Friday, 3 Sep 2010, Richmond Virginia

We got an early start this morning as we wanted to do a quick tour through the town as well as the National Cemetery. It was cloudy and not quite as hot in the morning but it heated up during the afternoon.

We drove through part of the National park that we’d seen on the bus tour. I wanted to get a few photos of some of the monuments and have a chance to read a few of the inscriptions. As I wrote yesterday, each of the monuments are dedicated to a particular group of soldiers, Union and Confederate, and details what their positions were on each of the 3 days during the battle. It also lists how many were in the group, the numbers that were injured, died, or ‘missing’….very impressive. No two monuments are the same and some are very detailed and ornate as well as being every size imaginable. I’m assuming the home State of each of these groups paid for their own monument as they are each so different from the other.

Downtown Gettysburg is lovely and there are 4 ‘main’ streets that run off the central round-a-bout. The buildings and shops are nearly all historical buildings and it was interesting in that a photo of the original building and a history of it’s occupants was listed on a sidewalk pedestal. It’s a clean, organized town and except for it’s history, isn’t much different from many other little towns in the U.S.

We decided to have something to eat before we left town and went in to ‘Ernie’s Texas Diner’ for a late breakfast. An elderly lady came over to our table and asked what we wanted to drink. When we told her we’d like coffee, she asked, “High-test, low-test; with or without titty?” I thought my hearing was off until she repeated it. It’s a 3-rd generation owned restaurant and later I asked the waitress if that was ‘Gramma Ernie’. She laughed and said it was just a woman who has been coming in for years…I guess she just thinks she’s related. All that to say, Wayne had his ‘with’ titty…mine was black. The good laugh was free.

We took a quick run up to the cemetery (Lynne the Ghoul). I would have liked to see the podium where Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address but it was humid and my mini-fetish for civil war history was waning so after a quick look around we went across the road to Cemetery Hill...the site of a big battle. Enough and enough…time to get on the road to Richmond.

The I-95 came to a screeching halt about 75 miles from Richmond…Labour Day traffic and people heading out for the long weekend. We got off the interstate and had a much nicer drive and pulled into the KOA at 4 pm. We’re here for 3 nights but now that Hurricane Earl has done his business, we’ll probably spend tomorrow in Williamsburg.
Hope my babies in Halifax weather the storm okay! Big hugs and kisses to all.