Richmond, Virginia

We didn’t get to spend a lot of time in Richmond, Virginia but we were really pleasantly surprised by the city. We loved how clean and spacious the city was but also loved the houses and how well their architecture is preserved. We went to The Village Café for breakfast, because it was a DDD stop but weren’t too impressed with the food. The place itself was pretty cool, they even have a jukebox and ridiculous beer specials ($1.81!).

After making another quick stop at The Byrd, we walked around Cary Street to some of the shops. They had a lot of cool, different shops and a lot of antique shopping. We could have stayed longer but we had places to go, barbecue to eat! Next stop: North Carolina!

On The Road

On the way from Rehoboth Beach to Richmond we drove through the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. We were confused why the toll was $12 but we soon found out. Totally worth it! The bridge connects Maryland to Virginia with a 23 mile long scenic bridge! This drive was so cool because you lost sight of all land on all sides and it felt like you were driving through the middle of the ocean.  At some points during the drive you would dip down into a tunnel and be below sea level for over a mile.

Our first stop when we got to Virginia was at The Leaping Lizard Cafe in Virginia Beach. We saw it on DDD, as usual, and liked it because a lot of the food they make is grown locally. In our usual fashion, we split the chicken salad sandwich and LOVED it! We're usually eating a lot of fried, greasy food when we stop in at a DDD place, it was so nice to eat something that wasn't deep fried and actually felt clean.

Don’t You Know About The Byrd?

Well everybody knows that The Byrd is the word! In case you don’t know about The Byrd, it’s a beautiful historic theater in Richmond, Virginia that was built in 1928. Even today you can listen to the Wurlitzer Organ played just as it has been for over 80 years. They also show movies and for $1.99 per ticket you can find yourself sitting in one of their red velvet seats admiring the beautiful building from the inside. We wanted to stop by and get a picture of the theater from the outside, not having any idea just how cool the inside was. They had a 9:30 movie that was about to start but we were too tired to go so we just asked the girl collecting tickets at the door if we could take a look inside, and she was glad to let us in. We took about 10 steps into the theater, looked around, looked at each other and walked back out to the ticket booth to get tickets for the movie. The theater was so grand, it’s hard to believe it’s now used to play movies, and for $2! Larry keeps laughing at me because I take too long to take pictures and end up missing whatever it is I'm taking a picture of.  So when we walked out to take a picture of the iconic sign and JUST as I lift my camera up to take the picture, the light up "D" in BYRD goes off! I really couldn't believe it. We went back in the morning to see if we could get inside to get some pictures but unfortunately they don’t open until the afternoon.

The First Ice Cream Cone

Our first stop in Richmond, Virginia was Doumar’s, who claim to have invented the ice cream cone in 1904. We weren't even hungry but knew we would regret it if we skipped it. Larry tried the butter pecan and I had the strawberry. Both were delicious but the butter pecan(puh-caan not pea-can, that’s what truck drivers use to go to the bathroom:) was the best! 

Take me home, country roads

After leaving Nashville it was straight home for Larry and the Family Jules. Today were going though 5 states to get to New York and driving a total of 16 hours. Well be arriving home around Midnight.

 We saw the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia but not the Shenandoah River or a mountain mama. We watched from the car as the sunset turned the sky from blue to pink, pink to purple, then purple to black for the last time this trip. For the past several weeks we've seen so much through this cars windows and it's going to be sad when Taff, Jules' car, goes back to the dealership in June.