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.”