Berkeley Plantation

A couple of miles from Shirley Plantation we headed down another pebbled road to Berkeley Plantation.

The view from the back of Berkeley's main house

The plantation has quite a history, starting from 1619, and you can read about it here, but when you visit in person you can watch a film about it in the basement of the large estate. Behind the walls of the film projector, what was once an underground tunnel now sports a museum. I found it to be very interesting and informative. While you're waiting for the guided tour to begin, or after its ended, you can check out the Coach House and view some more exhibits, including info on their slaves, and other stuff including recommendations for restaurants. Fair warning...there are only two nearby.

A costumed tour guide was very knowledgeable and interesting when we toured the inside of the home, but for me, the real star of Berkeley are its grounds.

You are allowed access to various gardens, a grave yard, the first Thanksgiving Shrine, historical markings, and the shores of the James River.

It's quite beautiful, so tranquil. I felt like I was standing still in time with my feet embedded in the sand and eyes gazing across the river experiencing what the early settlers felt and saw. With no one around, the soft lapping of the tiny waves, and bright sunlight dancing diamonds in the river, one could easily transport themselves into another history past. Very spiritual in nature.

Anyway, here's some photos and you can see for yourself what I'm trying to convey...

I never realized the extent of retribution the signers of the Declaration of Independence underwent

This is where Taps was written by a Union soldier. There's a recording you can play. It made me weep.

We spent more time here than we did at Shirley so we missed lunch and realized it was too late to see any other plantations. I sorta felt after the two we saw that day, you've seen two, you've seen enough. So, we decided we would partake in an early dinner. We drove to Charles City and stopped at a converted farmhouse restaurant which was set in the middle of plantations and farms called Charles City Tavern. Although they wouldn't start serving dinner for another hour they took pity on us and allowed us to sit at the tiny bar. After a drink we moved into a screened porch area that overlooked the peaceful landscape. Every once in a while a car would drive down the road, but the birds singing drowned them out. The staff was friendly, the food was excellent -- tasted farm fresh, generous portions, and selections you'd be surprised to find in the middle of nowhere -- well worth the wait, and I highly recommend it..

I'll close this post with this...

Virginia is indeed quite beautiful, but I still want to be buried back in Brooklyn...

A Day in Buchanan

For years we've passed the "Visit Buchanan" sign when we drive home along I-81. For some reason, probably the beautiful weather and the urge to get the heck out of Roanoke, we decided Saturday was the day we would "visit Buchanan."

We drove along I-81 until exit 162 when we saw the sign for the city. We figured it would be like most of the cities down here, have a Main Street, and we would have no trouble finding it. It was a nice jaunt with beautiful mountain and valley scenery, cow pastures being the main view, and as I suspected, we soon found ourselves driving down Main Street.

 

It just so happened that the city was having some sort of Civil War day as evident by the folks lining the sidewalks dressed in Confederate and old-timey clothing.

I thought it was strange that Main Street was not closed to traffic, as most other cities I've been to during their Civil War type days always close the artery where the "events" are taking place. Since that wasn't the case here, we found a spot easily.

The first thing I noticed was there seemed to be more re-enactors than viewers, and I even joked to my husband, "Maybe nothing is going on here and this is just how the people dress."

When I saw this sign in one of the stores, I seriously began to wonder.

Well, it turns out it was some sort of Civil War re-enactment weekend, but nobody could tell us exactly what was happening, and when I asked a shopkeeper if there was a map or something, they said no but directed us towards the Civil War encampment down near the river.

Most of the tents were closed and I guess that was because the re-enactors were traipsing all around the town. The horses had no choice but to stay where they were, but they jumped every time a loud gunshot exploded.

Now, I've been to other Civil War themed city days and have found them interesting enough. Those events seemed more organized. and showed how the folks lived during that period, gave pertinent history, etc., and had tables where you could buy local goods, and not just confederate flag crap. That's primarily what they were selling here. Not interested in that one bit.

So I thought it would be nice to visit all the antique stores that Buchanan is "noted" for. Unfortunately, most of them were closed. Huh? You're having a Civil War type thing that I'm sure the town is holding to attract visitors, and you would think shops would want to welcome browsers and sell their wares. Even the couple of places that were open closed at noon. We walked into three different stores, and even the library that was having a book sale, and were told, "Sorry, we're closing." Crazy!

What was even crazier was what seemed to be the "theme" of this Civil War event...kill the Yankees.

As we were walking along the main drag the costumed folks were firing their guns shouting, "I got me a Yankee!" and then even paraded said dead Yankee in a coffin.

Another Yankee was accused of robbing a ham and all the women in town shouted to "Hang him!" They were dragging him to the bridge and I almost expected to see a lynching, but the fellow broke loose. When he escaped, they shot him in the back instead, and the crowd whooped and hollered. Maybe someone should have told the thief he was wearing a Confederate hat!

After we had enough of the Rebel Yells we took a walk to the swinging bridge that was also one of their landmarks.

 I took a couple of steps on it, but I guess the folks couldn't read the sign that said only 3 people at a time were allowed on it as they marched across it and it began to shake violently, so I took a page out the Confederate army's playbook and quickly retreated. I got a couple of nice shots at least.

We sought out a place to have lunch and passed up the BBQ joint after seeing the bare chested "cook" with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth work the outdoor bbq. Not a fan of ash-flavored pig. There was a joint next to it, and as we pondered if we should give it a shot or not, two Confederate ladies stepped in front of us and went in. We followed, and it was like the scene from that PeeWee Herman movie when he steps into that biker bar and everyone stops what they're doing and turns to look at him. Same thing, but this was a divier bar and the place was filled with cigarette smoke to boot. I thought it was illegal to smoke indoors in "restaurants" in Virginia. Since I had no intention of jumping on the bar and dancing to Tequila, I did an about-face just as the owner? was coming through the door. When I said it was too smoky in there she said we could eat outdoors. Umm, yeah, no, but thanks anyway.

I couldn't wait to get the heck out of this town. Pretty scenery, don't get me wrong, but it was creepy, and not creepy in a haunted way like I've found Fincastle to be. This was creepy in like a you're not from here, not welcome here, and make sure you don't stay until dark kind of way. I did find some humor in the bikers that took it upon themselves to disrupt this ridiculous "celebration" by riding up and down Main Street every once in a while, 30 strong. These were older fellows with Marines on their cuts and American flags flying proudly on their bikes. They were the only American flags (besides the one Union one near the horse's ass) I saw that day. When we got back to the car we found a flat tire. If I didn't know any better I'd say the town itself did it to fuck with the Yankees. My husband paid $1 for air and filled the tire and off we drove until we hit a restaurant along Route 11, well out of city bounds. When we finished a decent lunch we found the air had come out again so we put the donut tire on and drove home.

When I told my daughter about our day she said, "You should have told me before you went. I've been to Buchanan once, and will never go again." I told her about the slave sign I saw in the window and how I thought it was in poor taste, how offended I would be if I was a black person visiting their town, and remarked that come to think of it, I didn't see one black person there. She said, "I'm not surprised." You know what? Neither am I.

Y'all damn Yankees might have won the war, but we'll just keep re-enacting it the way we think it should have gone, and one day y'all see the south is gonna rise again.

Sweet Springs

We arrived at our destination, Sweet Springs, after a pleasant drive along the West Virginia Roads. Sweet Springs originally opened as a health resort in 1833. It has an interesting history prior to that date that you can read more on by clicking on this link. The Sweet Springs Resort was later known as a sanatorium, hospital, and towards the end of its active life, a nursing home and drug treatment center.

When we arrived at the complex the first thing we noticed were No Trespassing signs everywhere. Luckily for us there was a fellow on the grounds loading fallen tree branches onto his pick-up truck. We thought we would go over to him and ask if it would be all right if we walked around to take a couple of photos. I suggested my friends do all the talking so my Yankee accent wouldn't get in our way. He was quite a nice guy and said sure, but warned us not to go into any of the buildings as they were in disrepair and dangerous.

After he gave us the okay I was able to open my mouth so I asked what had happened to the property. In a nutshell...it's in foreclosure. I asked how much was owed on it and he said millions of tax dollars, was it 20? I don't remember exactly, but it was out of our league. He said the current property owner had big plans to restore the deteriorated resort, but had made a major mistake of having the property re-zoned from agriculture, which had little taxes associated with it, to commercial which increased the tax burden enormously. Apparently the new owner, who did not come from these parts also did not realize that in West Virginia the two zoning tax rates were miles apart. In fact, he said most folks want their property designated agriculture, and all it takes is one chicken on the property to decrease the tax burden.

The fellow said he lived in the area and felt a bond to the property and that's why he takes it upon himself to keep the grounds as clean as possible, without getting paid. We thanked him and bade him farewell and set off to explore. After a couple of shots my camera battery died, as did my digital recorder. Well, the digital recorder was dead when I turned it on, yet when I was home it informed me "battery is high." One of my friends had a digital recorder going as we walked around, just in case.

Sweet Springs must have been quite remarkable at one time...such a shame it's gotten to this point.

Day Trip -- Paint Bank, VA & Gap Mills, WV

Today's not so nice, but yesterday was the perfect day for a mini road trip through the mountains of Virginia and around the mountains of West Virginia. Although our main "goal" was to see if we could get onto Sweet Springs, an abandoned property in West Virginia, we planned a couple of detours along the way.

After zig-zagging up 311, up and down, round and round the mountains, I started to feel nauseous so was glad our first stop was a country store/restaurant in Paint Bank, VA.

The grounds were lovely...

The restaurant's claim to fame is a hanging bridge across the top of it that you can walk across.

They have a year-round Christmas gift shop and other country style crap. I didn't like the feel of the bridge...sorta made me feel like I was walking on a dock floating on the water.

While we waited for our lunch -- I highly recommend the lemonade -- I noticed a place mat in front of me that had "mountain expressions" and their meanings.

 I whipped out my notebook and copied them all thinking I will be able to use some of them sprinkled into dialogue from my characters. Once again, I found myself in a place I "needed to be" without even knowing it.

Which came first...the cow, or the egg?

After lunch we got back on the one-lane highway to hell where we immediately was behind a huge construction truck which was driving in reverse on the curvy road. Since our next stop was to be in Gap Mills, VA this could take hours! Luckily my friend does not fear driving mountainous roads so when the driver of the truck waved us to pass him, she did. I could barely look out my window as guard rails were few and far between even though there was a drop to the right of us of about 3,000 feet. I couldn't imagine living in these dar hills, or having to drive them at night, in the rain, in the winter, anytime!

We finally hit the bottom and proceeded into West Virginia to a place called Gap Mills. I had read some posts on-line how a visit to that town was a must-do and what a great trip from Roanoke it was. The poster pointed to the Cheese N More Shop and said there were a few other places nearby to visit. Hey, I love cheese and it got rave reviews so I was happy to check it out.

We found it pretty easily as it was on Route 3. Run by Amish or Mennonites, it was like going to Jamison's Orchards which is right down the block from me. It was larger than Jamison's and had a couple more varieties of products. When I had read it had a wide selection of meats and cheeses I don't know why I would assume they were talking about Italian cheeses and meats. A picture of provolone wheels hanging alongside hard salamis from the ceiling had popped into my head. What we found was a case that had cold cuts and a couple of Amish cheeses. Actually there was one triangled slab of hard Parmesan cheese in the fridge so I did buy that.

There were shelves of candies, jams, jellies, spices, flour, etc. Besides the cheese I bought a bag of chocolate covered almonds, maple walnut fudge, sesame crunch candies, hot pepper jelly and fresh dill weed. The fudge was amazing and I wish I had tried it before leaving as I would have bought other flavors. So creamy and fresh, it was almost worth the drive...almost.

Next we went across the road to a furniture store. They had the same religious music station playing, and it gave me the creeps. They were pretty expensive and there was nothing in there that I really liked, although they did have an antique Singer sewing machine like I have that they made into a lamp. Odd. I asked the person who also was Amish or Mennonite where Main Street was and she looked at me perplexed. So I elaborated and asked where the shopping was in Gap Mills and she said this was it. She pointed to a block building outside and said there was a bakery but it's closed on Mondays. That was disappointing news, so we headed back from whence we came and sought out Sweet Springs, WV.