Richmond, Virginia -Berkley Plantation- Day 7

We had to get up earlier than usual today since we had a refrigerator full of leftover that we needed to eat for breakfast.......It is soo bizzare that I won't even repeat it....haha.  The good thing is that it didn't take us long to get ready to go.  Our things were packed and waiting for our host to finish getting their things together. 

After we did a quick walk through of the vacation home, we (Chris) loaded everything into the car and we headed out for our last leg of adventure in Virginia.  We were headed about an hour away.....

TADA!

On the way, we spotted these  huge heads and had to find a way to get over to them and see what they were.....

Turns out that it was a presidential memorial of some sort that had evidently closed down.  The grass was overgrown, but you could see that the place was beautiful at one time.....:-(

Our next stop was Berkley Plantation and Berkley and Harrison Landing......This is the entrance to the plantation.  Now, I have to tell ya that being an African American woman, I'm sure I was seeing things from a completely different perspective than the others with me.....if you know what I mean...ha.  I was glad I am FREE! 

The further inside the gates we got, the weirder it felt to me.......

holy moly.......I was riding on an original carriage road that was constructed all those years ago....wow.  And I thought going around downtown Oklahoma City in a horse drawn carriage for my birthday was a big deal........gee wiz.  THIS took it to a whole new level and I was in a car!

I wasn't really impressed with with the pond thingee that looked like it would have misquitos carrying tennis rackets in the summer time! ha

We're getting clooooooserrrrr..............

and there it stood......The main house.....Not nearly has large as I thought it would be.  But there were several other houses on the property as well....

Once we got up to the door, there was a sign telling us that we had to register for a tour.  So, we followed the arrows around to the back of the house where the registration office was. We joined up with our tour guide only to be told that were not allowed to take ANY PICTURES, had to turn off our cells (which I totally understood), and were only allowed to see the lower level of the main house and the basement.  .......:-(.  We don't know why. 

But we were told that the main house's foundation was 6 feet deep, the outside walls of teh house were 3 feet thick and the inner walls were 18 inches thick.  There was a cook house on the right; which you can see and a bachelor's house on the left not visible in this picture.  There was also a tunnel that stretched between the cook house and the main house called the "Whistling passage"  as the cooks were instructed to whistle when passing through.  It was believe that they could not eat and whistle at the same time.  It was an American type of "loss prevention".....haha.  Wow....

We saw this building as well on our way to the back and learned that it contained a bathroom.......yeah!  And once I got into the building there was the sound of the military "Taps" playing in the background.  We were to learn later that that very song was written on that property by Gen. Mc Lelland; a General in the Union Army.  It was kinda eerie since I had just attended a military funeral the week before where this very song was played......  

this is looking at the James River.

It was a bit chilly, but very sunny......

And of course....Chris's head was taking it all in filling every corner of his brain....haha.

I found this tree to be quite strange.  I have no idea why it grew this way, but I felt it was picture worthy.....:-)

This turned out to be a short tour in regard to the house since much of it was off limits to the public.  Chris has an execllent memory and grasp on history and has given a very informative write up on this property and it's history.  You can read all about it here:

http://ddo2jl.blogspot.ca/

We decided to start making our way to the airport in Richmond and make a quick tour of the city before catching our flight.

and of course we knew we had to grab lunch somewhere before getting on the plane as they would not be serving us anything except drinks.  Our flight was scheduled to leave at 6:10.  We found a Starbucks which was inside a local grocery store and decided to stop there and get some coffee, and a few other things to go with our "left overs" from the vacation home kitchen.  But first....COVER THIS NASTY TABLE!  Yuck....:-(.  We had to go upstairs to find seating and it was not pleasant.  We decided to make it work rather than try to find somewhere else to go and deal with parking...

Once we got it covered, we were able to spread out our food and rest a bit.  Uh......no.  That is NOT toilet paper! hahaha.  Geeze....it wasn't quite THAT bad! haha

Our bannas got a little beat up along the way, but they were ok.  By the way, we didn't eat Halls cough drops for lunch either! haha.  They just happen to be in the picture....  

after we left Starbucks, we drove around and took pics of the beauty that was so obvious to us.

The colors were all ablaze with Autumn.......:-).  Just lovely.......

see........:-).

Chris was marveling at the design of the historical "row homes" in the area.  I grew up in a row house in the later years of my youth.  So, I was familiar with how they are made.

I really like this picture because the city scape peeks out between the trees.....:-)

I wanted to walk along this pathway, but the airport was waiting for us as were our host who we left in the car when we jumped out to get some pictures......

But I mean, really.......don't you just love it?......Very beautiful....

Virginia is for lovers.......:-).  this is our last picture in Virginia.....:-(.  This was taken at the airport on our way to our gate.

Our flight was just over 2 hours and was uneventful.  I felt really tired once we landed in Dallas......

I was so tired that I was running out of words and my light lunch was wearing off.  So, we were glad when our ride showed up outside the airport.....:-)

We went right to bed once we got back to the home of our host and got up this morning taking our time and lounging around the house until close to lunch time.

After a very nice Chinese lunch and some more quality time  with our host, we started our 3 hour drive back to Oklahoma......

The sunset was spectacular!  Never the same on any given day.....:-)

And we finally made it back to our own home after making a quick stop at the store.  We are so grateful for the opportunity to see so much history over the past 7 days with some fantastic people.....:-). 

Thanks for traveling through some of our nations's history over the past few days....:-)

Good bye for now!