COLONIAL BEACH BUMS

Derecho: A widespread, long-lived, straight-line wind storm that is associated with a fast-moving group of severe thunderstorms known as a mesoscale convective system. Derechos can cause hurricane-force winds, tornadoes, heavy rains, and ash oods and can last up to 20 minutes or more.

On July 6th the skies above Backroads Central went from sunny and hot to dark and then dangerous in a matter of minutes.

Shira called from the Durango in the Shop Rite parking lot where she was waiting it out, to warn me and to get Spenser T. Cat inside.

I headed outside as the derecho hit. Insanity. I was drenched in seconds as I looked for the tabby.

A small (thankfully) branch came zipping in, nailing my head.

Spenser was smart, he’d hide till this was over.

I heard one, then, three trees come down on the property.

Time to retreat, was my thought.

With everything soaked, and taking off my sneakers, I spotted Spenser dashing around towards the back of the house. I took off to get the back sliding door open for him but, as I hit the three recently re nished wooden steps, I kinda high-sided and came down hard on my left side, tearing my left lat, oblique, and seriously bruising my butt while bashing my helmetless head on the steps.

I am not sure when I made it to the couch where Shira found me – but it was obvious I would be off the bike for a few weeks at least.

With the damage to the property and myself, and not any real ‘wins’ in a week or so, we thought we’d need to escape for a few days and we knew just the place. words and images: Brian Rathjen

Day One

Colonial Beach, Virginia is considered the playground on the Potomac. This funky river and beach town are located in the northwestern part of Westmoreland County on Virginia’s Northern Neck peninsula. It is bounded by the Potomac River, Monroe Bay, and Monroe Creek and is home to the second-largest beachfront in the state.

We have been here before and had discovered the neatest beachy hotel – The Riverview.

Think art deco, add a squeeze of history and a dash of Key West, shake and pour right near the point the Potomac empties into the Chesapeake Bay and you get Colonial Beach.

We had our ll of the storms and the heat was about to come on strong.

Although I thought bikes, Shira the Redhead nixed that idea and pointed to the Audi A4. Her reasoning being it was comfortable, German and a convertible… and I was on the IL (injured list).

I threw my bag liner, the same one I use on my bike, into the trunk and painfully settled into the passenger seat. Hey, we say motorcycles, travel & adventures – this trip would be the latter two.

It was a great call as we hit heavy rains at times and temps in the very humid 90s.

But, like most road trips, we had issues. It is the small issues and overcoming them that makes any journey memorable.

Talking Shira into closing the top, we quickly discovered that the AC was not AC’n very well. I googled the next truck stop and we vectored off the highway to picked up an AC 134a Refrigerant Kit. 15 minutes later we were back on the road south in a now very cool, almost chilly, A4. Finally, a small win!

We arrived in Colonial Beach in the late afternoon – and checking into the Riverview we were met by Kelly, who owns the place with her husband Bob. Plans were made for dinner with them later that evening.

With a few hours to spare we took a stroll along the town and the river’s shore. This part of the Potomac is very wide at this point and it is maybe 2 or 3 miles across to the Maryland shore. The town has a great sandy beach and there are even some palm trees.

They also have a seriously large osprey population. I like to think of the osprey as the sea hawk. Their distinctive M-shape wings, with an average 65-inch span, and that unique head which is white with a dark mask across the eyes reaching to the sides of the neck, make them very visible.

And their vision, through their bright golden eyes, is exceptional as well.

They are also unusual as they are one of the only living species whose habitat is nearly worldwide.

Shira and I took some benches at the Black Pearl Tiki Bar and kept an eye on the nearby osprey nest with female, male and young one.

The storms that had been following us caught up a few minutes later and the thing became torrential for a half hour or so. No worries, mon. We had a drink, great music, and the seahawks to watch!

Skies cleared and we met Kelly and scooted over to Oomboon – a superb restaurant that mixes Thai and French cuisine. Here we met Bob and Steve and had a lovely evening with our friends from the Riverview.

Up early we walked across the small riverside town to Lenny’s, the go-to place for breakfast in Colonial Beach, and then strolled the boardwalk along the river back to the hotel. We had a bit of history on the agenda for later in the day but wanted a bit of beach time too.

The nice thing with a car-sized trunk – we had some folding chairs with us; okay, one was a Kermit Chair and we have carried them around by bikes as well.

But the Riverview is just steps from the empty early morning beach and we grabbed a prime spot between two palm trees and settled for a few hours of swimming and making Vitamin D. The Potomac was very warm and calm and it made for an excellent morning.

Starting to get a little scarlet, we called it a great start to the day – hit the room, the shower and red up the Audi, and rode back in time to visit the Stratford Hall.

The Stratford Hall plantation house was built by Thomas Lee in 1738 and would become home to four generations of one family who helped de ne a nation; Francis Lee, who was known as Lightfoot Lee from his military exploits, and his brother Richard Henry Lee, called Light Horse for his incredible horsemanship and military leadership. Both men were heroes of the American Revolution. The Lees were two of the 56 men who declared our freedom from King George, and the only brothers to have both signed the Declaration of Independence.

Henry Light Horse Lee would have several children and one son would attend West Point. He would graduate second in his class from the United States Military Academy in 1829, and then serve 31 years in the US Army, including three years as superintendent of West Point in the 1850s. He would gain recognition as a scout in the Mexican-American War. In 1859, he led US troops to subdue abolitionist John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry. At the time of his resignation in 1861, he was a Colonel.

At that time, he was asked to lead the Northern Army against the uprising to the south. He reluctantly declined, saying he would not raise arms against the state of Virginia – his home. Instead, he took the commission of the leader of the Southern Army.

His name was Robert Edward Lee. His story and the grounds and The Great House at Stratford Hall are truly amazing.

Just down the road towards the river, a mix of pavement, gravel rock, small gullies, you will come to the cliffs. Over 150 feet high they tower over the river – and it is here you can really go back in history as this was

once a sea bed and full of primitive shark-toothed porpoises, salt-water crocodiles, sea cows, gopher turtles, rays, whales, and sharks. Thousands of shark teeth found along this area of the Potomac attest to the frequency of the sharks, the largest among them being the Giant Megalodon, with teeth measuring seven inches or more. The Meg was enormous – some grew to 65 feet – think two school buses end to end. So…. Big!

Today, families come to the river banks and pan through the sand looking for fossils. We drove down and walked to the beach to talk to a family that already found several bones and sharks teeth – though smaller sharks, no Meg, the Holy Grail of fossil hunters – to be had this day.

Back on the road, we made a stop at James Monroe’s birthplace as well as the boyhood home of His Excellency George Washington.

It is amazing that so many men who changed America’s and the world’s history were raised in this small part of the Potomac River.

We headed back to Colonial Beach and were soon joined by Mark and Betsy Byers. The Black Pearl was happening again so we took some stools with a view of the river and Maryland in the distance. We always love when we can get together with the people, like Mark Byers and others, that truly make Backroads what it is. While at the Black Pearl Betsy pointed out the osprey that had just hit the river and came out with a sh in its talons. It ew over our heads and into the nest. Dinner time.

It was dinner time for us too so we moved next door for a semi-nice meal. You can’t win them all, but the company and Shira bringing us all along for an Inside Scoop Ice Cream Run made it all better. Day Three

Packing up the A4 and, saying goodbye to the Riverview, we motored south on Route 3 for a bit and then charged east on VA 624, also known as Flat Iron Road. If I missed my motorcycle before I really felt it now as Flat Iron was a beauty. A great mix of forest, farms, tight curves, and pleasantly well-paved straights. Indeed, the north/south routes in this part of the state can be tedious, but the east/west cut-throughs were a joy! Like MacArthur – we will return. We found breakfast in the town of Gloucester and then went in search of the birthplace of another famous American. This man was in the military as well, but what he discovered saved thousand – and did not take any lives. Doctor Walter Reed was a U.S. Army pathologist and bacteriologist who led the experiments that proved yellow fever is transmitted by the bite of a mosquito. The Walter Reed Hospital, Washington, D.C., was named in his honor.

Reed’s discovery of the causes of yellow fever is one of the most important contributions in the eld of medicine and human history. During the Spanish-American war, more American soldiers died from yellow fever,

malaria, and other diseases than from combat. His work here led to the near eradication of this disease and allowed for other great things to happen. Without Walter Reed we would have no Panama Canal – it would have been impossible to build it with yellow fever running rampant in the tropics.

As we always say – history is right here if you look for it.

Over the many years that we have been creating Backroads we have followed the different battles, birthplaces, and men and women who made this nation and the Revolutionary War. But, we had never made it to where it nally would come to a close.

Yorktown.

We would change that today as we drove over York River and rode to the place where Washington’s and the Colonial Army’s long struggle would nally triumph.

On September 28, 1781, General George Washington, along with French Admiral Comte de Grasse, commanding a force of 17,000 French and Continental troops, begins the siege known as the Battle of Yorktown against British General Lord Charles Cornwallis and a contingent of 9,000 British troops at Yorktown, Virginia, in the most important battle of the Revolutionary War.

After three weeks of non-stop bombardment, both day and night, from artillery, Cornwallis surrendered to Washington in the eld at Yorktown on October 17, 1781, effectively ending the War for Independence. Pleading illness, Cornwallis did not attend the formal surrender ceremony, held on October 19. Instead, his second in command, General Charles O’Hara, carried Cornwallis’ sword to the American and French commanders. Cornwallis was a bit pusillanimous, I think. We took in the Visitors center and did a self-guided tour around the battle elds, the redoubts, the cannons at Surrender Field and Washington’s Headquarters, and the magni cent Yorktown Victory Monument. Created from Hallowell Maine granite, the striking memorial is nearly 100 feet tall and at some 98 feet high, it overlooks the wide harbor of the York River, from which it is visible, and forms a part of the familiar scene that is remembered by the

many thousands who have seen it in the passing years. It is full of symbolism, honor, and history and is beautiful to see. Yorktown deserves its own article here in Backroads – and it will be so. Now late afternoon we began our vector north, making a stop in Urbana along the Rappahannock River. Following the signs, we drove down another rough road, past a number of trailers with several black watermen and their families having one hell of a party. At the end of the road, we found what we were looking for – the Urbana Seafood Market. We took seats, made our order, and waited to be served a dozen and a half Blue Crabs steamed in Old Bay Seasoning. There was no way we were going down by ‘The Bay’ and not enjoying some beautiful swimmers. They take work and time but are truly worth every crack, break and pick.

From there we headed back north and cut over to the town of Fredericksburg.

We found a chain hotel with a pool and enjoyed our own beautiful swim before heading to Fredericksburg’s Carolyn Street for ice cream and a stroll along the eclectic shops found in this old part of town. Day Four

How could we pass through Fredericksburg, Virginia, and not visit our friends at Morton’s BMW? They have been huge supporters of this magazine for years and it was nice to drop in on Steve, Stuart, Jeff and Hannah.

We chatted a bit, browsed a bit, and bought a bit; but it was time to head north and home which we slipped into in the early evening.

Stealing a few days here and a few days there makes for an excellent summer and we were not even halfway through.

We found deep history, great food, some excellent roads and got to spend time with good friends old and new – and we even got to be Colonial Beach Bums for a day – road trips do not get any better on two wheels or four! ,