North, To the Heart of the Confederacy

A day trip to Richmond.

While last night I enjoyed a late lunch with a couple sonar tech friends at a local sushi place, my first trip to a movie rental store in ages, watching the rental movie The Princess and the Frog (Disney, 2009), a trip to VB for poster frames and a late Mexican dinner, setting up the posters back home and finishing the puzzle too... this morning I finally got 8 hours of sleep. Woke up to a refreshing shower and a good breakfast before I headed off on today's adventure. I almost changed plans and went south to Roanoke Island, NC (aquarium, history, location), but because of the dense fog and the fact that I had already put this trip off once made me go with my original plan. That and the only local Post Office open on Saturday is on the way in Hampton (had a couple things to get off).

Miraculously, I made it to the Museum of the Confederacy without any wrong turns (and without GPS). The first thing was a guided tour of the restored White House of the Confederacy. It was used as a Union HQ and schoolhouse after the war; it was saved from destruction by a group of women in 1896 and turned into a museum. With the expansion of the collection over the years, they built a museum next door and restored the White House to the way it was when the Davis family lived there. Our tour guide was extremely knowledgeable and very intense as he pointed out details in all of the rooms, like how the gas chandeliers, cotton floor mat in the entry and squares of marble-looking wallpaper were the latest and greatest of the period. Lots of originals and the rest were period or reproductions... all patented and copyrighted, so there was no touching or picture-taking allowed! :)

The museum next door was filled with originals... pistols, sabres, saddles, belts, field glasses, boots, etc. of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, George Pickett, Jeb Stuart, John Hood, and others. Incredibly cool to look at. In the spirit of the place, I bought a beautiful, hardback, recreational reader's biography of Robert E. Lee (lots of full page pictures). Also a mini booklet biography of Grant (hey, I am a northerner!), and Hospital Sketches by Louisa May Alcott. The bookmark, patch and letter opener sword were also nice.

From there I was famished and located a sandwich shop down by the river. Had a "cheeseburger in a skirt", meaning it had a skirt of grilled cheddar cheese all around it. Watched the stuff on ESPN about the NFL playoffs and looked on my map at all the places I wanted to see with my remaining hour. Ended up driving to the capitol and the Justice John Marshall house, just looking from the outside. Then I went back to the waterfront and to the Tredegar Iron Works and NPS visitor center for their last half hour of operation.

And miraculously, I made it back onto I-64. GPS freaked out on me, so the Lord blessed me as I found the right on-ramp pretty soon. The drive back was all in the dark, and I got a bit sleepy, but made it home safely despite this and all the obnoxious drivers who acted like they would drive right over me if they only had a big enough vehicle.