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On U.S. Highway 1 you can visit Old Pohick Church of Lower Truro Parish near fairfax, Virginia. It was once a part of the Virginia country estate of Lord Fairfax in the 1740's

When breezes bearing fall's first hint whisper "Get thee gone," and you wonder where a weekend's adventure can be found on a shoestring budget, ponder no further. Point the Urban 4-wheeler north and mate-up with Old U.S. Highway 1.

You'll discover more nostalgia, more colonial heritage, and more mom-and-pop diners than you'll see in all of the uninteresting interstate freeways combined!

Next year marks the 100th aniversary of Old Number 1, the highway that Model-T motorists once knew as the Old Atlantic Highway. Henry Flagler, the real-estate and railroad tycoon, buttonholed congressmen to build the highway just about the same time that Henry Ford made the automobile affordable. By default the two men became the godfathers of modern tourism.

In the early days of motoring, drivers donned goggles and dusters to shield themselves from the elements. The road ahead unfolded at an easy pace and a farmer's cow was no serious obstacle in the road. Rural Americana waved and received a blast from the side-mounted brass horns. Where has all of the sentimentality of motoring gone? Why is getting there none of the fun?

Backroads went the way of filling stations and tourist courts. When cruise-control became a standard feature on even the economy cars, Americans took to the freeways, where a mile's worth of scenery flashes by in less than a minute. We traded adventure for predictability, and high-speed comfort suffices for the thrill of discovery. It's not that the Kangaroo at Exit 32 doesn't have charm and a host of quality-assured treats and conveniences. There you'll find Kenyan roast coffee fresh brewed, frankfurters flown in from Chicago, and sparkling restrooms verified as clean by someone with initials of RJH. Quick stops on the interstate do not equal the slower-paced charm, however, of dining at the historic Wilcox Inn in Aiken or selecting whole hickory-cured hams and stone-ground grits at Four Oaks Farms in Lexington--both easy stops along U.S. Highway 1. Lunching at The Roost in Bethune overlooking Old Number 1 is something even Charles Kuralt never got around to, nor did he get to savor the authentic German cuisine at Oskar's in Cheraw.

Blame it on cruise control, blame it on speed dial, accuse our hyper, self-obsessed culture, yet the truth lies within us--we've lost our sense of touch and smell and taste for anything that's not prepackaged for ease and convenience. The pre-interstate roads linked real people who bonded in meaningful ways with the passing motorists, often building up relationships with travelers over the years.

U.S. 1 unfolds as an open book--a hefty volume with 15 chapters. It's measured not in pages, but in miles, 2930 miles--one chapter for each state it bisects and one for the great federal city, Washington, D.C. Begin at mile marker zero in Key West, very near Papa Hemingway's favorite hangout, Sloppy Joe's. Each chapter of the old road has a nickname bestowed by locals--such as Atlantic Highway along the Florida coast. The same asphalt stretch assumes the identity of "Dixie Highway" in south Georgia. In South Carolina, it's Old Number One, and by the time it winds its way into Virginia, the by-now-familiar pavement becomes the Jeff Davis Highway. In the interest of sectional unity, the portion of the thoroughfare that rolls through Massachusetts and on into New York is known by locals and old-timers as The Lincoln Highway.

Nowhere does Old Number One teach us more history than it does in the Cavalier state of Virginia. Petersburg, Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Alexandria stretch out before you with the same topography that all the historic personages from the past would still recognize--no 50-foot flyovers, no dizzying cloverleafs. You can pull over whenever a historic marker or interesting view catches your fancy. For miles, this stretch of road was known in Virginia as the Boydton Plank Road. The Confederate battle of Burgess Mill south of Petersburg is known alternately as the Battle of Boydton Plank Road.

South of Alexandria and north of Fairfax in the rolling hills of Virginia, we encounter a stretch of U.S. 1 that's four-laned with a generous median, all a concession to the burgeoning suburbs that have sprung up since World War II. Still visible, though, are the elevated concrete railroad trestles that date to the WPA program in the 1930s. These icons of a bygone era were guarded night and day in the early 1940s by an army infantryman with a bayonet fastened upon his M-1 rifle. In those days America feared sabotage of its primary arteries for troop and material movement.

A small sign along this Fairfax to Alexandria stretch of what Virginians still proudly refer to as the Jeff Davis Highway denotes that the motorist is intersecting with Telegraph Road. Civil War buffs know that this was one of the most fought over roads in the conflict. Douglas Southall Freeman, in his three-volume account entitled Lee's Lieutenants, mentions Telegraph Road no fewer than 13 times. After detouring just a short way into that ancient byway, you imagine you hear the thunderous hooves of Stuart's or Sheridan's cavalry causing the loamy earth to tremble once more.

Another obscure marker along Number 1 near Fort Belvoir notes that Colonel George Washington and General Edward Braddock rode side-by-side along here as the mighty British army headed toward the Monongahela and Fort Du Quesne. Braddock's engineer corps cut with axes a wide swath for the Army to bring up its caissons and supply wagons.

That road, known still as Braddock's Road, intersects Old Number 1 just a few miles below Telegraph Road. Braddock didn't know that he was riding into an ambush--an ambush that'd leave him dead on the field and his French and Iroquois adversaries jubilant. Young Washington must have figured right there and then that the mighty British were mere mortals who knew not the ways of wilderness fighting in the New World.

Fort Belvoir is the headquarters for much of the U.S. Army's supply corps. The name Belvoir dates back to the enormous plantation once owned by Lord Thomas Fairfax, sixth Baron Fairfax of Cameron. The officers club at Fort Belvoir is a stately colonial-looking mansion perched on a 70-foot high bluff overlooking the Potomac. The "O" Club sits approximately where Lord Fairfax's grand tudor-styled hall once stood. The Club pays homage to the former dwelling, a magnificent Tudor hall complete with a hammer beam ceiling and enormous fireplaces. Thomas Fairfax sublet his grand estate in Virginia to his cousin, William Fairfax, on condition that William collect the rent from the numerous tenants as well as port customs for the Crown.

The Fairfaxes were the most aristocratic family in North America, and their nearest neighbors were the Washingtons. William Fairfax had a beautiful 15-year-old daughter, Anne, who was a bit of a flirtatious girl for her era and a scandal occurred at the local parish church with the young curate, Charles Green, just arrived from England.

Details are scarce as would befit a lady of Anne's standing, but a parishioner witnessed something untoward occurring between the priest and the teen, and immediately it was announced that Anne Fairfax was engaged to Lawrence Washington, a houseguest of the Fairfaxes.

Obviously, the hasty plan was designed to save the reputation of Anne. She soon went upriver to Lawrence Washington's new plantation home that was named Mount Vernon in honor of Royal Marine Captain Lawrence Washington's commanding officer in the British navy.

Today, Pohick Parish Church sits quietly by Number One, just as it has for the past 270 years.

Six miles farther up the road, past modern fast-food franchises such as Roy Rogers and Hardees, one can see the site of the old John Carlyle House (c.1750) where four New England governors came south to meet with Virginia Governor Dinwiddie over the pressing problem of the French presence in Pennsylvania. That congress is noted as the first grand collaboration of the colonies prior to the events leading to the Revolution.

If your budget allows, historic Number 1 will carry you through Philadelphia and skirt New York City as you head to Fort Kent, Maine--a place once known as Fort Kent Blockhouse in the "Aroostook War"--an undeclared border dispute between America and Britain in 1838. However, that's a story for another day.

(Dr. Thomas B. Horton is a history teacher at Porter-Gaud School. He lives in the Old Village of Mount Pleasant. Visit his Web site at www.historyslostmoments.com.)