Monday, February 9, 2015

Travels with Sasha Day 20


February 8 

A good night’s rest; maybe the swim and hot tub helped. I spend an hour and a half back and forth between Google maps and weather.com trying to decide if I should move on or hole up here. With sleet, rain, snow through Pennsylvania, snow across New York and continuing into Monday, I decide to stay put. Tuesday and Wednesday look to be clear days, so I’m make the run for home then. I could make it in one day, but if I drove straight for 11 hours, I wouldn’t be able to get out of the car without falling on my face… if I could move at all. There will be a stop for one more night after leaving here. I’d like to shoot for Port Jervis, N.Y. 

I go down to the lobby to let them I’ll stay two more nights. The rate is $5 a night lower. I fill my travel mug with coffee. Hopefully this stuff is better than the in-room coffee; it is. As usual, there is nothing appealing on the breakfast bar and listening to that TV turns my stomach. 

The coffee is stronger, but bitter. At least it’s drinkable. I catch up on more blogging, check messages, edit a newspaper column and call about the trolley tour. No, they do not do hotel shuttles and it’s a tour only, no getting on and off. She gives me directions and I’m heading out by 10 a.m. The temperature is 60 degrees.  

The woman had said to go to the bottom of the hill and take a right at the lights. Near the bottom, there’s a blinking light and further on a full set of lights. At the blinking light is a Visitors’ Center sign and I turn right. She had said to get in the left lane. Wait, this is only a two way road without extra lanes. It’s more of a country road running along the river. This can’t be right. I have to drive a bit before I find a place to turn around. 

I return to Rte. 17 and take the right at the next set of lights. Ah, this is better. What the woman failed to mention was that many of these are one-way streets. What’s worse is that I can’t see street signs for some of them. Do I look on the left (as I need to turn left) or do I look to the right? I miss Charlotte Street where I am supposed to turn and go through two sets of lights before reaching one where I can turn left. The next left puts me on Caroline Street and I’m starting to drive past a street when I see the trolley. Oops. Good thing no one is behind me. I pull in the exit only way to a parking lot. It’s Sunday morning and things are quiet. I figure I can get away with it. I straighten out so I can pull into a head-on parking space next to the trolley. 

The Visitors’ Center doesn’t open until 11 a.m. on Sundays, so the tour is given first and the tickets bought afterwards. I’m a little early and chat with the driver/tour guide. Another guy gets on. He’s a driver/tour guide in training and in talking about my traveling north, he suggests taking Rte. 3W to Rte. 29N Rte. 17N to Rte. 66W instead of Rte. 17N. A woman boarding hears him and agrees saying it’s a much nice route with less traffic going through Chancillorsville and Culpepper.  

Soon we are off for the tour. The trolley has large windows. There’s one problem. The top window is a huge arched piece and the bottom is a small 12-inch high two pane wide window where the right slides to the left to open. Unfortunately, the frame between the top and bottom is right at eye level. I can’t see over the top without standing and to see out the bottom, smaller windows, I have to bend over. Not a very comfortable to manipulate the camera. And the front windows, which are very tall, are a little narrow for photographs. 

But the history stories are great although I’m not into statues and monuments. It was interesting to hear something of George Washington’s younger years and the farm from which he came. There’s a university here named after his mother, Mary.  

The driver explains that all the streets are named after King George’s relatives and that Sophia Street is pronounced with a long i. Many of the older houses are narrow because at one time, property taxes were determined by the width of the house. The trolley travels around the city and to the edges. The city is along the Rappahannock River which once was a major seaport as it was much deeper in the earlier days. When the railroad became prominent, shipping down the river to Chesapeake Bay wasn’t as lucrative and the bigger ships stopped coming. 

Many stories are told, but I focus on trying to get photos. Oh, I wish I could get off the trolley for a few. He stops often to tell the tales, but the angles aren’t good for pictures. To actually visit these places, I’d have to drive here as some are not within walking distance. Fredericksburg needs to have trolleys like St. Augustine and Savannah. 

The spot that interests me the most is the Fredericksburg National Military Park. The driver had been having us imagine most of the buildings not here and there were just fields looking from the hill down across the river. He talked about the union and confederate soldiers on either side of the river. The confederates had burned the bridges into the city and held the high ground. Union soldiers would build pontoons to try to sneak across the river at night. It was December and too cold to swim.  

However, at this one park, that has been preserved is open except for some trees, he says, “Imagine the hundred thousand wounded soldiers screaming in agony, crying for help, for mothers, wives, and loved ones. The sound would be echoing across the hill and valley. If they weren’t dying from their wounds, they were freezing to death in the December cold.” 

In that moment, I could hear them crying. Can you imagine thousands of men screaming, crying, or moaning? I could see bodies, thousands of bodies, littering the expanse of the hillside, writhing in pain or totally still in the odd positions they dropped. It’s one thing to read about these events in stories or to see movies, but to actually be in the place where this happened; my heart contracts and I choke down tears. It’s hard to describe what actually being in this place is like. 

I am reminded of when I visited the Virginia Civil War Museum off I-81 on the trip down and I stood in that family’s farmyard and envisioned what it was like to have a war overrun your farm and have your fields full of dead and dying young men. I was emotional that day, too. Would you ever want to eat crops from those fields again?  

Maybe more people need to experience moments like this; feel the dying, seeing the hurt it does. Yes, the land will replenish, but there are still scars to it and to those who can feel the horror and grief of war.

There are a couple of cemeteries. The one for the confederate soldiers have many unnamed graves where bodies were buried sometimes two or three to a grave because the soldiers were unknown. There are even a couple of mass graves.  

I pull myself back to the present as the trolley rambles on. It takes a few minutes to get my head out of that space and soon the trolley is parked. I pay for my ticket inside the VIC center and she gives me a map to show how to get back to I-17N and the hotel. First, though, I want to walk around. It’s only a block to the river, so I cross the street and head down the hill. 

However, this part of the river doesn’t have a lot of nice views. I do enter a parking lot with signs saying No Trespassing, Parking for Motorists Only. Hey, I’m only after a few pictures. As it is, there are other people here relaxing in the warm sun and enjoying the views. 

I go back to Charlotte Street and wander for a ways in one direction, then cross the street to return. There are many little shops and cafes. Each café has a couple little bistro chairs outside which makes is nice, especially on a day as beautiful as this. I plan to lunch at an Irish pub, but there is a 20 minute wait and I choose to move on. 

I stop in an art gallery and meet Robyn Ryan, the docent of the day and an artist. We have a magnificent conversation about art, creativity, and the courage to change styles. This is a highlight of the day and the art work on the walls is amazing. I love the different styles, techniques, and media. 

Eventually, I head back to the hotel and stop at the Perkins Family Restaurant for a delicious burger, fries, and chocolate mousse cream pie. I would definitely like to see more of Fredericksburg.

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