Carry Me Back...

Thought for the day:  Virginia is for lovers. (state motto)

Queen Elizabeth I 

It strikes me as a teensy bit ironic that Virginia touts itself as a mecca for lovers. I mean, come ON!  It was named in honor of Queen Elizabeth I... AKA the Virgin Queen.

Be that as it may, it's time for another virtual tour, and it's rather appropriate that we're heading to the lover-ly state of Virginia this month. Why, you ask? Because forty-five years ago tomorrow, Smarticus and I tied the knot, (Why, yes, yes, I was but a mere zygote when we got hitched...) and we meandered through the (ta-DA!) lover-ly state of Virginia on our honeymoon. Pretty cool, huh? The Skyline Drive winds through some gorgeous picturesque countryside in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and this time of year, wildflowers are in bloom all over the place, so we saw lots of beautiful scenery. Plus, there's a ton of historical places and other neat stuff to see along the way. We moved to Georgia a couple years after we got married, and made many more trips through Virginia over the years while going to and from Maryland, so a lot of stuff we didn't see on our honeymoon, we saw later with our kids.

                                                         Ready to take a peek at some of it?

Blue Ridge Mountains

See? I told you it's gorgeous. Now, imagine a host of wild azaleas and mountain laurel in bloom all over the place...

Natural Bridge

There are a lot of neat rock formations to see in Virginia, like the Natural Bridge, Natural Chimney, and a bunch of different caverns. We visited both Luray and Skyline Caverns on our honeymoon, and each had a distinctive personality. One featured multi-colored lighting to enhance the features, while the other used more simple white lighting, but there were unique and fascinating structures to see in each. At the bridge, we (and by we, I mean I...) had a good laugh. The old fella helping people into the skylift car to ride down the mountain said to Smarticus, "You and your youngun come on." HA!

Jamestown church

Jamestown was the first English settlement in the New World. (1607) Located on a large peninsula forty miles from the ocean, the English thought it was an ideal location, primarily because it was isolated and no Indians were living there. Turned out, the Indians weren't living there for good reason. They considered the swampy area to be too remote, too cramped for space, and unsuitable for agriculture. What's more, the brackish water there was not only unfit for drinking... it provided an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes. More than two thirds of the settlers died from malaria before a supply ship arrived the following year. Founded originally as a place to cultivate silk for trade with the court of King James, a blight fungus killed off the mulberry trees, and put the kibbosh to that plan. On to plan B: tobacco, which ended up being a big cash crop for the state for many years to come.

Jamestown is a fascinating place to visit. It's like stepping into the pages of a history book, or walking on sacred ground. The ruins of the old fort... the church... homes...  the old cemetery... the Indian village. Well worth a trip.

Williamsburg

Visiting Williamsburg is like taking a step back into history, too, but in a different way. While Jamestown is only populated with ghosts from the past, Historic Williamsburg is set up as a place of living history. 

Some ladies of Williamsburg

In Williamsburg, you'll encounter people dressed in the garb of colonial America, and an entire thriving town based on those historical days. Walking through the town, and visiting ye olde shoppes feels like an immersion in the past. Covering 301 acres, the area contains both original and recreated buildings from the colonial and American Revolutionary period.

Mount Vernon

Another place worth visiting is George Washington's plantation, Mount Vernon, located in Alexandria on the shores of the Potomac. I haven't visited since I was about eight years old, but I still remember it as a beautiful and exciting look at history. (Yeah, I was a nerdy kid.)

This beautiful old church, built in 1741, is another historic site of note. It is St. John's Episcopal Church in Richmond, the site of Patrick Henry's impassioned speech, which included the memorable words  " AS FOR ME, GIVE ME LIBERTY, OR GIVE ME DEATH!"  His fiery words in an otherwise sleepy meeting surely swayed the opinion of many people who listened to him that day.

Monticello

Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's 5000-acre plantation, is located just outside Charlottesville. Jefferson designed his home, and is buried on the plantation grounds.

Union soldiers at Fredericksburg

Virginia contains many Civil War sites. How eerie and heart-wrenching it is to stand beside and walk upon those battlefields where so many soldiers lived, fought, and died so long ago. Eerier yet to see their faces in old photographs.

Virginia Capitol, Richmond

Virginia's Capitol building in Richmond was also designed by Jefferson. Its cornerstone was laid in 1792, and the General Assembly held its first meeting there in 1792. This same building was also used as the Capitol of the Confederacy during the Civil War, too. After the war ended, Virginia was under military rule for the next five years.

McClean House Parlor

Talking about the end of the war... this is where the surrender papers were signed. There, in the McClean House parlor, located in Appomattox Courthouse, Grant sat at that wooden desk on the right, while Lee sat at the marble-topped desk on the left.

Oyster Museum

You know I can't do one of these state tours without highlighting at least one museum. We visited an antique car museum on our honeymoon, but this museum, the Oyster Museum of Chincoteague, features all kinds of information about oysters, of course, and also about the people and culture of the island.

 Swimming into Chincoteague (2007)

The museum also pays tribute to Misty and Stormy, the real-life wild ponies who were immortalized in Marguerite Henry's book Misty of Chincoteague.  The annual swimming of the ponies across the Assateague Channel into Chincoteague is still a popular tourist draw today. I was there as a young teenager, but unfortunately, the ponies weren't. C'est la vie. (la vie)

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel is an amazing feat of engineering. At twenty-three miles, this series of bridges, tunnels, and artificial islands is the largest bridge-tunnel complex in the world. We only took that route back home to Georgia once, just for the experience. WOW! Really neat. However, when the toll taker told us how much it cost, Smarticus said, "I didn't want to BUY it; we only wanted to drive over it!"

Yeah, a little pricey. But it's a much more efficient (and fun!) way to cross the bay than the old ferry system used to be.

It's easy enough to identify this building, purely by its shape. The Pentagon, headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense, is the largest office building in the world. Believe it or not, it covers six and a half million square feet, and contains 68,000 miles of internal phone lines.

Arlington National Cemetery is directly across the Potomac from the Lincoln Memorial, and these 624 acres have served as military burial grounds since the Civil War. Two presidents are buried here: William Taft, and John F. Kennedy, whose grave also bears an eternal flame. Robert Kennedy is also buried there, and as far as I know, his is the only grave there that bears a simple wooden cross, in lieu of the standard marker as seen in the photograph.

One last thing, before we move on to see what kinda cockamamie laws are still languishing on the books in the fine state of Virginia. And that is a short video taken at Arlington's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier:
                   

                                                               

                                                Okay, ready? Ready to check out those laws?

• It's against the law for unmarried people to have sex. (So much for that Virginia is for lovers stuff...)
• Citizens must honk their horns while passing other vehicles.
• Forget about trick-or-treating. It's against the law for kids to do so on Halloween. (OK to do it on Labor Day?)
• It's illegal to tickle women. (But men? I guess they're fair game.)
• It's against the law to have sex with the lights on or in any position other than missionary. (And the state motto takes yet another hit.)
• When it comes to the campaign trail, state law forbids the use of bribery by anyone other than the candidates. (When it comes to the politicos, I guess anything goes.)
• It's illegal to hunt any animal on Sunday. Oh, except for raccoons. Them, you can kill. 
• In Culpepper, it's against the law to wash a mule on the sidewalk. (So keep yer ass offa there.) 
• In Norfolk, it's illegal to spit on a seagull. (But have you seen the size of those bombs those birds drop on us?)
• A man can also go to jail there for patting a woman's bottom. (Butt officer, she's my wife...)
• After sundown, women must wear a corset, and be in the company of a male chaperon. 
• In Lebanon, it's illegal to kick your wife out of bed. 
• In Prince William County, you can't keep a skunk as a pet. (That stinks.)
• It's also against the law there to cuss about another person or to park your car on the railroad tracks. (If someone's foolish enough to block the train tracks, he might be the recipient of a little more than a naughty word or two.)
• In Richmond, it's illegal to flip a coin in a restaurant to see who pays. (Guess you'll have to stick to a rousing round of paper-rock-scissors...)
• Get this. In Stafford County, it's legal for a man to beat his wife on the courthouse steps, but only if he does it before 8 PM. 
• In Victoria, it's against the law to skate down the sidewalk of Main Street. (Get out in the road, dude!)
• In Virginia Beach, if you're inebriated, but not driving your car... but the person who is driving your car is also inebriated, you're both gonna get a DUI.
• It's illegal there to ride on a handlebars of a bicycle, too. (Especially when inebriated, which is the only way you'd get my derriere up there in the first place.)
• It's also against the law to use profanity on Atlantic Avenue or the boardwalk... or to drive by the same place within thirty minutes on Atlanta Avenue. (How about all us directionally-challenged people out here?)
• And finally, in Waynesboro, it's illegal for a woman to drive on Main Street unless her husband walks in front of the car waving a red flag. 

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And there ya have it... a wee taste of Virginny. It's a pretty spiffy state.

Needless to say, this post was written a couple weeks ago. We're not off in Virginia to celebrate our anniversary as you read this, but we're probably off somewhere... still celebrating, after all these years. I should be around to respond to your comments by early next week. Y'all have a terrific weekend.

Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.


[Images courtesy of Wikipedia... except for that antique one of Smarticus and me.]