Busch Gardens Trip - Day 5

My night was OK (the hotel AC was quite loud and kept waking me up) and I thought Brenna had also done well when I woke up this morning (0600).  I did a little bit of reading, Duolingo, Sudoku and other routines while my daughter slept and also packed my bags.  When Brenna was finally awake (0730), she told me I'd kept her awake with my snoring (I felt bad). Moving on from this, she asked what we were going to be doing and I explained that some people (Mollie and Alex) had talked about leaving when Erin went to her Book Club at 1000.  She seemed determined to change everyone's minds so I took her back to Erin and Austin's house at about 0815.  When we arrived, everyone was awake and we ate some muffins and other breakfast snacks that Erin had gotten for us. There were lots of good conversations going on during this window so I thought plans were going to be made for some fun in Hampton Roads.  I'd noticed a yard sale and all of the girls took turns walking down to check it out.  In addition, I made suggestions on activities (tours of local Navy Bases, shopping at the Navy Exchange and possibly going to a beach nearby) and everyone seemed to be open to the idea.  Suddenly, though, there was a shift in the mindset and Mollie told me she wanted to go back to Fredericksburg.  This had been our original plan so I tried to avoid asking too many questions.  Saying goodbye to everyone else, we started heading west (1100).  Unfortunately, there was a lot of construction on I-64 so the typical two hour drive was forecasted (by Google Maps) almost three.  We did make it across the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel within the first hour but then there was a the typical stop-start mess as we drove through Hampton and Newport News.  At one point, Mollie asked me to stop for a bathroom break and I managed to find a good place. After that, though, I was really hoping to find something better than the Interstate for routing.  Fortunately, Google Maps came to the rescue and I ended up taking a series of back roads (VA-33, VA-30).  Along the way, we crossed the York River to West Point before proceeding through rural King William County.  This was an interesting route that took us through horse country (including the birthplace of Secretariat) and big soybean fields.  We ended up reaching I-95 where Kings Dominion was and hoped to get lunch at Burger King there.  This turned out to be too hard because of the large crowd inside.  Since I was actually taking Mollie and Alex to Beaverdam (to retrieve Mollie's car from Alex's parents' house), we took our chances at the little Doswell Country Mart and picked up some sandwiches there (1330ish).  Next, we made our way into even more rural Caroline County (near North Anna Battlefield) and soon arrived at Alex's home.  I'd never been there before but had heard many stories from Mollie about their chickens, dogs, fishing pond and the relaxing atmosphere.  After being there for only a short time, I can confirm that everything was just as good as she'd said.  We played for a bit with Maple and Joe (Alex's dad) showed me all of his metal detecting collections.  Wanting to do some hiking or exploring before dark, I said my goodbye's and proceeded to the west, hoping to find "downtown Beaverdam" and learn some more about the local history.  Unfortunately, I didn't have any cell signal so I never located the post office or historical signs.  Instead, I headed north on some country roads (VA-738 and VA-639) and eventually intercepted I-95 at Ladysmith.  I listened to audiobooks on the way north and this helped me weather the many stop-starts on the Interstate.  Arriving back in Fredericksburg by 1545, I got some more gas at Costco and then returned to Mollie & Alex's apartment.  I'd only been there for a little while before Mollie told me she was coming back earlier than she'd planned (she wanted to do some chores at the apartment).  Alex had decided to stay with his parents overnight so this ended up giving me and Mollie some special Dad-Daughter time.  We made the best of things by watching a movie ("La Dolce Villa"), eating dinner (Mollie made me homemade macaroni and cheese), taking a walk together (2000), getting some free Chick-fil-A for Mollie's teacher appreciation reward (2100) and then watching another movie ("Nonnas").  We also enjoyed some wine and champagne Mollie had gotten for my visit.  It was a grand evening and Mollie said it reminded her of when we used to live together in Alexandria and Hanover (NH).  The night ended at about 2230 and, by then, I was quite tired.  The day had been filled with uncertainties, firsts and special times - not a bad end to my trip to Virginia!