Great topic!--thanks, Brent.  Not that I have any answers.

I've wondered the same thing about stagecoach travel.  It's one thing  
to make a scheduled stop at a tavern, say; quite another to deal with  
such matters unscheduled on long hauls between towns.  And given the  
almost proverbially wretched state of Virginia's roads in the  
stagecoach era (e.g.,  
http://www.alexandria.lib.va.us/lhsc_online_exhibits/doc/archived/ 
dec_2005/doc.html), there must have been many such unscheduled stops.

I'm thinking of the plight of women, particularly.  Those long skirts!   
And how on earth did women manage the practical side of their menstrual  
cycles while traveling?  Or, for that matter, on or off the road in the  
eighteenth century, when even among the wealthy (if memory serves) the  
only undergarment normally worn below the waist was one's shift?

All such matters may be one more element explaining why early  
Virginia's traveling population in all social strata, including runaway  
slaves, seems to have been heavily male.

--Jurretta Heckscher

Opportunistic P.S. on a tangential topic:  Eventually, as we ponder  
these mysteries and refresh our gratitude for modern conveniences, can  
someone please explain why the rest area at approximately mile post 105  
on I-95 north of Richmond is officially designated the Petersburg rest  
area?  It's more than 50 miles from Petersburg.  Thanks.