The road trip from Nashville to New Jersey can be a daunting one, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. We have family up there, and sometimes, it’s just nice to have a car and travel at our own pace even if it is a 12-hour drive (that can turn into a 14-hour drive if you hit traffic in Washington DC or Baltimore). It really is a beautiful drive that my wife and I love, and we’ve developed a pretty good routine of breaking it up. We have our usual pit stops along the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, but when we went up for the 4th of July holiday, we decided to do something a little out of the ordinary for us. We wanted to stay a night in DC and make a little mini-vacation out of it. Call it a remote date night, if you will.
It’s about a 10-hour drive from where we are in Tennessee counting stops, so it was really pushing what we could make in one leg. My wife’s a trooper though – her best effort got us there by 7PM after leaving our house around 8AM (there’s a time difference to account for for anyone trying to do the math out there). We had to stop at Buc-ee’s in Sevierville and we had to make one more stop in the middle of nowhere Virginia for gas. Other than that, it was sights set on Washington DC. Once we checked into our hotel for the night, we started mapping out what we wanted to do with less than 24 hours in town. Here’s what we came up with!
One Night in Washington DC
Stop 1: Capitol City Brewing – Instagram – I swear, picking a hotel right across the street from a brewery was not intentional. But, it certainly helped. We were eager to get out and see the White House when we arrived, but we were hungry. Once we sat down, got a beer and a glass of wine, and breathed a sigh of relief, we realized how tired we were. We called an audible and decided to just get a nice dinner and head off to bed. Capitol City Brewing’s amber ale was a full-bodied beer that was perfect to sip on and relax with. We got started with an order of Old Bay wings that were the highlight of the meal, and I followed that up with a tasty burger. After that, it was back to the hotel to rest up for our big day.
Stop 2: Lincoln’s Waffle Shop – website – My wife is an awesome travel partner because I usually don’t have to do shit. I woke up hungry and wanting a good breakfast. Luckily, she already had it scouted. A couple of blocks away from the hotel, about halfway between there and the museums, was Lincoln’s Waffle Shop. It’s a classic diner experience – the service was fantastic and the meal was good. Accentuated by a good cup of diner coffee, I had the corned beef hash with two eggs. I noticed they had salmon cakes on the menu, and I’m the type of guy that simply can’t see something unusual like that and not try it. So, I had a salmon cake on the side to go with it. I would eat that breakfast again 10 out of 10 times if given the chance. It was restorative after a long drive the previous day and a good night’s sleep. I was ready to take on the world. After breakfast, we snuck across the street to peek in the windows at Ford’s Theatre. We would’ve done the tour because it sounded awesome, but they ran about two hours or so and we simply didn’t have the time to spare that day. Of course, we also found a local gift shop nearby to stop in like the tourists we are. I bought a pin for my collection. After that, it was off to the museum.
Stop 3: The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History – website – There’s a smorgasbord of museums to choose from when visiting DC. The best part is that admission is mostly free of charge (though, you’re going to get in and hit up those cafes and gift shops). But, the wide array of options does make it difficult to pin one down if you only have one afternoon to spare. Maybe this is just a me thing, but I like to take my time going through a museum to consume everything that interests me and really let it soak in. If you do it that way, this is a museum that you really should dedicate an entire afternoon to. Since my wife and I make this trip through town often, we decided that we’d start marking museums off the list one at a time as we come through. This time, we wanted to get to The Smithsonian’s museum of natural history. It was awesome – dinosaur bones, the history of the world, diamonds, jewels, and literal mummies. We were in there for about two hours before we started getting the itch to hit the road since we still had a few hours to go. I think we could’ve easily spent five hours in that place. There’s SO much to take in.
Stop 4: Duke’s – website – This came from a trusted recommendation. Supposedly, this was the best burger in DC, and Duke’s had the ‘best of DC’ hardware to prove it as I noticed a few plaques on the wall from a local publication. That’s when you know you’ve found somewhere good, and I’m happy to say that Duke’s lived up to the hype. We got started with an order of the deviled eggs – I’m a sucker for a good deviled egg to begin with, but when you top it with sausage and a hint of maple flavor, you’ve got me hooked. I could have made a meal out of those, but my wife would’ve hated me with four more hours in the car to go. For lunch, I had a burger that had a fried egg and spam on top of it. Yeah, buddy. We were living.
After that, we were off to New Jersey after driving by and getting one more look at the White House. This was my third stay in Washington DC, and it’s become one of my favorite places to visit. There’s no shortage of stuff to do and see, it’s a good food city, and it’s never really been all that crowded in terms of foot traffic. We’ve always had an easy time getting around, and for a socially anxious guy that hates crowds, that’s a massive plus in my book. If you’re fascinated by history and love the idea of seeing it up close and personal, it’s a great place to vacation. Even if you’re just passing through and have an evening to spare, it’s the type of city where you can really make it count.
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Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.
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