Virginia Traveling

We drove to Bethesda today. We left I-66 and went through The Plains, (The Plains Wikipedia entry), in Fauquier County, then took Highway 50 over to Middleberg, in Loudon County. This is the ritiziest of ritzy horse country; it puts Albermarle County to shame. Middleberg is the home of the Red Fox Inn, longest continuously operated inn in the United States. Middleberg is a picture-postcard colonial town, right up there with Fincastle, Lexington and Abington in the short catalog of frozen-in-time Virginiana. It is characterized by a great deal of stone construction, rather than the more standard Virginia brick.

The drive on 50 from The Plains to Middleburg was particularly pleasant given the I-81 traffic before we hit 66. I-81 has become a travel disaster area; we had 2 20 mile periods of 20-40 MPH driving, just north of Lexington and again near I-66, which were apparently caused by tractor-trailers passing each other on long hills. I-50 was also pleasantly rural; there were a number of signs commemorating conservation easements. Good for those counties and their far-sighted citizens. Of course, I will spare you a description of the drive from about 5 miles from Middleberg to Bethesda-- suffice it to say that the beltway and its environs are now completely nuts even at 4:00 on a Sunday afternoon in August.