Thursday, May 2-
We left our Airbnb Thursday morning and drove to Richmond, Virginia. It was quite warm out by the time we arrived and we took off our riding gear as soon as we found a parking spot near the capitol.
Virginia Washington Monument – located on the statehouse grounds. There is a tomb at the base of the monument with a massive stone door that was supposed to be used to hold the remains of our first president, George Washington. The heir of the president refused the request and the tomb remains empty.
This medallion, at the front steps, lets light through to brighten underground and shines on this statue.
This was an interesting capitol because we entered underground. We walked inside, through security and over to the information desk to stamp our booklet.
Two older ladies greeted us and asked if we wanted to join the tour that had started a few minutes ago. We politely declined because we were trying to keep to somewhat of a schedule and get to our campsite before dark. And also, RJ had a couple meetings that afternoon. The lady stamping our book almost fell over, I think partly because she was quite old and partly because she was so astonished that we weren’t partaking in the guided tour. They were both so offended! “Where are you from?” one of the ladies asked. We both knew right away what she was getting at and when we told her we were from California it confirmed her suspicions that we were not from the south. Yes, we understand that your state has rich history but we are on a time crunch, lady.
We did catch up to the group and listen here and there whenever we were in the same area but we had to keep to our schedule.
Once we toured every room and read about all the rich history of the ladies’ state, we bought our coffee mug from the gift shop and headed to a coffee shop outside Richmond. We worked there for awhile until we started getting hungry.
We stopped at a Cracker Barrel an hour or two down the road. You know those little peg board games they have at every CB? Well, RJ proceeded to write code in his brain to figure out the location, formation and sequence of jumps of the pegs to solve the game every time. He then played the game backwards to see if his code worked. Man, I don’t understand how he is so smart, but I like it 😍
Now, I’m not sure why I didn’t remember that we had purchased a coffee mug at the Virginia capitol. I ended up buying another Virginia mug at the CB and neither of us would realize we had two mugs from the same state till about a week after we got home. So, what do I do with the extra mug?? Anyone want it that has visited Virginia in the past?
After supper and the purchase of the second mug, we drove to a KOA half way between Richmond and Raleigh and pitched our tent.
~em