We are underway again! Before sunrise the next morning Josh and I drove out of the farmyard and bid goodbye to the friendly farm. Into the woods and then after a few minutes we reach the main road . Our destination is Falmouth, a small town on the North side of the Rappahannock River just Northeast of Fredericksburg. We pass the one house along the road that leads to Telegraph Road and we see no lights in the house as we drive by . On both sides of the road the forest is dark and somewhat forbidding. As the wagon moves to the westward the forest continues on both sides of the road. The road itself is gravel and well constructed. It looks as though it wold hold up to heavy wagons in a rainstorm. I would give the road a "4" for it's structure. There are deep ditches along each side of the road which drain into the woods on either side. As we approach the stream along this road the road winds down into a shallow canyon. The is a 2 to 3 degree decline into the canton until the bridge over the creek is reached. The stream is small this far from the Potomac, and it runs fairly slow and no deeper than ten inches. However, there are marks on the rocks under the bridge that the depth was at one time about three feet deep. The water rising to the height would be moving fast and well might wash out the bridge. The ridge itself is a timber bridge supported from each bank with heavy timber s and also supported in midstream by upright loge bolted to the bridge mainframe. The bridge has at least three layers that make up the roadway across the bridge, logs planks or chesses, and a layer of brush held down with a layer of gravel. Like the road way I will give the bridge a "4" for strength and utility. Across the bridge the road winds up out of the shallow valley . The hillsides are covered with wild blackberries, and n the background the tall pines hold in the last shadows of night as the sun just peeks over the horizon. The inclination is close to 4 degrees and in three places as the road clears around the shoulder of the canyon there are three places where the corduroy roads have strengthened the curves by deep cuts and half bridges where the road crossed deep cuts in the hillside.
At the top of the hill the forest receded and the fields spread ahead of the wagon track, and and both sides of the road have split rail fences. These fences are apparently or the purpose of corralling the few cattle that we see grazing on the tall grass wet with a morning dew. The road here is straight and it's heading down a long shallow hill into the the blue haze which covered the distant hills. Somewhere out there was the village of Aquia, and we would be there probably well after 10:00 A. M. The road ahead dips just a bit and the split rail fences both turn sharply away from the road and in the distance the housetops signaling our approach to the village of Aquia.
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