This past August, I had the opportunity to take the long drive from New Jersey to Key West, Florida. I planned this trip for several months and made it a point to really care about the details. My wife and I began the trek down around 1pm on a Saturday and never looked back. That is, until we could not go any further south in the contiguous United States of America. Then, we did go back.

Dumfries, Virginia

The “Rose”

A weird starting point, for sure. It did not fit the theme of our baseball stadiums, theme parks or popular tourist destinations that the rest of the trip seemed to follow. We initially were going to start our trip by leaving at midnight on Sunday and traveling straight through to Charleston. If you know my wife and I, you then know that there was a zero percent chance that she was going to get behind the wheel for even a moment on this trip. The starting of this voyage with such a crazy drive made me hesistant. So we tried to find something within 5 hours of us in New Jersey. We enjoy gambling, and we found a place in Dumfries that opened rather recently called The Rose. The Rose was an interesting “Gaming Resort”, not casino, as they made very clear. We arrived and were impressed with the cleanliness and atmosphere, especially in comparison to what we are used to in Atlantic City.

A High Class Dinner

First thing we did was get some food and beer. After a long drive there is nothing quite like that. I was a little starstruck seeing “Bloomin’ Onion” on the menu, as that one of my favorite foods of all time.

I feel it is important to mention that this bar at in Dumfries, Virginia was in fact not an Outback Steakhouse. I learned that the hard way. Overall, for food and beers at a casino, it is safe to say we have had much worse.

As far as the actual casin…gaming resort went, it was not too bad either. We did not win, but we also did not lose. That definitely does not happen often. Each machine had an interesting way of calculating wins and losses, by historical horse racing data which was something I had never seen before. Each machine showed a fake race at the top after every spin, and the result winds up pairing with the results of the winnings (or losings).

While our trip plans initially did not include a stop in Virginia, it wound up being necessary to the success of our voyage. Without Dumfries, Virginia, who knows what could have happened?