Sunshine and Ice Storms in DC

We've spent 3 nights in Alexandria VA, needing a few days to see Washington DC just over the bridge. The weather has been very cold, about -6C in Aussie terms, so the extreme weather clothing has been out again. One day was sunny, and brilliantly clear, but with a biting wind, and the other very grey, finishing off in the afternoon with an ice storm, freezing rain which made the footpaths dangerously slippery and quite hazardous for pedestrians, namely ourselves, after we caught the metro home. The ice storm has caused chaos in the traffic in Virginia, DC and Maryland, and even caused the presidential primaries voting today (Tuesday) to be extended to a later hour. Later on the TV news, there were complaints about sidewalks not being salted.

We met up with friends of our good friend Jack, Mike and Janell. Mike was kind enough to spend the entire first day with us, driving us around to some of the well known sites, as well as others which we would have missed had we been on our own. We also had two delightful dinners with Mike and Janell - thank you for spending the time with us!

We saw most of the presidents' memorials. Roosevelt's, extraordinary granite ediface which sprawls along the Potomac River, complete with waterfalls and fountains, and some of FDR'S great statements cut into the walls. Lincoln's memorial is in pride of place and so impressive, lined up with the Washington Momument and the Capitol Building on the hill in the distance at the end of the Mall.

A new and spectacular memorial to Air Force pilots soars into the air above the Pentagon, made from shining stainless steel. Perhaps the most moving memorials are the war memorials. These included the World War I and II memorials, and the Korean War memorial. The Vietnam Veterans' memorial incorporates the names of all soldiers lost engraved into the grey marble (heart-wrenching like the roll of honour at the Australian War Memorial) [photo]. It is a very modern memorial, which created a lot of controvesy when it was designed and erected, but has now become very popular.

The Library of Congress is a most beautiful building, marble columns and colorful frescoes [photo is of lobby, no photographs allowed in the reading room]. We peeked into the glorious reading room directly under the dome, with about 200 wooden desks and individual reading lights arranged in a large circle around the librarians' desk.

We had a very pleasant walk through the conservatory at the National Botanic Garden (after all, it's warm inside). This building, recently restored, reminded us of the petit palace in Paris, and contains what must be the best and most artistic implementation of a garden conservatory we have ever seen. The orchids were in bloom, so the colours were fantastic. In the rare and endanged section, there is a Wollemi Pine from Sydney.

Of course, there is the Smithsonian Museum. It is not to be missed but we could only skim the surface. The Museum of American History is closed at the moment for several years of refurbishment, so we missed that, but we spent good time in the Museum of Flight and Space, the US Postal Museum, the American Portrait Gallery (with its fabulous exhibit of US Presidents), and the US Archives (to look at precious originals or early copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (the first 14 amendments). Both days we had lunch in the Sculpture Garden, a delightful, comfortable and warm cafe beside the National Gallery of Art. This Garden features what looks like a permanent oval-shaped ice skating rink, and the cafe is of a Parisian theme, complete with a faux Metro station entry.

A walk around the Capitol Building was all we could manage. It is hard to get a tour through this building, even at this quiet time of year. The Supreme Court, the White House (so close to the road), so many significant buildings to see. Washington is set out very nicely, no high rise nearby, and all the buildings, modern and traditional fit together so well. Looking at the layout, and the architecture of the Federal Reserve and other government buildings lining the Mall, we were reminded of Walter Burley-Griffin who was, we think, an American, and must have used Washington as a model when he designed Canberra.

The Metro (the partly underground rail network which serves the DC area, running into Virginia and Maryland) has some lessons for Sydney. For one thing, our day passes cost $8 each, about 70% of the cost of a single ride from Central to Sydney airport! Signs at stations listed all stations where elevators were out of action (and apparently shuttle buses were available from other stations). The carraiges were mostly modern and clean and we did not see any graffiti. The underground stations were strangely dark.

As we post this, while the ice storm continues, Barak Obama appears to have whipped Hilary Clinton in today's local Democrat Primaries, while John McCain has more narrowly beaten Mike Huckabee on the Republican side. While we didn't get to vote, we are now "experts" on how the main parties choose their candidates for the Presidential election! It's impossible to miss.

The Civil War

The Civil War, which took place in the 1860's, was fought in many battlefields up and down the eastern half of the US - we may have read that there were 400 sites! We restricted our "study" of this terrible conflict to the state of Virginia (where "more blood was spilt" than anywhere else). The battlefields themselves are interesting, fascinating indeed, but we were particularly interested in the background to and the reasons for the war.

The numerous battlefield exhibits and visitors centres deal with how the war went in that locality, but our more strategic question was answered perfectly at the American Civil War Museum in Richmond. Richmond is the state capital and, we learned, it was also the capital of the Confederated States of America, a country which had seceeded from the "Union" in 1861 and had its own President, Jefferson Davis. The USA must have viewed his behaviour as treacherous, but he is nevertheless honoured in modern day America, with the main coastal north-south road, US1, being named after him for much of its length.

The Civil War Museum is a new facility, and it structures its displays ingeniously by clearly dividing itself into the points of view of the three major stakeholders, the North (defending the "Union"), the South (defending state rights, which the museum called "Home") and the negro population ("Freedom" from slavery). The displays emphasise that while the seeds for the war were being sown effectively from the War of Independence about 80-90 years previously, and the causes were complex, they basically got down to slavery. The South was determined to defend its source of cheap labour which allowed them the accumulation of great wealth. The North was concerned about the morality of slavery, certainly, but they were just as opposed to the burgeoning economic strength of the South as slave populations grew. The South's political strength grew with this population too, because despite slaves being traded as property, a rule of "three fifths" was applied to their numbers. The geographic expansion of the USA (the acquisition of the "middle" by the Louisiana purchase from France in 1803; and Calfornia, New Mexico and Texas from the Mexican war in 1848) aggravated the balance between north and south achieved by the Union's consitution. When the southern states seceeded, the North's argument became more philosophical (the defence of the Constitution) and tactical (refusal to allow important ports and resources to be taken over by a foreign power). With the election of Abraham Lincoln as President, he called for armed retaliation to the secession, and seeking freedom for slaves was obviously not the major part of the motivation. We found this museum to be most interesting and informative, and it dealt with what we wanted to know perfectly.

Next door to the Museum is the Civil War Visitor Centre, run by the National Park Service. We were puzzled that the National Parks are the custodians of many Civil War sites and battlefields, but they take on this task with great effectiveness. Just as we commented when touring the Rocky Mountains two years ago, US National Parks are fanastically well organised and managed, and any natural or historical features under their care are in very good hands indeed. The Civil War sites are excellent and indeed awesome examples of this.

The main Richmond visitor centre has particular interest because of its location in the Tredegar Iron Works which manufactured cannons and other war machines for the Confederate army. Today, the works are partly ruins, but they have been stabilised and modified into a magnificent venue for the centre [photo].

At all the visitor centres we visited, there is a movie or some form of audio-visual presentation to describe the progress of the war in that particular locality. These are always very professional, very interesting and highly informative. The battlefields themselves (or at least those which survived and a now under National Park care) are laid out with walking trails, driving tours and numerous exhibits to described exactly what happened at this particular spot. In some places there are open fields or forests with few remnants of the war, but in others there are stunning artifacts and reminders, sometimes by reconstruction [photo], of how the war was conducted at that spot. To visit these places is very moving, and we were appalled at the horrendous loss of life which took place under our feet. It is notable that the use of metal detectors is specifically prohibited at all these sites.

At the Cold Harbour battlefield, near Richmond, we learned the extent to which this war involved "earthworks", the creation of protective barriers and trenches. No doubt these tactics and techniques were studied and adopted by European generals in the first world war, 50 years later.

At Petersburg, not that far south of Richmond, we were able to understand the battles which turned the war in favour of the North, and led to Confederate General Robert E Lee's surrender to General Ulysses S Grant only a week later. At this battlefield took place the "Battle of the Crater" where the two front lines were amazingly close together, and coal miner Union soldiers from Pennsylvania dug a tunnel 500ft from behind their lines to under a Confederate fort and blew it up with explosives. The Union troops were so amazed at the crater thus created, they actually lost the fight there, despite the damage and carnage suffered by the other side in the explosion.

At Fredericksburg, north of Richmond, we learned and saw how Union troops were repeatedly unable to capture a hill just out of town, and suffered horrendous losses, because the hill overlooked an open plain (now a suburb) and was easily protected by a rock wall, a "sunken road" and elevated gun emplacements. The Union army eventually won the hill by coming in from behind. The photo shows a portion of the rock wall, and a house, still riddled with bullets, that was in the way of the fighting. There is a huge cemetery here, full of mostly unidentified Union soldiers, buried on the very hill they died trying to capture [photo].

The towns we saw on these battlefield visits are worth a mention. Richmond is a large and modern city with a beautiful skyline as you drive in. It is undergoing great renewal in the CBD. We saw a huge modern edifice with Philip Morris emblazoned on it. Possibly it is the global headquarters of this company whose products must have killed more people than it is possible to imagine.

We didn't see much of Petersburg town, but Fredericksburg, just away from its battlefield, has a delightful and quaint historical district, full of life (University of Margaret Washington very close) and cafes, buildings in the English style (and one French, that we saw, right at the battlefield), and street names like Princess Anne, Prince Edward, George, Charles and William. A guide at the battlefield visitor centre told us of the Hyperion Cafe for cappucino, and we went there twice in two days (a record for us), so good was the coffee (ceramic cups!) and so cosy was the ambience [photo].

Thanks to excellent displays and short movies at visitor centres, informative exhibits at the actual war sites, and very clever reconstructions, we feel we know a lot more about the Civil War than we did before. We don't know that this sort of on-site historical representation of war battlefields is available in such volume anywhere else in the world - maybe the American treatment of its Civil War memory is quite unique?

As a final word, no matter what the war, no matter what the cause, the politicians are always to blame, and the tragic waste is always a deplorable testament to their failure!

Three Treats

The Skyline Drive through Shenandoah National Park is the northern extension of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and we did this stretch on a fine, sunny day, although it was partly overcast while we were up in the mountains. It's strange that these two roads are managed separately, although both by the National Park Service. The Skyline Drive even has a "toll", strictly a park entry fee, while the Parkway is free.

The views of the Shenandoah River valley on the west side of the ridge are panoramic, although a little bit hazy due to pollution even during winter. There was even less private traffic (virtually none) on the Skyline Drive than there was on the Parkway, possibly because it's through a wider National Park and does not have private property either side of the road, although we did see a number of service vehicles.

We took a side trip to New Market (lots of Civil War battlefields here) to visit another of Virginia's covered bridges. This one you can still drive over! It was called Meem's Bottom, after a landowning family nearby. It's quite a photogenic bridge and its inside structure
(single span Burr arch truss) is fascinating [photo]. The current bridge is a reconstruction, having been burned by vandals in 1976, and like other covered bridges, it now sits on concrete piers and steel beams. The Meem's bridge predecessors were burned in 1862 in the Civil War by the Confederate Army, and its replacement was washed away in a flood.

After the excursion to the Shenandoah valley, we raced back to Charlottesville to visit the home of Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, hence the writer of those famous words "all men are created equal" and have a right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". He obviously did not practice what he preached, because he operated the surrounding tobacco plantation using slave labour. Even though he condemned slavery, he participated in it.

Jefferson was a great philosopher but also a self taught architect, and he designed his home, "Monticello". We did a tour of the building [photo]. It's unfortunate that no photographs are allowed inside, because the house features magnificent European design, and some extraordinary innovations. Jefferson was not an inventor, but he freely adopted others' ideas to great effect in his house. The house has some skylights, double glazing, a fascinating built-in pendulum clock that he designed himself (the weights have to pass through a hole in the floor), dumb waiters for wine bottles built into the side of fireplaces, a turntable servery for food coming into the dining room, so that doors do not have to be opened (letting a draught in), double doors linked with underfloor bicycle chains etc. Possible the greatest innovation is a device used by Jefferson to make copies of all his writing (something like a pantograph?) - the first copying machine?

Jefferson's wife died in childbirth at a young age. He had one daughter with his wife, but it had long been rumoured that he fathered several children with one of his slaves. Jefferson never acknowledged this, but it has apparently been recently been confirmed using DNA analysis, and we note that photos of these children at Monticello are now accorded the surname "Jefferson".

Cool Music on the Blue Ridge Parkway

Our previous blogpost mentioned our first frustrating day on the Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP) when, due to road closures we regarded as unnecessary, we managed to only drive about 10 miles on the Parkway in the whole day (between Linville Falls and Blowing Rock). Since then, we have spent two more much more successful days driving the BRP, after getting back on it at Deep Gap near Boone. We had spent the night in this town, named after Daniel, the famous explorer and good all round mountain man, and we ate at Troy's, a classic American diner.

After two days, we arrived at Charlottesville VA at the northern end of the BRP, having done several hundred beautiful miles on it. The road closures in North Carolina persisted, and we hap to skip parts of the Parkway, but the posted closures in Virginia seem to have evaporated. The closed stretches may have been opened in the last day or so, and frankly, we could see no reason for the closures anyway, no ice, no snow and no signs of grading.

The first day was a sunny day, so we had beautiful views over the blue ridges of the mountains [photo]. The road is so peaceful at this time of year, we had it to ourselves, hardly seeing another vehicle, and no commercial vehicles are allowed on it, so no trucks. It is an absolute delight to drive, and the scenery, numerous overlooks, wildlife, and side trips are a real bonus. This road is so attractive, that it increases our distress at the inexplicable closures. After a night in Roanoke/Salem VA, the second day started clear but we had some rain and at the end there was a heavy fog, which only enhanced the beauty of the mountains, but didn't do anything for the long distance views! Banks of fog swept down from the peaks into the valleys.

Our enjoyment was enhanced by the very cool bluegrass music which was being transmitted around the Blue Ridge. A pleasant change from the rantings of shock-jocks on talk radio about the Presidential primaries!

The interesting thing is the "public" roads running near the BRP have villages and cabins as well as the traffic on them, and you can see them quite clearly from many places on the BRP. It is easy to pop off to see things and pop back on again.

The forest is made up of maple trees and firs, and there are rhododendrons growing freely, they must be a beautful sight in the spring when they are in flower. We made a few excursions on the walking tracks which are well marked and obviously well used in the summer when the parkway is heavily used. There are plenty of white tailed deer to see [photo] and we saw turkeys and birds, but no bears unfortunately.

One of the most interesting things along the way is the extremely photogenic Mabry Mill [photo], and a village set out in the style of the mountain people who lived in the area, in the early 1900's.

We made a detour into Floyd, to visit the General Store there: it is a place where music and dancing happens every Friday night. Although it was only Tuesday, we thought we would have a look in, but it is only open 4 days a week in winter, and we were out of luck. The best we could do was peer in the window, and look at the entertainment list for next Friday. Lots of Bluegrass music!

Another detour took us to see 3 covered bridges. There are only a handful in Virginia, and the 3 we saw (one from a distance, it's on private property) are well preserved and registered by the Historical Society, we were pleased to see [photo].

Another side trip took us into Buena Vista, a small town which looks as though it has fallen on very hard times. We had a nice chat to the lady in the cafe there, over lunch. She has entertainment in the cafe every 3rd Friday night. Live bands of course, and a variety of music. The purpose of this visit was to see the Country Store there, but to our dismay it had closed some time ago. The lady from the cafe said she hoped someone would get it going again someday, she seems to be thinking about it herself. This seemed very sad, we hope the town manages a comeback, it certainly is on the bluegrass trail and could do with an injection of visitors. We also met the policeman of this small town, just as he closed the road back to the Parkway because of a truck accident. He was very friendly and he told us of a secret alternative way back up the ridge which saved us many miles. The secret way was very steep and windy, but paved all the way - luckily no trucks use this road. Our Subaru handled it with aplomb.

Again we had cause to be disappointed with the commercial appropriation of natural scenic attractions. We didn't even bother to make the detour to Natural Bridge after reading that a stiff entry fee is charged, and realising that it would probably be closed and locked up anyway for winter.

Why are the attractions on this road closed in winter? Maybe it's because the road itself is not kept open reliably. There's a destructive circular argument in here somewhere - the attractions are closed because the road is not maintained because the attractions don't have enough visitors? Anyway, we were disappointed that the Linville Falls visitors centres, the Blue Ridge Music Centre, the Mabry Mill shop (although the site was still accessible), Virginia's Explore Centre (and the historical exhibits were behind locked gates), the Peaks of Otter visitors centre were all closed. No doubt others were closed too, but we didn't go in to find out. We feel there is enough winter traffic on the BRP to encourage more openings, and that this traffic would increase if they maintained the road. That said, we did thoroughly enjoy the relative solitude on the road! Luckily the Folk Art Centre visitors centre near Asheville NC was open, because this is where we got our best map of the Parkway.

Paris to USA

Charles de Gaulle airport proved to be no better going out than coming in, with only misleading signs pointing the way to incorrect queues for security and immigration checks. Snooty officials then tell you where to go. However, the American Airlines flight from Paris to New York JFK was, despite Mike's poor expectations, excellent, with a new aircraft, comfortable seats, good food, and best of all, very friendly cabin crew. The flight was over an hour late however due to (that classic unacceptable excuse), "late arrival of the incoming aircraft". The simplest way into New York City from JFK is on a shuttle bus which dropped us at Grand Central Terminal (only 100m from our hotel) along pretty terrible roads and freeways. This only cost $30 for the two of us. It's a comment on the state of the US Dollar, that this far amounts to less than half the fare for the same trip between Paris and the airport, the latter being maybe half the distance.

We spent a night in NYC before picking up our car, surprisingly exactly what we had booked, a Subaru (Legacy) and heading south as quickly as possible. We exited NYC via the Lincoln Tunnel and I95 south, and it's truly amazing how bad these very old roads are. They must be amongst the earliest "freeways" built under Eisenhower's post war plan, and they haven't been updated an iota ever since. It's a shame that America's premier city has such poor road infrastructure on its boundaries.

We left NY via New Jersey, without stopping as most of it was industrial, and soon reached the next state, Delaware. Rehoboth Beach, where we spent the night, was a delightful seaside town, and was very quiet at this time of year. We could tell by the myriads of beach houses, restaurants, and tourist facilities, that in the summer this place bursts at the seams. At Outback Steakhouse where we had dinner, we looked with interest at the other diners, including the young man who was eating his big steak absolutely raw! The next morning we headed off into Maryland and the town of Ocean City, much high rise here, and we do mean high rise, blocks and blocks of it like the Gold Coast. Obviously a very popular place to spend the summer, many people from Washington DC come here for a vacation. The interesting thing were the many canals on the west (non-ocean) side of the road, a huge inland waterway. Houses here all have a bit of water at their back yard.

Afternoon saw us arrive in Virginia, and the interesting town of Chincoteague. The whole area on this Atlantic Coast, has magnificent beaches and lots of low lying marshy areas, filled with bird life and deer. We noted with interest the sign outside the motel, "Hunters Welcome", and thought no more of it until we saw several pickup truck loads of them with lots of "dead things" in bags. Apparently it is hunting season here now, even in the State Park where we spent the afternoon, a little nervously, and saw some birds and lovely white-tailed dear. The coastline here is magnificent, and although it was not too cold, the weather pattern is still very mild for the time of year, it was windy, so a lovely salt mist spread along the coast. A highlight of this area is the Assateague Lighthouse which shines out over the Atlantic Ocean - we can see this lighthouse flashing from our motel in Chincoteague.