October/November 2021 Vacation Day 13 · · PAGE 42.

November 7, 2021:  Sunday continues our trip south on a new page as US 301 goes south by itself in Maryland.  This is the last sign we see for US 50 that goes all the way to California.

US 301 near the D.C. area has many areas of trees along both sides of the highway for the 25 miles south of US 50 down to the town of Waldorf, Maryland.  The high traffic roads that cross US 301 heading for the D.C. metro area have interstate type fly-over junctions with no traffic signals.  The lesser crossroad routes with their traffic lights can slow down traffic on US 301 as I have seen a number of times I have come this way.  Even with those occasional traffic jams, I prefer US 301 to being trapped on I-95 going south from D.C. in northern Virginia.

These types of fly-over intersections are more common with roads with single-digit route numbers like the one seen in this image below.

There are some places where mom & pop motels and restaurants have survived, like this place "Mrs. K's Motel and Restaurant" where the parking lot is full and a local trucker is parked on the shoulder of the road on US 301.  This place is about 10 miles south of US 50.

The last at grade railroad crossing was east of the Chesapeake Bay on US 301.  This one is less than one mile south of the restaurant seen in the image above.  This crossing has full length crossing gates with flashing RED lights on the gate arm as well as the two sets of lights on the post and cross bar.  Just more of the stop and go adventure on this part of US 301 in Maryland.

US 301 went from being lined with trees and forest land to civilization where US 301 crosses then merges with Maryland state route 5 which is a four-lane commuter route from this part of Maryland north toward the Washington, DC metro area.

After the routes have merged, this sign meant for tourists tells of the sights to see going south of here.  The traffic has always been heavy in this area unless of course you pass by here early on a Sunday morning.  

This Wendy's was facing US 301 and was an easy stop for take-out lunch which we ate in the car parked in front of the building.  Chase had plenty of grass to find relief.  The dining room was closed due to Covid-19 cautions.  We have been having take-out from the drive thru at a number of places on this vacation.  We pulled up to the drive thru and placed our order at 12:26 PM and were parked near the street with our food at 12:30 PM.  We got back on the road at 1:04 PM heading south.

Since Wendy's had their building locked due to Covid-19 issues, we were looking for a place with clean rest rooms.  We found another Wawa when we went south from Waldorf.  This Wawa location was about 7.5 miles south of our lunch stop seen in the photo above.  We arrived here at 1:16 PM and were back on the road at 1:25 PM.

Here is the last image from Maryland as I am crossing the Potomac River Toll Bridge to Virginia on the other side.

I do not recall seeing a new bridge under construction when we passed this way on November 7, 2021.  It looks like they are building 4-lane bridge.

On the Virginia side of the bridge the pilings are still being cast.  Come back next year for the dedication opening of the bridge.  (That's a guess on my part.)

We leave US 301 behind and head east on Virginia route 3 toward our next stop 56 miles away.  We passed this way at 2:00 PM.

The next important town on our route is Montross, Virginia.

Speaking of Montross, here is the town center of activity between the US Post Office and court house.

The Westmoreland County court house in Montross was not seen in the image above.  We passed this way at 2:26 PM.

The Montross post office is just down the street from the court house as this view looking northwest indicates.

This view from the post office is looking toward the east and the road out of town.  The beautiful fall colors we came north to see are on display.  This Google Earth image was captured at about the same time we came through Montross, VA.

The Washington and Lee family-owned motel is about 1.2 miles East from the court house in Montross.  The pond out front with all those rocks drew my attention for a posting on this web page.

The GPS is guiding us to our next destination this afternoon to visit some of Linda's family of in-laws in this part of Virginia.  The Google Earth camera has a smashed BUG on it.  Nothing is perfect in the real world.

Virginia state route 202 was pure farmland until it reached the small town where US 360 becomes our next route for the next 7 miles to Heathsville, Virginia.

I discovered Heathsville is located in Northumberland County, Virginia.  We had a short ride on US 360 and now we use Virginia route 201 to get us closer to where we are going this afternoon.  We passed here at 3:01 PM.

After driving about 3.5 miles on Virginia 201, we reached this intersection of county route 642 going east for the final leg of today's route of another 1.8 miles.

This is the way into the area where we are going without any Google Earth street level photos.

Here is the sign at the entrance to this neighborhood.  This area is where the GPS got a fix to begin our next leg of the trip.  It would not get a fix up in the trees near the house where we had our visit.

The push-pin marks our destination for this afternoon.

Our arrival at the destination was at 3:12 PM.  With all the trees on the lot, my second GPS model 50 did not lose satellite lock during our visit and showed our first movement of our departure at the house at 5:17 PM.  The GPS 296 I use in my airplane did not get a solid fix for departure until 5:22 PM down near the entrance sign seen in a photo above. This delayed satellite lock was probably due to the thick tree cover in front of the house.

Here is the GPS MAP INFO GROUND TRACK at our afternoon destination arrival.  I added the large typeface to indicate the map scale at 500 feet.