Starting Location: Wilmington, NC
Destination: Arlington, VA
Dining Locations: Applebees (worst road trip dining experience ever); Ted’s Montana Grill, Arlington, VA
Travel Time: 5 hours
I know I say this a lot but what a great day we had today! We all arose early and pulled back the blinds to see our beautiful view of the river. It was a bit foggy but we didn’t mind. We all raced to get ready and enjoy our complimentary breakfast which we traveled around the entire hotel to find only to discover it was about 10 doors down from our room. We are good!
We devoured our bagels and hit the town. Wilmington was having a farmers’ market that morning so we browsed the plants and the vegetables and then we saw some plants and some vegetables and oh yeah we also saw some flowers too. We walked down the streets but believe it or not we were up before the stores opened. I thought Emily had a sixth sense that prevented her from these situations. After about an hour of exploration and Hunter’s cue that he was ready for a nap, we rushed to the car and were on our way to our next stop.
The open road was quite good to us today. Hunter slept for 1.5 hours as we enjoyed a smooth open road on our way to Arlington. We made a stop in Fredericksburg to look for Goolrick’s Pharmacy and the nation’s oldest working soda fountain. As luck would have it we pulled up at 4:45 and they closed at 4:00. Hunter made out on the deal because we found a toy store and he was able to enjoy the train set. After a number of choo choo’s and some whining we got some ice cream and continued on our way.
Our destination was about 1 hour away and we were ready to be done in the car for the day. Emily’s brother’s friend Mark Sanchez lives in Arlington so we met up with him for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Ted’s Montana Grill. The dinner and company were very enjoyable as we stuffed our bellies full of great food. Because Mark was a local expert he gave us a tour of our nation’s capitol after dinner which ended up being only 5 minutes from our hotel. Had I looked at a map prior to this trip I might have known this before today. The tour took about 30 minutes and was spectacular. Seeing all the monuments at night was a real treat.
We made our way back to the hotel, said goodbye to Mark, and went to bed. Hunter fell asleep but 10:30 which was a road trip record. That is all for today, but stop back tomorrow and see what adventures we got ourselves into.
