ‘Do not pass’ and ‘Pass with care’. Route 1 has become very rural. We pass the Sand Hills State Forest to our east and the Sand Hills National Wildlife Refuge to our west.
The small town of McBee (population 900) has streetlamp holiday decorations: snowflakes. That makes me laugh. Perhaps it snows here, but more likely not.
Northeast of Columbia, the state capital, we stop to eat at Hot Box. The motto is “Eat now. Die later.” Jeremy, the co-owner, is an earnest, energetic young man with a paisley black bandana across his forehead. He talks us through the menu of about 18 items. I have the twin deep-fried hot dogs with fried dill pickle spears. Jim goes for the deep-fried chicken breast and deep-fried mushrooms. (Do you detect a theme here?)

Hot Box has been in business for exactly two years today. However, they are shuttering the doors in two days. Jeremy explains that the October flood meant there was not enough clean water to run their kitchen. The rain also caused roof damage, which the landlord isn’t willing to repair. Falling ceiling tiles discourage customers. The holiday season has been slow for business too. Jeremy describes his restaurant with great passion. It’s sad to see it fail. Jim buys me a souvenir Hot Box bracelet, Army green with red accents.
As we drive through downtown Columbia, I spy a dome, cry out, ‘zip!’ and say, “Let’s stop, for Matt.” Our son Matt has a goal to touch all 50 state capitols. My Grampa Hazen took pictures of all 50. It’s in the blood.

It’s New Year’s Day, so everything is very quiet. The State Capitol grounds are lovely, complete with a flowering bush.

We cross over the Savannah River into Augusta and the rest of the afternoon and evening is spent driving through rural Georgia. No big box stores here; no national brand car dealerships either. But Route 1 is still an auto road: occasionally there is a small dealership, selling mostly used cars.
We end our day in Waycross, Georgia, just north of the Okefenokee Swamp. What a lovely name for a true crossroads: on the map Waycross looks like a six-pointed star.

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.

Route 1, Day Two: Princeton, New Jersey to Dumfries, Virginia

On Wednesday, December 30th, I wake up at 10 a.m. in the Princeton Inn. We take a relaxed approach to the morning, requesting a late checkout. When I call down, the front desk clerk says, without skipping a beat, “The latest checkout time is 12:30 p.m.” Perfect.
We pack up, then leave our luggage on a cart near the front desk. (Jim is sold on hotel luggage carts.) I feel like a rich lady traveler with all this luggage. The cart even has brass (colored?) curved poles, just like the Waldorf, without the red velvet. However, our stack includes a red and white Playmate cooler from the early 80s, which lowers the class a bit. I just can’t travel without packing food.
Jim narrates our walking tour of Princeton, past his dormitories, Brown and Little, and Blair Arch, where the 10th reunion photo was taken, into the old bookstore which is now just T-shirts and convenience store.

On A floor in Firestone Library the study carrel where Jim spent hours working on his senior thesis is gone. Of course there are all sorts of interesting books; Jim often would pick up something new to read rather than study.
After the walking tour we drive around and find our first apartment at 155 Ewing St., which we sublet in the summer of ’79. Two workmen are there, and let us step in to see the second floor studio apartment. The wrought iron banister at the top of the stairs has been replaced with a half-wall; the kitchen and bathroom are updated. One workman is painting a door.
We drive out to the LDS chapel on Alexander, then take Route 1 north two intersections to Harrison St. to return to Route 1 south exactly where we had exited the day before, at the gas station where I waited in a long line for gas back in the shortage days of the 70s.
Crossing the Delaware River we see the bridge with big red letters: “What Trenton Makes the World Takes”. The drive through Philly and suburbs changes character every few minutes: below-grade street, commercial areas, townhouses, grassy tree-lined boulevards, and twelve-lane highway. Dusk has fallen by the time we reached Longwood Gardens near Brandywine, making the tall deciduous trees wrapped in red Christmas lights stunning. There was even one with multi-colored lights.
We drive through the Maryland countryside in the dark and in Perry Hall, Maryland, Jim pulls into the Double T Diner, a large and gleaming establishment with apple turnovers on display at the front entrance and a revolving dessert case.

Jim knows how I love the romance of diners. Unfortunately my dinner is too much food to even think about sampling any desserts. I enjoy Maryland crab soup, stewed lima beans, real mashed potatoes, and a huge and delicious broiled crabcake. I order two, but can’t eat the second until supper the next day.
We drive through quiet city streets in Baltimore, past the quintessential white stone steps of the row houses. Bold pedestrians in dark winter clothing cross the street in a nerve-wracking way, but no mishaps occur. Pressing on to the District of Columbia we drive down the mall, past museums of art and natural history, and the large federal buildings with huge Greek columns, turning left in front of the Washington Monument, and passing the Jefferson Monument and Tidal Basin. 30 miles south of the District we stop on Old Stagecoach Road in Dumfries, Virginia, at a Hampton Inn. Another late night of travelling, but at least we avoided heavy traffic in Baltimore and Washington.