Saturday, July 19, 2008

Richmond

"i don't watch much CSI, but i did watch the episode about the photoshop job"

Yesterday, I was out on a walk, after the swim (sounds like some other day this week, eh)
Today, when I should have been enjoying the only day of the week without a wake-up tome (M-F 7:15 for 9:00 reporting time, Sunday @ 7:00 for early mass - as they say in Washington the State, hunter's mass, translated to " convenience"- I was out for tennis- and man, it was hot. Illusions, loose muscles, chemically altered tennis balls, you name it. And then the long trek down south to Richmond. The freeway (95) was only good until the express/local merge in Dumfries (fyi the other one is in Cranbery, NJ). Then it was old rt. 1 for the next 70 miles. At least that went fast most of the way. We entered Richmond via some affluent suburb, and crossed into the stereotypical image after crossing one of the many railroad tracks. Daddy made 2 consecutive right turns, and it was yuppie-ish stage 2, then back to stage 1. Lunch was obtained from the City Diner (not the first one I ate at; I remember the one in WVA- not a chain, though). A zig-zag led us to Monument avenue, with all those Confederate generals line up on a New Orleansesque boulevard. However, we did not take 2 lefts to go downtown; we kept straight at it, leaving the city limits, and took a turn to a place where only Little Brother and I had been before. At the CHoirschool, we sag at this All Saint's church on River road, a River Road that resembles DC and Potomac's River Road, with trees and nice houses and country clubs. A left turn entered us into Richmond University- a posh, liberal arts college with tones of York (England) styling. It was still very hot, to say the least, and the memory of it sends sweat down my back. There, luckily, was an abundance of modern, air conditioned buildings which were open, to relieve some of the nasty heat and humidity. There was a lake, and a building over the lake, as the aforementioned York College had. But we did not head back down after returning to the car. We headed onto a roundtrip loop across the James River and back, barely visible of downtown , and headed back North on 95, until Mt. Carmel. The Stonewall Jackson shrine (or some other important Confederate general, I'm not exactly clear about it) by the RT+P railroad was to be seen, but, there was the traffic jam again. 70 miles on route 1, again. But we made it in three hours.

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