Travels with Gunther and Kara

We’ve actually had three pretty decent days here in the Burkesville KY area sandwiched around Connie’s work and a couple of stray rain showers.

Friday she worked in the early morning then about 1000 or so we headed off for a trip to the Wayne County Historical Society Museum which was free. We had about a 2 hour tour by a delightful little old lady whose name and picture we completely forgot so that she could have a couple of minutes of internet fame…we’ll endeavor to do better about that in the future.

Anyway…the museum is in Monticello, KY right on the main drag and has your typical small town America collection of local artifacts, famous people, and famous things. Included was a diorama of the Civil War battle at the Mill Springs Mill. This was a relatively minor battle in January 1862…part of the campaign that ultimately ended in the really big battle at Shiloh in Tennessee in April of 1862. Total casualties were 164 killed and 611 wounded. Confederate General Zollicoffer was defending the Cumberland Gap at the mill site on the Columbia River and decided rather than waiting for the enemy to attack he sortied westward about 8 miles during the overnight hours and attacked the Union forces at dawn near Logan’s Crossroads about 8 miles west of his encampment at the mill. He thought he had a numerically superior force but Union General Thomas had received reinforcements the day before and despite initial success the Federals carried the day and had the first significant Union victory in the war. I’ve got some shots of the mill site in a bit but since the dam was constructed back in 1952 the landscape is different than it was back during the war. Back then the Confederate forces went downhill from the mill and crossed the river on a steam boat but today the lake comes almost up to the bottom of the mill site.

There were two other really neat things about the museum beyond all the typical local history stuff. The first was the stagecoach from the old Burnside-Monticello stage route. The closest train stop was about 12 miles east of Monticello in Burnside and the stage cost $1.50 for the trip all the way to the end of the line in Monticello. Neil grabbed a shot of Connie leaning out the window of the coach acting like she was on the road back in the day. The owner of the coach signed a contract with the Postal Service for 1 cent per year to carry the mail…because back in those days the bad guys were much less likely to rob a stagecoach carrying mail as that would become a federal offense and result in greater law enforcement attention to the robbery…so the robbers stuck with non mail carrying stagecoaches.

The other neat thing about the museum is the built in cave system. The museum is housed in what used to be the main hotel in Monticello and back in the early 1900s when it was built the owner uncovered a cave system underneath the basement while excavating for the foundations. There’s a straight down drop of about 75 feet and the owners put some fans down there and left a hole in the basement so that the cool underground air came up and cooled the entire hotel…he claimed it was the first air conditioned hotel in the state. I thought we had gotten a picture down the hole…but apparently I was mistook since it wasn’t on the camera card (that’s two oversights in the same museum trip, drats). 

Another interesting thing we found out is that (again, according to the museum) the first oil well in the United States was drilled in Wayne County, KY…and not in Titusville, PA as you’ve always heard. While the well in Titusville was the first oil well that was actually dug as an oil well…the first well to find and produce oil was drilled in 1815 in Wayne County. This well was actually drilled as a salt well…the intent was to drill down to brine and extract it…then boil down the brine to produce salt. They drilled down to a level of 283 feet where they discovered that the salt brine was contaminated by oil so they abandoned the well. Drilling again for salt in 1818 in another location in Wayne County they produced about 100 barrels per day that poured into the Cumberland River. At this time…oil was considered useless and wells were the money making mineral that people drilled for…so again this well was abandoned. The well in Titusville wasn’t drilled until about 40 years later in 1859. So…why doesn’t Wayne County get the credit? Simple…oil was considered useless and while the owners barreled the oil and sold it as liniment for a few years the well was abandoned in the 1029s. By the time 1959 rolled around people knew that oil was worth something and had been getting it from natural seeps for 20 or 30 years…Titusville was just the first successful “Looking for oil on purpose” well.

After the tour we skipped the one room schoolhouse out the back of the museum since we were hungry and after a quick stop at the Golden Arches for lunch headed off to the mill site at Mill Springs. There are a total of 7 naturally running springs up on the hills above the Cumberland and the mill was built to take advantage of the plentiful water flow. They builders constructed the largest in the world (at least that’s the claim) over the top mill wheel and used the power to grind corn which was one of the major crops in the area at the time. Here is a shot out over Cumberland Lake from right next to the mill…the old river was just about in the center of the lake that you can see. For a sense of scale…the lake is about a third of a mile wide here and about 200 feet deep in the center. The old river channel runs from upper right to lower left down the axis of the lake. Following that are a couple of shots of the spring flow down the hill and then the mill itself. I’m guessing the spring flow is in the 200-300 gallons a minute range; the stream in the second fall photo is right below where the mill suction pipe tapped off and it’s about 18-20 feet wide at that point and maybe 2 feet deep. The mill stone is about 4 feet in diameter and 18 inches thick so it took a pretty decent water flow to turn it on top of the matching fixed stone.

With that our Friday trip was over and we headed home for a nap and dinner.

Saturday Connie had a meeting with her boss so we just stayed home. Neil went on a bike ride and after all of that we just sat out in the shade in our recliners and chilled out the rest of the afternoon.  While sitting out there a couple of RV-Dreamers from the rally stopped by our site on their walk with the dogs. Red and Pam Beers had arrived a couple of days after us on their way up to Indiana to get MorRYDE suspension added to their fifth wheel. We thought they looked familiar walking down the road but when they walked up Neil immediately recognized their dogs and then Red and Pam. They have friends that also recommended this park…we chatted a couple of minutes before they continued their walk.

Sunday we headed out for 1030 Mass in nearby Burkesville…the priest looked like Mr. Spock except without the pointy ears and the Mass was interesting to say the least. Apparently this is one of those really conservative parishes…if we lived here or were staying longer we would go to the other nearby church instead. After that we had a meatball sub from Subway for lunch and headed off for our two stops for the day.

First up was the Creelsboro Arch…a 300 million year old (give or take) natural arch right near the Cumberland River but downstream from the dam which forms Cumberland Lake. The opening under the arch is about 100 feet high and 150 across…we went underneath it and down to the river bank after a quarter mile or so hike through some slick mucky stuff…good thing we changed into our hiking boots before heading down the hill.

Both before and after the arch we were on a serious “across the river and through the woods drive”…one lane roads, no centerlines, crookeder than anything…and at a couple of points not even any pavement as it was almost a dirt track. Connie said she promised us an adventure…and by golly she was absolutely right.

Finally making our way out of the woods we crossed the dam that forms Cumberland Lake…this is pretty similar to the dam that forms Dale Hollow Lake a little further west enroute to our final stop of the day at 76 Falls. No idea why it is named that though, it ain’t 76 feet tall and the road it’s on isn’t 76 either. There’s an outhouse (with running water and flush toilet no less) across the street and also a memorial to some guy named Dale Somthingorother. The sign was right next to the outhouse and we had a difference of opinion whether it was the Dale Somethingorother Memorial Outhouse or a monument to those famous last words of so many rednecks “Hey ya’ll…watch this.”. Neil went with Door #1, Connie picked Door #2. Shoulda taken a picture of the memorial sign too…dagnabbit, that’s three misses; we musta been suffering from a severe case of CRS (cain’t remember s***) this week.

After that we filled the car with gas for our 120 mile or so trip tomorrow and headed home. Dinner was grilled chicken marinated in Fennel Seeds, Lemon, and Olive Oil with some mashed taters and seasoned corn to go along with it.

Today’s another work day…Neil had a few odd maintenance jobs to attend to and did the pictures for this post and Connie (you guessed it) working. We’ll laze the afternoon away out in the recliners then have leftover chicken for dinner. Tomorrow we’ll get packed and hitched and hit the road about 1100 for the trip over to Fort Boonesborough State park in Richmond KY.

Cyas.

Well, Neil was feeling better today…notice I didn’t say good, just better…although he still pretty much felt like crud. Anyway; we got up and had breakfast and coffee and headed out about 1000 or so for a short 1.2 mile round trip hike. There’s a 4 mile trail from here at the campground over to Eagle Ridge Overlook…but being as it’s pretty hilly and he felt lousy since he’s breathing through a soda straw it seems with his cold…we decided to drive over to the marina parking lot and just take the last portion of the hike out and back to the point.

It was a pretty steep climb the first 300 yards or so but then we were up on the ridge top and it was much easier. After a little over a half mile we arrived at the Eagle Ridge overlook…this is supposed to be the best view of the lake in the park. I gotta tell ya’…it was pretty nice. We were right at the edge of a cliff about 300 feet or so above the lake surface and looking almost directly south toward Trooper Island. The island has some sort of memorial on it and some picnic grounds with a boat dock…we don’t have any idea why it’s named Trooper Island but being as it’s got the memorial figure it’s some sort of retreat for law enforcement folks and their families. No road access and…but we did spot several cars out on the island; no clue why they were there since the whole thing is maybe 300 yards wide tops. Here’s a close up of the island.

And a panorama of the entire lake view we had from the ridge top…Trooper island is the medium size island just to the left of center in this shot. The large island to the left is Tennessee Island and there are smaller islands in front of and behind Trooper Island…along with a whole bunch more islands that are out of sight around the various bays in the lake. Dale Hollow Lake is a flood control reservoir primarily but has some of the best fishing in the area.

Neil got a shot of Connie standing as close to the edge as she would go…maybe 4 feet back of it or so. He didn’t really go any closer either.

Not much in the way of wildlife today…but we did see a Turkey Vulture soaring over the lake and since it’s so rare to actually be able to look down on a bird I decided to include the shot anyway. We also spotted a hawk just as we got back to the car but none of those shots were decent as it was pretty far overhead and we didn’t have the bird lens out.

We sat on the ridge in the nice cool breeze for a half hour so then hiked back to the car…Neil was pretty whacked out by the time we got back so we came home and took a nap outside in the zero gravity recliners…making sure we used the cool little drink holding shelves that Neil’s sister MJ got us…they work pretty well.

After that we came inside and turned on the A/C since it was getting pretty warm this afternoon. Neil’s making spaghetti for dinner…probably with bacon, onions, and pecans rather than tomato sauce…but might change his mind later.

Tomorrow we’re off to a local museum in the morning then Connie has work in the afternoon…she had to take today off since she was out of hours for this pay period. Then we’ve got a couple other things at least tentatively planned or over the weekend and Monday.

We’re really liking this park…it’s way out in the boonies and the nearest anything is probably a half hour away so we’re just hanging out and resting. After the last week in Richmond and the rally last week we were pretty tired out and needed a break. With the great weather we’re having it’s nice to just sit and chill ya’ know.

Cyas.

Well, after the rally was over on Sunday morning with the final breakfast and talks…we headed off to Mass then went over to Neil’s sister MJ’s house to visit and a trip out to Ruby Tuesday’s for dinner. That all went pretty well…but as the afternoon and early evening wore on Neil started to get some post nasal drip and sore throat so we headed home and to bed pretty early.

By Monday morning he had developed into a full blown cold and felt really lousy…throat, achy, and sniffles. Nonetheless…he soldiered on and got the outside stuff packed up while Connie worked on Monday and we got up again early Tuesday morning for our travel day. By the time we got finished packing, hitching and were ready to go it was almost 1000 and we headed out for our 200 mile drive from Sevierville TN to Burkesville KY. We headed about 120 miles west on I-40 then got off on a pretty nice four lane highway for most of the way to the park. Right across the border into Kentucky it went down to a decent 2 lane road which turned into the twisty, turny, hilly state park road the last 5 miles or so.

We got here…checked in…and got situated nicely in our site G-002 in the full hookup portion of the campground…and I gotta tell you this is a very, very nice park. It’s a little pricey for a state park at $201 for a weeks stay but although the sites aren’t super large they are situated around small circles with 6 or 8 sites on each one and the circles are several hundred yards apart.

The only drawback to the travel and setup day was Neil’s cold…he was pretty beat by the time we arrived shortly after 1300 Central Time (we’re almost on the time zone line here and our phones still think they’re in the Eastern Time Zone). Given his feeling poorly…we just did the minimum utilities and underneath lights last night then had a pizza for dinner and were early to bed. After a really good night’s sleep…we slept in this morning and while he’s not back to normal he does feel better than he did yesterday.

So this morning he got up and finished the site setup…flag pole, awning, sign and outside zero gravity recliners so we are all set up at this point. Connie’s working and Neil typed this out on our concrete patio in the recliner.

He did get a couple of nice shots of the area; first is our site G002, the second one is looking across the G circle we are located on, and the third is looking out from our patio. You can’t really tell it but there’s a road up the top of that hill. Our rear window view is of a nice pine tree grouping that hides all of the road. He drove around this morning and the entire park of about 100 spaces or so has a total of 5 RVs parked in it. Our closest neighbor is about 300 yards away across the left top of the hill in the third photo.

He’s still feeling pretty poorly today…although it’s a lot better than yesterday…so we’re just staying around home. Connie has some Fun Stuff© the rest of the week and we’re leaving here next Tuesday morning for a 100 mile transit to our next stop…we’re headed Northeast away from Junction City but have 6 weeks or so to meander and arrive in Kansas on June 11 for our Ireland vacation trip.

Cyas.

We’ve had quite a busy week here at the RV-Dreams Spring Rally. RV-Dreams is run by our friends Howard and Linda Payne…he’s an accountant and lawyer and they jointly owned a title business back in Louisville. Back in 2004 they decided to chuck the rat race at age 41, sell the house, buy an RV and hit the road for full time living…knowing they would have to work on the road. They have a variety of businesses that they run…almost all are RV related…and they are celebrating the completion of their 9th year on the road this month.

We’ve been getting up real early for the rally seminars…we’ve learned the odd thing or two but mostly are here at the rally to see RVing friends and to help pass along what we’ve learned from our 2 years of full time living in the rig. Howard and Linda have one perspective but we think there’s value added for potential new full timers to learn about some of the different ways that people live the lifestyle. 

Neil did manage to get out and grab a few photos yesterday when the weather was nice…first up is a nice fat robin with some lunch. It lives in the tree right behind our rig.

We back up to the Little Pigeon River (which runs through the center of Pigeon Forge which is where Dolly Parton lives…it’s the next wide spot down the road from Sevierville). Across the other bank he spotted this turtle on the log catching some rays.

Finally…here’s a shot from the bank of the river looking back towards the house and then from the house toward the river…it’s probably 25 yards tops down to the bank.

That’s about it. We finished up our last seminars this morning and have a Kentucky Derby end of the rally dinner and party this evening followed by a catered breakfast in the morning before everybody hits the road. We’re staying through Tuesday morning when we’ll be off to our next destination at Dale Hollow Lake State Park a couple hundred miles from here.

Cyas.

Boy; what a long couple of days it has been. Saturday morning the 26th we were up at 0500 and out the door by 0630 for the 130 mile trip up to Fairfax to see Dr. Herr for Neil’s eye appointment. He got his contacts prescription checked, got a couple sample pairs to see if any of them help his reading vision without affecting the distance, and we drove back down 130 miles to Chesterfield. On arrival we quickly finished up stowing the house and headed out for the dump station. By the time we got dumped and on the road it was 1400 and we still had another 155 miles to our overnight stop. By the time we got to the Lee Hi Travel Stop in Lexington VA (home of the Virginia Military Institute or VMI as you probably know if) we wuz tuckered. We quickly got checked into our reservation and parked in site 42 for the evening. We stayed hitched up and Neil only brought on power as we had enough water in our fresh tank for overnight.

Getting up again early Sunday morning (we got to sleep all the way until 0600) we had coffee and breakfast then headed off to St. Patricks for Mass at 0800. After that it was back to the park, disconnect power and we were on the road before 1000 for our remaining 325 mile drive to Sevierville TN.

We had a little adventure getting into the park…the GPS didn’t know there was an opening in the median on Parkway to turn into the park and was telling us we needed to make a U turn. As a result…we were looking for the U turn and hence didn’t see the easily available left turn lane…Neil almost didn’t make the turn onto the little street the box wanted us to turn on but decided to do it anyway. Bad move we found out as it was a little neighborhood with tight streets. We finally found a place we could turn around by backing around a corner into another street and got back out to the main road. From there we turned right in our original direction of travel and after another 1/4 mile or so found a parking lot we could make a U turn on and get headed north again on Parkway so we could make a right into the park. Right as we turned into the park we noticed the previously unnoticed left turn lane from Parkway going south…Doh!!!

Anyway; we got set up in site 428 here at the park.

We’ve got the awning in as the wind keeps coming up and trying to blow it away…it’s supposed to be nicer after Wednesday so hopefully we’ll be able to put it and the flag out by then. Neil’s sister MJ and her daughter L came over and had a pizza with us before heading back to their home over in Knoxville 20 miles away or so…then we headed off to the campfire for the rally participants that were already here…probably 50 or so of them.

Monday we didn’t do much; Connie worked a bit and Neil went to Walmart for food. Tuesday was more work and a haircut for Neil with the rally activities starting this afternoon.

One more nice picture we got the other day…after getting parked at Lee Hi Travel Stop we just headed on down to the restaurant conveniently located at the travel stop…it was named Berky’s. The food was OK but not outstanding…but then we were so tired that all we wanted was food anyway. They have a little section of the restaurant set aside as something called the Tin Toy Cafe…here’s a shot of that.

Once we sat down we saw this young lady in a backless evening gown over in the other section…turns out that it was Prom Night and all the other places in town had a 2 hour wait. I’m sure the young lady felt a bit out of place in a country diner in a gown and 6 inch stilettos but it was a really pretty gown so we appreciated it anyway.

I don’t know if we’ll get any fun stuff in this week…probably not at least until Sunday but we may get in a hike at one of the close by places either Sunday afternoon or Monday depending on how tired we are and how much work Connie has piled up.

Cyas.

I forgot to include this in my post before…but I gotta tell ya’ll about the really, really great brew pub Connie found us for dinner last night. It’s named Brew and is in Chesterfield, VA right on the main drag. They have about 30 or so beers on tap and almost none of them you’ve ever heard of before. After Connie got back from her day trip to to the DC area to meet her students yesterday we went out for dinner last night. The web site for Brew is http://www.brewgastropub.com and I can highly recommend them if you’re in the area.

We started with a Breckenridge Vanilla Porter for Neil and a glass of Terrapin Tree Hugger Ale for Connie. Both were excellent; the porter dark and smooth with just a hint of vanilla and the Ale was nice and tasty as well. After that we sampled a couple of cream stouts…Bell’s Double Cream Stout and Left Hand Milk Stout…the Cream Stout won out after we tasted both of them and we had a glass of that as well. Our third round (hey, they were only 12 oz. beers) we went back to the Breckenridge Vanilla Stout as it was the tastiest of the bunch (although none of them were bad).

For dinner Connie had a Curried Chicken Salad Sandwich with fresh cut fries and Neil ordered a stout burger which has bacon, crispy onion strips, sharp cheddar and cranberry sauce. Unfortunately…they screwed up and brought him an IPA burger instead which has mozzarella, tomato, pickles, and aioli. He didn’t notice at first because the burger was really good but about 3/4 of the way through said to himself “this was supposed to have bacon on it”. Sure enough, turns out the waiter had punched the wrong thing into the ordering system so he got the burger for half off instead. For a side he had fried sweet potato straws…which were really good…along with some home made BBQ sauce.

The whole bill for 6 beers and two sandwiches was only 34 bucks or 41 with tip…quite reasonable for the quality of both the food and beers.

We’re glad she found it…the Vanilla Porter was the best beer we’ve had in months and the food was also outstanding even though it was the wrong burger.

Cyas.

Today’s Fun Stuff© was a short drive about 20 miles over to the Cold Harbor Battlefield over on the east side of Richmond. This was the site of 2 battles during the Civil War. The first one was in 1862 during what has become known as the Seven Days Battles. Since Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy the Union troops knew that if they could capture the city it would most likely end the war; so in the spring of 1862 the Union army conducted a five month campaign trying to take the city. They landed at the southern of the Chesapeake peninsula and advanced northwest toward Richmond then turned west towards the city. During the first big battle east of the city the Confederate commander was wounded and replaced by Robert E. Lee. Lee then led a series of counterattacks known as the Seven Days Battles that forced the Federal army to the south and then east away from Richmond which resulted in the failure of the campaign. The heaviest fighting during the battle took place on June 27 when Confederate troops repeatedly assaulted the Union lines near Gaines Mill about a mile or two from Cold Harbor (the town is named after the Cold Harbor Ale House which was the an early bar in the area). Total Union and Confederate casualties were over 15,000 for this one day…largely due to the fact that the trench warfare of the later Civll War hadn’t been invented yet…at this point in the war the battles still consisted of lines of troops facing each other in the field and not of one line assaulting the other which was in a defensive position. After the Seven Days Battle…which was largely a victory for the Confederate side as it kept Richmond from being occupied…the retention of Fort Darling by the South on the bluffs overlooking the James River meant that Richmond was protected from waterborne assault for the duration of the war.

In the spring of 1864 the Union again decided to try and capture Richmond…but this time instead of approaching from the coast to the east they crossed the James River northwest of the city about 120 miles almost directly west of Spotsylvania. There then commenced a series of running battles in which the Union forces tried to get to Richmond and they kept being blocked by Confederate forces in a leapfrog pattern towards the southeast until they were east or Richmond near Cold Harbor…very near to the site of the previous battle at Gaines Mill.

The first battle was in early May and is known as the Battle in the Wilderness…we previously visited that area a couple of years ago during our test RV trip before we decided to go full-time. The Wilderness is literally in the woods today and was actually woods back then…we were amazed back then by the fact that for many portions of the battle there were Union and Confederate troops within several hundred yards of each other with neither being aware of the presence of the other. The battle was fought as a large number of small skirmishes which eventually resulted in General Grant taking his Army of the Potomac southeast to try and get around the Confederate forces. Here’s a map of the 1864 Campaign; the Wilderness  battle took place May 5-7 at the northwest corner of the map. Confederate forces are in red, Union in blue.

Following the Wilderness…Grant repositioned to the south and there were a series of further battles at Spotsylvania, Hanover Junction and Mechanicsville before the largest battles of the campaign at Cold Harbor…this was the site we visited today. At Cold Harbor the Confederate forces had dug in along a seven mile stretch of earthen trench works to block the Union advance; today’s 1 mile hike through the battlefield was largely a trip through the remains of these defense works…which are just about the best preserved battle trenches we have seen on our travels.

One thing that is inaccurate about the pictures from today though…back during the war the wooded areas were largely non existent and all of the land the battle took place in was rolling farmland with open fields.

Our tour started near the center of the Confederate lines near the site where Gear’s battalion of artillery was setup. This 8 pounder is very similar to those that were setup here and looks out over a portion of the battlefield that was left in it’s original state of pastureland. The shot of the fieldpiece is looking north along the general line of the Confederate fortifications…the next image of the area the Union troops attacked through is a 90 degree right turn right after the shot of the artillery. You can’t see it very well in the picture; but the far side of the field is about a quarter mile away and the valley in the middle between the Confederate lines where we are standing and the Union lines to the east is about 30 or 40 feet deep.

From this point we crossed the field to the tree line on the far side using the mown path on the right side of the frame then entered the woods behind the Union lines. We then turned to the left and meandered through the lines that part of the battle was fought in. Today these are all in the woods. The well preserved entrenchments that are depicted at the end of the post are a quarter mile or so to the left along the Confederate lines from where this was taken, they are in the background out of sight in the shot of the field piece.

The first set of trenches we encountered are in the photo below…although they have largely eroded. You can just see the remnants of the trench running from upper right to lower left. These are located just about 200 feet into the woods at the end of the mown path in the field photo above.

Continuing on around the open field in the woods towards the left rear side of the field picture above (trying to give you some sort of feeling for the layout of the area with these references to the field picture) we crossed some more badly eroded trenches

before coming across the best preserved area of them. By this time we had completed about 3/4 of a large counter clockwise circle around the open field from the photo back after the field piece shot and are about 1/4 mile north of the location of the field piece. From this location we went another 100 yards or so and then got this panoramic view of the well preserved trenches and area towards the Union lines.

Referring to the picture above…and remember that none of this had any trees 150 years ago. This is about a 90 degree field of view…on the far right you’re looking south towards where the field piece is displayed, it would easily be visible except for the trees. Looking left in the image by the time you get over to the large tree near the left side you’re looking almost due east towards the Union lines…you can just make out the area of their lines about at the horizon level in the distance. With none of the trees in place, and with the Union lines being maybe 100 feet lower than the Confederate lines at this point the Union forces were facing a seriously dangerous charge across open lines towards thousands of entrenched Confederate troops with artillery support…which meant they would be slaughtered if they attacked.

Here is another shot from behind the Confederate trenches looking towards the open field and Union lines. The field you see in the rear is the same open field previously viewed from the field position which is just out of the frame to the right here.

Nonetheless; on June 2 the Union forces tried a small attack against a gap in the Confederate lines a little to the north of this location. They were partially successful in that they captured a portion of the trench system before being driven back by Confederate reinforcements. This partial success led General Grant to try a large scale attack on June 3 as he was emboldened by his near success…but it was not quite at this point where he decided to attack. The actual attack took place further to the north from this part of the lines maybe a quarter mile or so.

For this part of the tour we hopped into the car and drove over to the area of the Confederate lines where the attack was centered. Here’s a view from immediately behind the Confederate fortifications looking east.

You can’t really tell it from these shots but these berms are about 10 feet high and the land generally falls off about 20 or so feet by the time you get to the far side of the field. If you can see the small white car a little bit left of center here…that’s the center of the Union lines and the next shot shows the view from that perspective looking west.

Sorry there’s not a convenient car for this last shot taken from the Union side of the line…but the previous shot was taken from just about the center of this shot looking west back toward the Confederate trenches. Remember that all of this was open pastureland and farmland 150 years ago and the Union forces attacked across about a 500 yard cleared area going uphill towards the Confederate lines. The attack started about 0600 on June 3 when General Grant sent 3 Corps ahead across a 3 mile front centered at this location. As one can guess…attacking across open ground toward entrenched forces supported by artillery required extreme courage…but they were slaughtered nonetheless. By the time the attack failed and Union forces retreated to their fortifications immediately behind where this shot was taken from (sorry, no shots of the Union trenches but they were similar to the Confederate ones except are almost entirely eroded away) at 1200 they lost almost 6,000 men.

This was the last of the major skirmishes at Cold Harbor; the troops on both sides occupied their trenches until June 12 at which point General Grant leapfrogged to the south again. They crossed the James River and were again stymied on the east side of Petersburg from being able to attack Richmond which is directly north of Petersburg.

Unfortunately for General Lee…although successful in defending Richmond…General Grant’s arrival at Petersburg was the beginning of the end of the war. Once he was entrenched east of Petersburg, he had both the port of Hopewell on the James River available for resupply, rearming, and reinforcements and over the next several months just had a stalemate with General Lee while growing a more powerful army. He kept attacking and eventually occupied Petersburg in March 1865 and then Richmond in April. At this point…Lee’s outnumbered and outgunned army started a retreat northwest along the James River in an attempt to join forces with General Johnston’s army. He was harried up the James River by Grant’s forces and eventually cut off and surrendered at Appomattox in April 1865…thus ending the war as General Lee’s army was the last remaining Confederate force.

So…that’s the end of today’s history lesson. From being on the ground one can see how difficult the fighting was in this part of Virginia during the war…and visiting the various battle sites gives you a much better perspective on the battles and overall war progress then reading about it in dry history texts. There are several other battlefields from the time here in the Richmond area…we’re out of time now but will visit some more of them on our next visit here to see their human kids.

Tomorrow is laundry and seeing those human kids as well as packing for our departure. Saturday we’re off to Fairfax for Neil’s eye appointment then back here to pick up the house and head off on our two day drive to Sevierville TN for the RV-Dreams Rally.

Cyas.

We had a really good hike yesterday. After breakfast and coffee we lazed around until almost noon then headed out about 15 miles east to the Dutch Gap Conservation Area. This is a wildlife management area that is bordered on one side by a state park that has some reconstructed Indian dwellings in it and on the other side by a Virginia Power generating plant and the James River. For part of the hike we were hiking along just below the dike that surrounds the fly ash pit for the power plant…this is where the dump the ash from the coal burning facility. While walking along the dike at the beginning of the hike we got to talking about the coal cars we saw on the way past the plant to the conservation area and got to wondering how much coal a generating station like this one used…so today Neil did some rough engineering calculations for the plant after googling to see what it’s generating capacity was. Turns out it’s the largest single generating station owned by Dominion Power and produces 1650 MW of power (about 12 percent of the Dominion total) of which about 1200 MW or so is coal fired with the remaining being oil/natural gas fired. After another quick google to figure out the number of BTUs in a ton of coal, how much coal fit in a railroad car, and the conversion factor from MW to BTU/hour…he figured on a plant efficiency of about 20 percent and crunched the numbers…coming up with about 180 railroad car loads of coal per day assuming continuous maximum power operation. We watched some dump trucks hauling off the ash as we finished the hike and counted 4 truck loads in about 10 or 11 minutes…some more quick guesswork calculations on total ash per day gave him a pretty good feeling about his estimate. So the answer is a large coal station uses about 180 railroad cars of coal per day give or take a couple of dozen…he knew when he started that it would only be a guess since minor variations in efficiency and the other numbers in the calculation  make a difference. We were really only interested in an order of magnitude sort of answer anyway so 180 is an in the ballpark number. Ok, enough engineering talk…back to hike talk.

After parking at the state park visitor center we had a picnic before we set out on what turned out to be almost 5.2 miles of hiking. Luckily it was all pretty flat and reasonably graded so it wasn’t hard hiking…well, except for this bridge we had to walk over that creaked under us and gave Connie the heebie jeebies. Neil tried to tell her that the load limit for the bridge was 1.5 tons and while she might be a couple pounds more than optimum she was nowhere near 1.5 tons…but it didn’t make her feel any better. He then tried to tell her it was just the bridge deck (wooden boards) shifting slightly in their brackets but she didn’t like that either.

Anyhoo…shortly after we started we spotted a mockingbird (didn’t bother with a picture of it), then a couple of geese and a bird of prey of some sort…we can’t decide if it is an Osprey or an immature Red Tailed Hawk…the pattern looks more like that of an Osprey but the colors are off for that and more closely resemble the Red Tailed…but it wasn’t really close enough to get a decent enough picture for an exact identification. If I had to guess I would guess it was more likely to be an Osprey since we saw several other Ospreys while we were on the hike. We also got a shot of what we think is a female Baltimore Oriole…but again didn’t have a good enough shot to really be sure.

We turned of of the dike path into the woods and across the dikes surrounding all the ponds and then crossed the aforementioned scary bridge. Looking back Neil spotted another Osprey (we’re sure about this one as we got out the big lens for better pictures) so we got a few nice photos of it.

Here’s a shot of the path we walked on…almost all of it was like this…followed by a couple shots of one of the lakes as well as a sunk boat in an area known as the graveyard. We have no idea why there are a bunch of sunk boats in the lake.

Finally, right towards the end of the hike (just before we turned back down the path next to the dike to return to the parking lot) we spotted another set of 4 geese that were nicely grouped for a photo.

We also heard and spotted a total of 4 Prothonotary Warblers which are fairly common in wetland areas but are usually pretty hard to actually spot as they hide in the grass and foliage. Unfortunately…although we did spot them we were not able to get a picture as they were mostly obscured by foliage even the couple that were within 10 feet of us. So, I found a picture of one on the internet for you.

They’re really brightly colored and one would think they would be easy to spot but they’re only 4 or 5 inches long and like to stay close to the ground in grass/twigs/shrubs and they’re just hard to see. We were happy to spot them even though we got no pictures.

Afterwards we came home and had a shower then ate leftover chicken and sweet taters from our dinner with Bryan and Jen on Sunday…then watched TV until bedtime. This morning we decided to go up and dump our gray tank as it was full and it’s supposed to rain later. That killed a couple of hours by the time we stowed a bit, disconnected utilities, drove up and dumped and then parked/reconnected everything. After that it was lunch and Connie’s doing some work…trying to get the IT guys at the college to make her ‘upgraded’ Windows 7 laptop work and connect as well as the old XP one did.

Chili for dinner, and tomorrow Connie is driving up to the college to meet more students…Neil will pay bills and such while she’s gone. We’ve got another hike planned for Thursday and then laundry on Friday and head out for the rally in Sevierville on Saturday.

Cyas.

We’ve had a pretty uneventful week so far here at site 103, Pocahontas State Park Campground in Chesterfield VA. After arriving here last Monday following a short 2 hour drive…we then spent another hour and a half or so trying to flush our gray tank enough to get whatever is stuck to the side causing our level indicator to read inaccurately unstuck. We had dumped and flushed a couple times before we left Bull Run and traveled with 25 or so gallons in the tank along with some Calgon hoping the sloshing would help clean the tank sides.

That scrub and another half a dozen full and partial flushes made some improvement in the problem…Neil will give it a try next week when we’re at Sevierville for the rally and see if he can get it sorted out the rest of the way.

Anyway…Connie was pretty busy working last week, it rained 2 days, and we did laundry one day…not to mention it was pretty cool, damp, and overcast most of the week…so we didn’t do much fun. We did get out to Rockwood Park nearby on Friday and had a nice 2.5 mile hike out and around a private lake and through the woods. We could hear plenty of birds around us but were only able to get photos of a few…most of them were what we have come to refer to as “taunting birds”…they just sit in the trees and make noise just to taunt you since they know you can’t actually see them. Luck was on our side slightly though…as most of the trees don’t really have many leaves yet so we were able to spot some chickadees…although the little varmints would never stay still long enough to focus and get a picture while simultaneously being close enough to not be just a dot in the picture and not obscured by branches. 

Anyway; a few photos we did get…the first two are of the Bluebells up at Bull Run Park…they’re supposed to be the big draw for flora in the park and the Bluebell Walk was held the weekend we were there but none of them had bloomed for the walk. We spotted a patch of them in a (sorta) sunlit area on the way out and got a couple of pics.

Proceeding ahead with the shots from our Rockwood Park hike we spotted a group of cormorants on some pilings out in the private lake

followed by some turtles sunning themselves out on the logs near the shore…Neil had to crawl out a bit on a fallen log to get this shot but at least he didn’t have to get out over the water.

Heading away from the lake we spotted a blooming dogwood…the flowers are known as the Wounds of Christ from back in the middle ages…the flower sort of forms a cross with dark areas out at the tips of the petals for the wounds and the stamens forming a crown of thorns in the center. The wikipedia page also claims that dogwoods were much larger back in the day and that the crucifix was made from a dogwood…but we’re calling BS on that one as we’ve never heard of a dogwood being that large and there isn’t any justification given for this claim.

Heading further in the woods we spotted a male Scarlet Tanager chasing a female…it is breeding season ya’ know…and they kept flitting around us. We got one halfway decent picture of them when they landed in a tree overhead but otherwise we could hear them and see them but not close enough or unblocked by trees enough for a shot (we didn’t have the big lens anyway).

Finally we spotted a gray squirrel who posed nicely for us on top of a log.

We also heard (and briefly saw as he flew overhead…well, Neil saw him anyway but Connie didn’t turn around fast enough) a Pileated Woodpecker (that’s the Woody Woodpecker kind…although the actual call doesn’t sound anything like Woody does). Didn’t get a picture of it though as it was a 2 second glimpse overhead…barely long enough to identify it.

Saturday was a pretty nice day but Connie had to work on an article for ASCLS Today so she did that and Neil went on a bike ride. Sunday was Easter and was a beautiful day…we sat outside in the chair for awhile and then the human kids (and beagle Betty) came over for dinner…we had grilled chicken with some Italian dressing/mustard/BBQ sauce/honey sauce that Neil made up. After that we had some brownies with pecans, butterscotch chips and white chocolate chips in them and salted caramel topping…both were a hit all around. The kids left around 2100 since Jen had to go back to work tomorrow and then we just watched TV until bedtime.

Today we’re off for another hike…again it’s a beautiful sunshiny day so hopefully we’ll get some good shots along the way.

Cyas.

Just a short post to catch ya’ll up. 

We headed out from Bull Run on our 3 hour trip to Philadelphia for the Saint Saëns concert about 1100 on Saturday morning…having routed ourselves around the really, really boring drive up 95 (and coincidentally around the 8 bucks worth of tolls we would have paid on that route)…anyway, we arrived at the Comfort Inn near the airport about 1500. After a quick nap, shower, and getting dressed we headed off for dinner. Our original destination was a Ted’s around the corner from the concert hall but it turned out to be closed so after parking in the garage across the street from the Kimmel Center we headed to a nearby Fado’s Irish Pub instead. Fado’s is a chain but it’s sort of upscale. We had 2 beers each…started with a Guinness and a Smithwicks and then had a Newcastle Brown Ale each. Along with that we had some Jalapeño Cream Cheese Puffs and then some mini burgers…topping it off with a great brownie with ice cream, chocolate and caramel sauce and whipped cream. After that we headed across to the concert hall for the concert.

The first half of the concert was the Prokofiev Violin Concerto #2 and the Casella Symphonic Fragments from La donna serpente…neither of which did a thing for us. They were well played but didn’t turn us on much. The faster parts of the Casella were pretty decent but the slower movements didn’t seem to really go anywhere…and the Prolofiev didn’t have much of a melody to follow, it just seemed like disjointed playing. After intermission we had the Saint Saëns and it was pretty wonderful. After the lack of upper register in Charleston a week back this organ was truly well voiced…and both the soloist and the conductor believed in giving the organ the leading role in the symphony (it is named Organ after all)…so they really let it rip. The conductor kept the tempo in the finale down a bit slower and more majestic (we prefer it that way) and I’m pretty sure that (as Scotty used to say)…he gave it all she’s got at the end. Truly magnificent performance.

Here’s a nice shot of the organ pipes. The soloist sits right below the large set of pipes you can see and there are another two smaller sets to his right and left behind the seats you can see under the pipes. Pretty impressive organ loft we said…and played to perfection as well.

After the concert we headed home but got stuck up in the aftermath of both a Phillies game and the Frozen Four NCAA Hockey Championship…Connie got pretty aggravated by the traffic but we kept at it and eventually got through the backup and to the hotel where we went to sleep pretty quickly.

Sunday morning we got up, hit a church right close to the hotel for Mass then headed home, arriving about 1300 after a couple of errand stops on the way.

Monday we got up, packed and hitched and hit the road about 1100 for the 130 mile trip down to Midlothian to see their human kids…we’re parked in site 103 at Pocahontas State Park Campground. We had to stop by the dump station on the way in for about an hour and flush our tanks several times trying to get whatever was stuck to the side and screwing up our level indicators loose…we think we accomplished that. One thing we forgot was the Pocahontas has no sewer connections at the sites…so we’ll be walking 100 yards to the bathhouse to take showers. We left BAT hitched up just in case we end up having to go and dump partway through our stay…Connie’s sort of bummed about that. Next time we come here we’ll have to see if we can find a full hookup campground instead. Here’s a shot of our site this morning…taken in the rain.

Today we headed over to Bryan and Jenn’s…she’s off on spring break with her mom and he’s at work but we’re doing laundry and Connie is working while we wait. They’re coming over for dinner tomorrow and we’ll have a nice meal with them.

That’s about it…hopefully we’ll figure out some fun stuff to do at least a couple of days while we are here…Connie has more work to do and Neil needs to do a drop off and pick up from the storage location near here as well.

Cyas.