Fredericksburg, But Barely

July 30, 2010: For decades on trips south, we have left early and stopped in Fredericksburg for breakfast. Last spring, we wandered into town in search of a mail box and discovered that they have an almost daily farmers' market. At the time we said we should check it out at the height of the season, so we decided this was the day.

We were wrong.

I-95 became a parking lot shortly after Dale City. The progress was so slow that we got these cattails without slowing down:
We bailed out before Dumfries and got on the only alternate: US1. It's up and down, swerve right, swerve left; more like snow skiing than driving. But even with the occasional stoplight and small town speed trap, we were averaging better than 40 mph, which is more than anybody could say over on I-95! It also turned into a parking lot about a half mile north of the Rappahannock River, which is the northern boundary of Fredericksburg. We caught this glimpse of the Rappahannock before we reached our destination over an hour late:
The market stretches along the sidewalk on two sides of a downtown park:

Prices tended to be a little more city than country but there were deals on corn, zucchini, eggplant and melons.

We had lunch at Allman's Pit Cooked Bar-B-Q, a Fredericksburg institution since 1954.
The French fries, onion rings and coleslaw were good, the barbecue okay but the beans disappointing.









Afterwords, we explored the riverfront and checked out a few shops.
We stopped at Carl's for an ice cream cone on our way out of town.