But not all of Route 1 is lonely. There are quite a few very interesting places along the way, and I stopped to visit three of them: James River Cellars, Mount Olympus Farm, and the Virginia Bazaar.

“The Other Dawn” walked the first leg with me, a 9.2-mile jaunt from the north side of Richmond to Randolph Macon College in Ashland. Dawn, who runs marathons in her spare time, barely broke a sweat, but I made up the difference by pumping out a few gallons myself. Needing to replenish my liquid content, we hopped in our cars and returned to the halfway point of our walk: James River Cellars. Though the winery’s vines are located 20 miles away in Montpelier, the wine presses and storefront are situated in Glen Allen, right on the side of Route 1. More importantly, this was also the location of the tasting room.

The winery manager, Mitzi Batterson, gave us a behind-the-scenes tour, explaining the distillation process and showing us a press that uses a balloon-like bladder to squeeze juice from the grapes. And here I thought there would be giant open cisterns where workers would stomp grapes as in I Love Lucy. Oh, well. Live and learn.

James River Cellars has only been around for about a decade, growing out of Mitzi’s and her husband James’ “hobby gone wild.” They grew their first grapes while she was a biology professor at nearby Randolph Macon. I was surprised when I discovered this—she seemed too young to have accomplished so much. I leaned over and whispered to Dawn, “How old would you guess she is? She looks to me like she’s in her 20s.”

Dawn did some calculating and shook her head. “She’s probably in her 30s. Teaching at college, earning her masters and Ph.D., that takes time. Plus four years of college before that.”

“Well, sure,” I said, “if you’re a slacker.”

“What, did you finish college in three years?”

Actually, it had taken me five years. And summer school. But that was beside the point. I had taken longer ’cause I wanted to learn more. At least, that’s how I remember it.

Skirting the issue of my beer-addled college experience, I led Dawn inside to begin my wine-addled adult experience. There was an event room where we could have eaten our picnic lunch with wine, but we had already eaten our sandwiches on the side of the road. Rats! Instead, we settled behind the bar in the tasting room and prepared to sip 16 of their award-winning wines. Dawn and I are not wine connoisseurs, but we both enjoyed the wide variety of reds and whites.

A reporter from the Virginia Farm Bureau was on hand filming a segment for Down Home Virginia. She zoomed in for a close-up on Mitzi while she poured a glass of wine for me. At that moment, Mitzi’s son, Noah, tugged at his mother’s pant leg and said, “Mommy, I need to go poo poo.” It was all caught on tape, but I have a feeling the Farm Bureau will use something else for their segment.

“Hey,” Mitzi said, “I told you earlier this was a family operation. You don’t get much more ‘family’ than that!”

The next leg of my journey picked up where I had left off, in Ashland. I walked 7.5 miles with Tom Hipple up the road. Although the endpoint of our walk, Doswell, is home to Kings Dominion, we didn’t stop to play and ride. We simply logged our miles. Thanks, Tom. You’re a good sport. Maybe next time we can stop and play somewhere.

From Doswell, I walked up to Carmel Church, this time accompanied by Dawn West (not the “other Dawn”). Unlike Tom, Dawn won’t let me walk anywhere without stopping to play, so we popped in for a visit at Mount Olympus Farm.

We chatted for a while with the farm owners, Ken and Mary West, a couple of transplants from West Virginia. The main crops on the 40-acre farm are strawberries and tomatoes, but they also have perennials and other plants in their greenhouse and will grow anything that strikes their fancy. “We like to do the unusual,” Mary said, “whether it be the produce or the plants. Most of our customers know that if they want something odd, they can come to us.”

Sure enough, the ground outside the store is covered with rows of giant pumpkins and odd-shaped gourds. Inside, the shelves hold such things as jars of pumpkin butter and “kickles” (pickles with a kick). They also carry what one would expect in a farm store: a wide selection of homegrown fruit and vegetables and milk fresh from the cow.

“We produce something that people are going to eat,” Mary said, beaming. “There’s a certain satisfaction in that.”

Ken nodded his head and toed the floorboards with a well-worn boot. “Running a farm,” he said, “it’s a lifestyle. You’re not going to get rich by any means.”

The day we visited was the last full Saturday at Mount Olympus. The change of seasons brought with it the beginning of a shortened weekend schedule. “The winters are fun,” Ken said with a smile. “Just a 40-hour work week instead of sunup to sundown.”

“You get mixed emotions,” Mary added. “You get so ready for the season to end, “but you’re not so ready for the cash flow to end.”

“We’re worn out now,” Ken added with a laugh. “You should come back in the spring when we’re picking strawberries and have more energy.”

My next stop was the Virginia Bazaar, which actually sits at exit 110 on I-95. But Dawn and I walked the mile-and-a-half from Mount Olympus to the bazaar. The parking lot is filled with vendors selling items from card tables and boxes and card tables, while the vendors inside the warehouse-sized building operate from more traditional storefronts.

As we waded through an ocean of baubles, knick-knacks, antiques, and collectibles, Dawn grabbed my sleeve and said, “Oh, my God. This is where tacky comes to die!” She paused, then added the traditional Southern phrase that is supposed to forgive anyone for saying anything disparaging about someone else: “Bless their hearts.”

Though I laughed along with her, I had to later change my tune as both of us found items we simply had to buy. Dawn purchased a decorative incense holder, and I bought a coffee table book and an old record. With such wide (and sometimes wacky) selections, it’s impossible for anyone to walk through without finding something they want.

One store in particular caught my attention: Taddeo’s Treasures and Gifts (540-729-2934). In addition to shelves filled with figurines and collectibles, it featured a process to convert photographs into what appeared to be paintings on framed canvas. Looking at them, I couldn’t tell the difference between them and regular paintings. I thought of the many pictures I’d taken of friends and family and nodded to myself. That’s Christmas shopping done in one fell swoop! (For more information, send an email to mannytaddeo@yahoo.com.)

When I finished writing down the information, Dawn tugged at my elbow. “While you were browsing, I found someplace better to eat.” On the way in, we’d seen a trailer in the parking lot serving barbeque and had planned on eating there, but Dawn now dragged me over to the indoor food court to a place called Granny’s Home Cookin’. They had jalapeno poppers on their menu, and Dawn was craving them.

“Sorry,” the cook said, “we got no poppers right now.”

Instead, we settled for a couple of chicken sandwiches and a side of fries and sat down at one of the long wooden tables. “They need to take poppers off the board,” Dawn grumbled.

“But that’s how they draw people in,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s how they got me.”

Our chicken sandwiches were delicious, and Dawn was quickly back to being her bubbly self. Dawn can be a little bit of a grump when she’s hungry. Bless her heart.

Reenergized, we left the Virginia Bazaar and hoofed it over to Route 1. Once there, we turned north and headed up to Thornburg. It was 10 miles from the bazaar to Thornburg, the longest distance Dawn has ever walked in her life (congrats!), and the completion of that leg left just one more for me before I reached Fredericksburg. I hiked the last 11 miles by myself and paused at the green sign welcoming me to the city. I’d made it all the way up from Richmond and was looking forward to the next phase of my journey: exploring Fredericksburg. But that will be a story for another day.

11/27/09 1:21 PM