Day 24: The Road to Washington

I mean it when I say I have VERY little to report today. Basically I got up with no particular plan in mind – and reluctantly dragged myself into the shower in an effort to wake up. It was only really when I pulled in at a gas station to feed the horse that I set the GPS to Norfolk, Virginia. This was in a loop back to Washington D.C. through Delaware – the last of the states I could visit which has no sales tax. There was also a double boon in that I’d get to cross a bridge over the Atlantic ocean – which, alas, I haven’t seen properly on this trip, and now think I might not see until I return to Galway next month.

Long story short, I went looking for food around 3pm after driving through South and most of North Carolina and according to the almighty Google, a place called Bill Ellis’ in Wilson, about 15 miles off the Interstate was worth a look. I had fantastic fried chicken, and left the sides – pretty bland overall. The GPS then decided to take me on a trip through cotton country and a few hokey towns – a nice detour. Pulling in eventually having realised from my internal body compass that I wasn’t heading toward the Interstate, I noticed the Garmin had other ideas. At this stage I’d lost a good deal of time, and naively put in Philadelphia (yeah I know, mad!) but that was an arrival that was really just too late. So after a browse of available hotels in Philly and DC, I decided to head toward the Nation’s Capitol and bed in for the night.

Some 3 or 4 hours later, I was approaching the north eastern tip of the State of Virginia, crossing a total of 4 states to lay down a tract of just over 600 miles in the day. Other than that, nothing much happened really – apart from I-95 turning into a car park a few times with road works. I stopped to get gas outside of the built up DC approach and tried a Dunkin’ Doughnuts “diabetes in pastry” and a small coffee. I reckon the teller figured I wasn’t from around there, given I chose the smallest cup and chuckled at the 64oz cups that could be purchased of ice tea (I’ll never understand or contemplate how that was ever even conceived!). Tomorrow, D.C. Better give Michelle and Barack a call to tell them I’ll meet them for tea at 4! 😀