Holiday Round-Up - Travel Edition
So, last week, Mark and I decided that we needed to have a get-away weekend. We used to head out of town on a regular basis, taking in some local small town or whatnot, but with all the travel I've been doing in my day-job, we've sort of curtailed those adventures. Last weekend, we headed down to Richmond.
Richmond, for those not in the know, is the capital of the commonwealth of Virginia. It's about two hours south of us, an easy drive, straight down the interstate. I'd driven through Richmond dozens of times, and I met with an expert witness there years ago, when I was litigating the Case From Hell, but I'd never stopped and spent any time there.
Upon arriving, I feared that we had made a Big Mistake. We were staying at a Marriott in the middle of downtown, and it seemed like we might be the only guests in the entire hotel. We awakened a cadaverous bellman to get a city street map before we headed out to explore the local sights.
Leaving the hotel, we immediately took a wrong turn and were in the Wrong Part of Town. We walked down an entire block of boarded up storefronts, where the only people on the street were ones looking for trouble. We scrambled back to the main drag, but the entire city felt abandoned and dangerous and sad.
We walked around the Capitol (designed by Thomas Jefferson), and headed down to the Edgar Allan Poe museum (interesting, but tiny and poorly maintained, and not holding a lot of stuff). The Poe museum is in the bottom lands, so we had a steep hike back to the hotel. Just before we got to Mother Marriott, we walked by the John Marshall house, so we went in for a private tour of the home of the 19th century Supreme Court justice. The tour was actually very good, and we learned a lot about Richmond history, John Marshall, and relatively-early colonial life (even though we've studied a fair amount of it in the past.) We headed back to the hotel to rest for a while before dinner.
We came downstairs, ready to brave the rough streets for dinner, to find the entire setting had changed. The lobby was *filled* with people, including dozens of guests at a black-tie event that overflowed the ballroom. We couldn't get our car out of the parking garage because there were dozens of cars waiting to leave, and every slot was filled (we'd been - literally -the only car on the entire floor of the garage when we arrived.) We walked seven short blocks to a highly-recommended restaurant, arriving at 6:30 to find that there was an hour wait to eat! We backtracked to another restaurant, also highly-recommended by a friend, and had a lovely meal in an elegant but comfortable setting.
Sunday morning, we headed over to "The Fan", a neighborhood of turn-of-the-twentieth-century houses. We ate gigantic breakfasts at Joe's Inn, yet another highly-recommended place (which, it turns out, Mark had frequented decades ago, when his best friend lived in the neighborhood.) We wandered around and looked at the beautifully decorated townhouses before driving down Monument Avenue. We wrapped up our Richmond visit with another solo house tour, this time of the John Wickham house. (Wickham was another colonial magnate - one who believed in showing off his wealth. His home was an absolute contrast to the Marshall home, and I'll remember it most for the fact that there is scarcely a straight line inside its federalist facade.
We left before taking in a few more tourist sites; we'll likely fold them in while visiting friends who live in the Richmond suburbs. The entire drive home, we talked about the contrasts in the city that we saw, and the sadness of an urban environment almost completely destroyed.
Good, bad, and discovery - not too bad for a getaway weekend.
Mindy, glad to have a few more days out of the office, to take care of getting personal and writing life in order
Richmond, for those not in the know, is the capital of the commonwealth of Virginia. It's about two hours south of us, an easy drive, straight down the interstate. I'd driven through Richmond dozens of times, and I met with an expert witness there years ago, when I was litigating the Case From Hell, but I'd never stopped and spent any time there.
Upon arriving, I feared that we had made a Big Mistake. We were staying at a Marriott in the middle of downtown, and it seemed like we might be the only guests in the entire hotel. We awakened a cadaverous bellman to get a city street map before we headed out to explore the local sights.
Leaving the hotel, we immediately took a wrong turn and were in the Wrong Part of Town. We walked down an entire block of boarded up storefronts, where the only people on the street were ones looking for trouble. We scrambled back to the main drag, but the entire city felt abandoned and dangerous and sad.
We walked around the Capitol (designed by Thomas Jefferson), and headed down to the Edgar Allan Poe museum (interesting, but tiny and poorly maintained, and not holding a lot of stuff). The Poe museum is in the bottom lands, so we had a steep hike back to the hotel. Just before we got to Mother Marriott, we walked by the John Marshall house, so we went in for a private tour of the home of the 19th century Supreme Court justice. The tour was actually very good, and we learned a lot about Richmond history, John Marshall, and relatively-early colonial life (even though we've studied a fair amount of it in the past.) We headed back to the hotel to rest for a while before dinner.
We came downstairs, ready to brave the rough streets for dinner, to find the entire setting had changed. The lobby was *filled* with people, including dozens of guests at a black-tie event that overflowed the ballroom. We couldn't get our car out of the parking garage because there were dozens of cars waiting to leave, and every slot was filled (we'd been - literally -the only car on the entire floor of the garage when we arrived.) We walked seven short blocks to a highly-recommended restaurant, arriving at 6:30 to find that there was an hour wait to eat! We backtracked to another restaurant, also highly-recommended by a friend, and had a lovely meal in an elegant but comfortable setting.
Sunday morning, we headed over to "The Fan", a neighborhood of turn-of-the-twentieth-century houses. We ate gigantic breakfasts at Joe's Inn, yet another highly-recommended place (which, it turns out, Mark had frequented decades ago, when his best friend lived in the neighborhood.) We wandered around and looked at the beautifully decorated townhouses before driving down Monument Avenue. We wrapped up our Richmond visit with another solo house tour, this time of the John Wickham house. (Wickham was another colonial magnate - one who believed in showing off his wealth. His home was an absolute contrast to the Marshall home, and I'll remember it most for the fact that there is scarcely a straight line inside its federalist facade.
We left before taking in a few more tourist sites; we'll likely fold them in while visiting friends who live in the Richmond suburbs. The entire drive home, we talked about the contrasts in the city that we saw, and the sadness of an urban environment almost completely destroyed.
Good, bad, and discovery - not too bad for a getaway weekend.
Mindy, glad to have a few more days out of the office, to take care of getting personal and writing life in order
Another neat thing in Richmond is the Virginia Museum, home of (of all things) a large collection of the art of Peter Carl Faberge, including 15 Easter eggs.
I'm glad you and Mark had fun!
As we were coming back, the traffic going south was *terrible* (on the Sunday before Christmas) - it seemed like a strange time for absolute traffic standstill, but we just thanked the traffic gods that kept things flowing on our side of the freeway!
(Anonymous)
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