Spring Roadtrip Days 1-2...Annapolis or Bust

 Day 1

Friday, March 1, 2024

     Today was always going to be a drive day.  Traffic being what it is on an Atlan'a Friday, I set the alarm and was pulling out of my garage promptly at 5A.  Add rain to the mix and there's no way to predict my morning.  As it turned out, I did beat the traffic and was pulling into the South Carolina Welcome Center shortly after 7A.  For the most part, I had speed limit conditions the entire day.  Very Strange.

      In the end, I did a little over five hundred miles.  With a brief stop in Petersburg, VA for dinner and a pint at Trapezium Brewing, I pulled out the phone and started looking for a place for the night.  

     Inexpensive rooms in Petersburg all sounded a bit sketchy in their reviews.  I decided to drive a few miles further to Colonial Heights.  A few of the reviews for the Roadway Inn mentioned Petersburg motels and said this was worth the extra five miles.  

      It was nothing special.  The room was fine and seemed clean.  

    Two things bugged me though.  This is the gap between the door and the doorframe...

    And the TV remote didn't have any batteries.  Not that there was anything on anyway.  After the early start, it was just nice to be off the road for the day, with only two and a half hours tomorrow.  

Day 2

Saturday, March 2, 2024

     Yesterday I drove 500 miles.  Today it was only 250.  While it was a welcome change, I was pretty spent.  It was a straight shot north along I-95 to the Capital Beltway, then east along Hwy 50 to

 Annapolis.  

      The Roadway Inn was nothing special, but clean.  It's clear they're renovating the rooms.  They just hadn't done mine yet.  I still slept well and had no real complaints, just a few oddities.

      It was pouring rain when I awoke.  A quick look at the radar and it looked like the worst of it would clear around 9:30A .  I had plenty of time before I had to hit the road.  Taking the cooler out for ice, I heard a commotion on the backside of the motel.  At the top of the stairs was a guy pounding on a door wanting to be let it.  People downstairs were just shaking their heads.

     The motel has two ice machines.  The one of the left was just dead.  The one on the right made that grinding noise but produced no ice.  Meanwhile the guy's still pounding on the door.  A Chesterfield County Sherrif's Deputy pulls into the back of the lot, followed by another.

     As I was packing the car, they had a young guy(mid 20's?) in handcuffs.  Based on his speech alone, he sounded inebriated.  The desk clerk said people were complaining when he arrived that morning, so he called the police.  The guy had booked the room with some friends.  He had way too much to drink and was getting obnoxious, so they threw him out.  

     Meanwhile, the rain finally did stop.

      The Rodeway Inn didn't do breakfast.  They just had coffee in the lobby.  I was fine with that and took my travel mug when I went to check out.  Good thing.  Next to the coffee pot was a stack of cups, all clear plastic.  Classy place, I know.

       Driving along on I-95, traffic was fairly light and moving well.  The sign over the interstate read "Wreck past MM 150.  Right lane blocked."  Joy.  Anticipating something like this, I did leave quite early.  I still pulled off at a rest stop and texted my friend Suzanne about it.  We were meeting for lunch at 12:30P.

      Just past MM 150, traffic did in fact grind to a halt.

     Eventually everything opened up again.  I used the next rest stop to suggest perhaps 1P instead.  I still had to tackle the Capital Beltway.  One mile before my exit, it ground to a halt yet again.

     Eventually, I did arrive at place called the Boatyard Bar and Grill.  Suzanne was coming from a different direction and arrived five minutes later.  

     Lunch was great and it was great just fun catching up.  Afterwards we took a walk through the neighborhood they call Old Town.  As you'd guess, it's the oldest residential area in the city.

 

      Suzanne had somewhere she had to be, so we said our good-byes and I went off to check out the Maryland Statehouse.  Parking was an adventure.  But, it always feels good to be out walking around.  So I didn't mind being ten blocks away.

      To get to the capital, I walked past St. Anne's Parish.  Click the link.  It's worth it just for the photo on their website.  The first St. Anne's Parish was built on the site around 1700 on the order of King William.  It was torn down in 1775 to build a much bigger church on the site.

      Construction was delayed by the Revolutionary War.  The materials were used by the state for the war effort.  After the war, the state did replace the construction materials and that church stood until 1858 when it burned to the ground.  This is the third St. Anne's on the site and was rebuilt in 1865.

     And finally the Maryland Statehouse.  

     Built in 1784, it's the oldest state capital that's still in use.  The Treaty of Paris was ratified inside,  formally ending the Revolutionary War.  

     In a small park adjacent to the capital is a statue of Thurgood Marshall, former associate justice of the Supreme Court.   Marshall's law career began in Baltimore, where he also volunteered with the NAACP.  In 1935, he successfully sued the University of Maryland on behalf of Donald Murray, who had been denied admittance due solely to his race.  One year later, he successfully sued the University of Missouri for the same thing.  

     My home for the night, the Hilton Garden Inn.  Nice enough place.  But, this far from the city center, I shouldn't have to also pay $8 for parking.  

     If you're like me, you leave a few bucks for the housekeeping staff, especially if the room is clean.  Unfortunately, ATMs generally just give out twenties and I rarely use cash.  The solution, something I hadn't seen before and a sign of the times.