Note: In contrast to yesterday's serious post about Gettysburg, I thought I would offer a light story about an adventurous day in my family's life. The day in question took place on July 3, 1998, during a trip out east, the day before a visit to Gettysburg.
Most days of my family vacations have been comfortably boring. By this, I mean that they were enjoyable, but not very memorable, involving travel to or from a destination, or just general days of relaxation and entertainment. However, once in a long while, there was a day that everyone in the family remembers very well. Sometimes these days are memorable in a honestly good way, full of happy and truly enjoyable moments. Some aren't so enjoyable at the time, but become funny as we move away from the day. A precious few days transcend that barrier completely and are packed with so many crazy occurrences that they immediately become favorite family stories. July 3, 1998 is one of those days.
The day began like any other day on the trip. It was the final morning at our hotel at the oceanfront in Virginia Beach. It was a pleasant enough morning, with my parents and sister taking a walk along the beach as my brother and I slept. We checked out of the hotel at a reasonable hour, with intentions of lazily traveling up to the Gettysburg area to spend the night. Independence Day in Gettysburg was the important day, as we would be visiting a reenactment as well as the battlefield. We thought that Gettysburg would be packed, but that Fredrick was far enough away we could get a hotel. After all, nobody needed a hotel room along I-70 less than an hour away from a major event at Gettysburg and the Fourth in Washington, right?
Before we depart the Hampton Roads area, we stop at an IHOP for breakfast. I am vague as to where this certain IHOP was in the city, and it probably is no longer there. At least, it probably shouldn't be, for it was one of the worst non McDonald's breakfast experiences our family has ever had. The waitress gets our order taken quick enough, and the family talks as we wait for our meal. We keep waiting....and keep waiting...and keep waiting. Finally, our waitress comes back over and apologizes, pretty much saying that some of the cooking staff had quit right on the spot, and things were taking a while. After a very long time, we finally got our food, although it came out in a slow and piecemeal fashion. After two hours or so, we finally finished our meal. The clock was pushing noon, and we weren't even out of Virginia Beach. Things were not starting out very well.
Nonetheless, we were fed, and we were finally on our way. We said goodbye to Virginia Beach, not knowing that I would be back for a 22 month stay about eight and a half years later. We crossed the Hampton Roads Bridge and Tunnel, and also crossed the Coleman Bridge at Yorktown, in sight of the battleground where the United States effectively won its independence. Once we were north of the York River, it was a nice, yet fairly boring drive up to Fredericksburg. We saw a lot of farmland, a few towns, and an occaisonal glimpse of the Potomac River. As afternoon was moving its way towards evening, we arrived at the National Park Service visitors center at Fredericksburg.
If you have ever been to Fredericksburg, you know that it is as uniformative of a battlefield as Gettysburg is informative. The modern city of Fredericksburg encroaches right up to the wall at Marye's Heights, quite possibly even farther than the Union got in December 1862. Sure the house with the bullet holes and the sunken road are neat, and you can get some idea of how it was, but it is kind of hard to picture the killing field before the wall when 20th century frame houses are within your eyeline. There are other, more pristine parts of the battlefield, and three other major battles (Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Chancellorsville) are part of the park. However, given that Gettysburg was our destination, we only had time for a quick stop. More exploration of this hotbed of Civil War action would have to wait for another time.
Up until now, except for our marathon breakfast and a minor detour through the redeveloping area of Newport News, things were going fine. They stayed fine until we entered the Beltway. I had convinced my dad to skip the bypass and go along the George Washington Parkway across from Washington, so we could get a quick glimpse of the skyline of our nation's capitol. As we drove towards the Pentagon, I made an joking remark to my dad that if we crossed the river, we had gone too far.
Unfortunately, that joke was actually an unintentional prophecy, as we cruised on across the Potomac into the District of Columbia. I feel it necessary to remind you that this was the day before Independence Day. It was the dress rehearsal day for the big festivities, and the city was packed. My dad wasn't too happy about having to navigate through the traffic, although we did get to see several of the monuments and a close-up view of the White House. Other than the stress caused by having to drive through the mess, I'm sure every one did get some enjoyment out of the quick detour through our Washingotn.
Within minutes my dad had gotten us back on the parkway, and towards I-70 and Frederick. It is at this point we lapsed into our Illinois sense of distance, not understanding that Frederick was as close to Washington and Gettysburg as Ridge Farm is to Champaign and Danville. Not only is Frederick close to both places, but also it is right on I-70, a major conduit between Washington and pretty much everywhere west of there. So instead of expecting everywhere to be full, or reserving a room in advance, we strolled up to our usual chain motel choices and tried our luck. Place after place our luck was a failure, until the clerk at one of the hotels gave us a possible choice: The Frederick Inn.
Therefore, we drove over to The Frederick Inn, our one hope for the night. And what luck, they had a room. Sure, it was in the part of the hotel that wasn't remodeled, and the place looked a bit weathered. But we had a room for the night. Yeah, the beds were tiny, the carpet looked like it was pieced together from stained samples, and the non-carpeted floor wasn't much better. At least we had a place to rest for the night, even if I felt compelled to sleep in the van instead of the room. My parents were right in convincing me to stay in the room, although not by much.
Continue with Part 2
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