Virginia - Day 18 - First Landing Park and Smithfield ham

Richmond North/Kings Dominion KOA, Doswell
Monday, 18 March 2019

today's route

Today I changed locations and moved back up to the Richmond area.  I first went up the road along the coast that I'd intended to go on yesterday that had been blocked off by the marathon.

The road changes its name from General Booth Blvd. to Pacific Ave. to Atlantic Ave. (can't figure out where it is?) and then around the curve to Shore Dr., though it's not along the shore.  And it's not along the shore because Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek has claimed the entire end chunk of the land along there.  The road runs through Virginia Beach residential areas, but a lot of the houses are on inland bays of water.  A lot of the area reminded me of Orlando with New England style beach housing.  And at Shore Dr., the road ran through another cypress swamp.

First Landing State Park

Cape Henry Lighthouse

The Visitor Center is reached off Shore Dr. but the key historic sites that justify the name of this park are actually on the military base.  I was told that if I wanted to visit, I'd have to park, be checked through the gate, and ride a shuttle bus to the sites. 

And those sites consist of: (1) the probable landing site of people who'd been sailing across the Atlantic from England, touching land for the first time, before moving up the coast and establishing Jamestown; (2) Cape Henry Lighthouse. 

I would have actually liked to see the second one: it's the 4th oldest in the US, it was the first authorized by Pres. Washington after the Revolutionary War, and it's built of brick.  I haven't seen a brick lighthouse so far but didn't want to bother with the park-leave-the-RV-and-critters-take-the-shuttle-bus-to-and-from routine.  Another trip.

interesting comment on American capitalism

The Visitor Center seems primarily the office for a campground and multiple hiking trails, but it also has a nice little exhibit and several brochures about the Native Americans and early settlers in this region.




The park itself was created by an African-American group of the CCC, and this is the first time I remember hearing there was such a thing.  Being white I have previously managed to space out the question of segregation in the CCC.  They built the roads and cabins here 1933-40, and the park was opened in 1936.  Oddly, it closed in 1954 to resist court-ordered desegregation, then reopened in 1961.  It is apparently heavily used today.

I got the following information from the Visitor Center's exhibit:

• By the time the settlers arrived, Powhatan had built an empire covering the tribes throughout the lower Chesapeake Bay; it included about 20,000 Native Americans.
• In the early 1600s, Powhatan's priests foretold that his empire would be destroyed by people coming from the east.  Powhatan interpreted that to mean the Chesapeake tribe living in today's Norfolk and Virginia Beach, and he nearly wiped them out.
• Oops.  Wrong foe.  By the end of the 1600s, there were fewer than 1,000 Natives left in Tidewater Virginia.
• The Natives had met other Europeans before, none of whom were interested in settling down.  They'd been exploring the Chesapeake Bay since the 1520s.  When this batch explored up the James River, they met other of Powhatan's villages, but none saw the newcomers as a threat because they'd always moved on in the past.
• The Natives of that time had no written language so the story we know is entirely from the European point of view.

Smithfield
The town of Smithfield was incorporated in 1752; their slogan is "Ham, History & Hospitality."  Which seems to cover it.

The marker shown in the left photo sits in front of the building on the right, and explains some of the history of Smithfield and the building.  Behind the marker is a view down Main Street.  You can see that this isn't exactly a cosmopolitan place.  Just beyond what you can see is the shop where they sell authentic Smithfield hams.

I'd heard that the traditional hams are very salty and was afraid even salt-loving me would find the taste too much.  I ended up getting a small boneless brown sugar ham and a couple of hickory smoked ham steaks, all of which were on sale (yea!).  The regular hams were big and expensive, too much of a commitment for someone living alone in an RV.

Farther down the street the other way I saw a sign for Wharf Hill Brewery.  I didn't go down to check it out, and now that I've seen their website, I'm sorry I didn't.  These folks have a sense of humor, along with their sense of history.   http://wharfhillbrewing.com/

Around the corner I saw Trinity United Methodist Church (very popular Methodist name), with a sign saying it was founded in 1812.  And still going strong, apparently.

Back on the road

shows a set of chimneys

As I was rounding a curve I passed a historical marker titled "Bacon's Castle."  There was no way I could stop, or even go back, so I've looked it up.  Turns out it can be visited and is noted for its High Jacobean architecture and triple stacked chimneys.

view of the "castle"

When I did a little more digging, though, I found an odd description by the National Park Service of Bacon's role in American history, and actually an event I don't remember ever hearing of.  nps.gov/bacons-rebellion 

I drove through the town of Surry, established 1797.  It occurred to me the other day that it'll seem odd when I get to states like Wyoming where written history is a couple of centuries newer.

Spring is really starting to show.  I saw lots of blooming japonica and forsythia today.

I passed miles and miles of undeveloped land.  Some of it looked to me like it had once been cleared of trees for farming, but is certainly not being used recently.  I wouldn't have expected to see so much rural land in Eastern Virginia.

I crossed the James River again, this time on the Enon Bridge on I-295.

You might think from this photo that it wouldn't be one of my favorites, and you'd be right.  As soon as I saw what it looked like, I moved over to the center lane and figured everybody else could just go around me.  Except they were doing construction in the middle of the bridge so a stretch of the fast lane was blocked off, and I ended up being in what became the fast lane.  And I just stayed there till I got across.  The bridge is 150' above the water and that outside wall looks pretty low to me.  I just wasn't taking a chance.

The farther away from southeastern VA I got, and the closer to Richmond I got, the more traffic I saw, and the more semis passed me.  I'm reminded once again that if you don't mind traveling a lot, driving a semi is the field for employment.  They're desperately looking for drivers, all over the country.

This campground is about 25 miles north of Richmond and is very strategically located for some tastes: it's about half a mile from Kings Dominion, an enormous amusement park, in one direction and in the other direction the Meadow Event Park, which hosts the annual State Fair, horse shows and other events.  It's also the birthplace of 1973 Triple Crown winner Secretariat, a fact that earned it a National Historic designation.  And the campground's not all that far from a NASCAR raceway.  I'll bet during the season they pack folks in here like sardines.

Right now, though, it's nearly empty.  By suppertime, there're only about a dozen of us here.  And, as I've seen campground offices do time and again, they put me right by 4 of them.  When I asked for a shade more space, they gave me the pick of a bunch of other sites that had the water pipes heat-taped.  Nice people.