First off, it turned out to be probably the worst RV park we have ever been in, and then we discovered that the Edison home wasn’t open. It was disappointing at best.
We stopped at Turtle Run Winery and the first building on the property was a bit scary. However they did have some nice wines. Driving several more of the back roads made for a really nice time.
The next morning we anxiously got out of the horrible RV park and drove across Kentucky into West Virginia.
We had been somewhat concerned because last week’s Hurricane Sandy had brought lots of snow to West Virginia but we weren’t sure just where in West Virginia all the snow actually was.
Just beyond Charleston, WV, we began to see the first snow on the mountains. We saw a lot more snow then this, but of course the Interstate was quite clear so we were fine.
West Virginia is a beautiful state. We drove the Interstate and the Turnpike all the way.
Had we not been driving the motorhome, I would have liked to drive the narrow winding road that snaked along beside the highway and around the mountains. That would have given us a true feel for the valleys and ‘hollars’ of West Virginia.
Eventually we crossed over into Virginia and headed for the little town of Appomattox.
Now we began to see farmlands mixed in along the hilly and winding roads.
There were a lot of cool-looking old barns that had seen better days.
We arrived in Appomattox, Virginia. We pulled into the same RV park where we stayed two years ago. It’s not that this is a particularly fancy RV park, which it is not, but it is neat and clean, has good electricity, water, flat and level spaces, with no trees to interfere with satellite TV.
We wanted to be sure we could watch the election results which we did. We did not celebrate the results. Appomattox will be our base for the next three days.
After we got the RV checked in and set up, we went over to the Museum.
These statues were of parents bidding farewell to their young son who was heading off to fight in the war. Many, many of them did not return.
This museum had quite a number of Civil War uniforms on display. We were very surprised at the excellent conditions of many of these. These uniforms were well over 150 years old. It is amazing that someone kept them in this condition.
There were also a number of Rebel flags on display as well. Most of them were not in as good a shape as were the uniforms.
Many of the uniforms had pictures of soldiers in front of them and the stories of the men who wore them. This also has two very poignant pictures behind the uniforms. One is of a man bidding goodbye to his family as he goes off to war. His cabin home is in the background.
The second one is when he returns from war. His cabin is abandoned and partially destroyed, his family has disappeared. It’s a sad scene.
The Museum dealt with General Lee’s surrender of the Confederacy to General Grant’s Union Army, which happened only a mile or two away from this very spot, at Appomattox Courthouse.
This brought the Civil War to an end. We are in the very heart of Civil War Country.
Newspaper articles at the time told about the surrender.
Pardon papers that were given to each man in the Confederate Army at the time of surrender. It allowed them to go home and to begin to try to put their lives and families back together.
Today we drove about 25 miles to Lynchburg to visit Popular Forest, Thomas Jefferson’s summer home. We had seen Monticello, his main residence when we were here two years ago…
This is Jefferson’s Monticello home...
…but now we wanted to see, Popular Forest, his “vacation home.”
We drove off the main road and about a mile down a narrow road through the hills to get to Popular Forest.
Finally we arrived. This house is significantly smaller than the huge Monticello estate. Still it obviously was a unique and lovely home that Jefferson designed himself, as he did at Monticello.
The house had been owned by a couple other families after Jefferson and at one point suffered a fire. Now it is the process of restoration, is totally empty, and wouldn’t you know, NO PHOTOGRAPHY ALLOWED inside! Don't they know I have a blog to post and I need pictures??!!??
We were given a lengthy private tour by a lovely southern lady who quoted more dates then you could imagine. She did have a really good grasp of the history of the house, Jefferson and his family.
They also have archeologists working in the front of the house, constantly looking for more clues to what actually was on the property way back when. You can see the framework of a tent in the above picture where they were working.
From the web, I found a few pictures. This one is of the dining room. The other rooms have mostly plastered walls, this one is still in process. Note the Roman arches over the doorways and windows. This table and chair are almost the only furnishings in the entire house.
Jefferson built the house in a total octagon shape. One half of the house is a mirror image of the other half. He loved angles rather than squares and everything was designed accordingly.
This is the back side of the house. The wing on the far right, called ‘offices,’ is where the slaves worked cooking, doing laundry and in general keeping the house running.
Jefferson loved his wine and had a large wine cellar in both his houses. We were allowed to go downstairs after the tour was over where there were a few artifacts and no restriction on photos.
This is the basic house design.
Jefferson’s wine came in BIG barrels!
There was an antique seed planter in the lower level.
On each end of the house are two ‘Necessaries’…uh…brick outhouses…also built in an octagon.
The view out across the valley between the huge and very old popular trees was really beautiful.
After our visit at Popular Forest, we headed out again to the town of Bedford, another 20 or so miles away. Here is the National D-Day Memorial.
This arch and the flags greeted us. We were interested to find this memorial because Don and I have had the discussion on more than one occasion, asking, “What does the ‘D’ in D-Day stand for?” We did not know and had not found anyone who did know.
Now was our chance to find out. Here’s what we were told…
D-Day was the invasion on the beach of Normandy June 6, 1944. The secret code name for the invasion was ‘Overlord.’ But code names were secret, no one could say it, and ALL invasions were referred to as D-Day, the ‘D’ meaning ‘Day.’ In discussions about the invasions it would be said, “D-Day minus three,” or “D-Day plus twenty.”
This gazebo holds a full sized bronze statue of Dwight Eisenhower surrounded by six bronze busts of his Chiefs of Staff.
These four pictures above are bronze sculptures that demonstrate the soldiers landing on Normandy and climbing the beach. The top one has the Blue Ridge Mountains in the background. These are very emotional sculptures.
This bronze signifies a true story. The sculptor on the Memorial was looking for genuine relevant items.
A soldier had tried to save another but the second soldier died. Before he passed away, he gave the first soldier his wedding ring and asked him to return it to his wife. The soldier tried but was never able to find the wife. When he heard that that the sculptor was looking for actual mementoes he gave the ring to the sculptor…
…the sculptor put the gold ring on the soldier’s hand to demonstrate that some soldiers were married, and left wives behind.
Yes. It was a very emotional time in history.
Tomorrow we are going to drive a section of the Blue Ridge Parkway and then visit Red Hill, Patrick Henry’s home.
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