Friday, 8 March 2019
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| today's route |
Prince William Forest Park
I just spent 5 days at a concession campground inside Prince William Forest Park and hadn't really set foot in the park, so I thought I'd better rectify that before I left the vicinity. The campground is on the north side of the park, while the park's entrance is on the south side. The park has a "scenic drive" that's about 12 miles long and, because the weather today is lousy, I figured the drive would be good enough to show me the park's assets.
The brochure I'd picked up about the park said it's the largest example of a piedmont forest ecosystem in the national park system. Which is great, except I didn't know what a piedmont forest is. Turns out it's got a lot of deciduous trees. I know because what I saw on the scenic drive was a scene of gray and tan - gray skies with intermittent snowflakes and tan tree trunks and tan dead leaves covering the ground - with occasional snatches of green - evergreens and green moss growing by the creeks.
Piedmont literally means foot of the mountain (Italian, isn't it?) and is the area between the Appalachian Mountains and the Atlantic Coastal Plain. In this particular forest, a sign told me the predominant trees were white oak, tulip poplar and American beech. If you want more information, I'm adding this link to the National Park Service website. www.nps.gov/prwi/nature
The drive consisted of a 2-lane road with no hint of a shoulder, hills and serious s-curves. The park people expected most of the road traffic would be bicyclists, though there's one section that's lined out for 1-way cars and a 2-way bike lane. There were several cyclists there when I visited, and I'm here to tell you those folks are tough and dedicated: I don't think you could pay me enough to ride a bike in snow and wind gusts, let alone on those very serious hills.
I spent 2 years living in Cordova, Alaska, which is on Prince William Sound where the Exxon Valdez created that massive oil spill. As a result, I've had a hard time these last few days even thinking the name of the campground I was in without trying to squeeze in the word "sound" - e.g. Prince William [Sound] Forest Park Campground.
Virginia countryside
I left the park and drove south toward Richmond, driving along a lot of hills and very large farms. I'm guessing grain fields of some kind, because they're so big and open. I started passing horse farms, one with a dozen horses outside wearing rugs, and one farm that was for sale, along with its big blue horse barn.
The snow really started coming down, but nothing was sticking because it was a few degrees warmer than freezing (apparently wind chill doesn't count for anybody but people).
Virginia's got 4 peninsulas, all sticking into the Chesapeake. Working north to south, we have first the part of the Delmarva Peninsula that's Virginia; then there's what Virginians call the Northern Neck, defined by the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers; then there's the Middle Peninsula between the Rappahannock and York Rivers; and finally the Lower Peninsula, aka Virginia Peninsula, aka Hampton Roads Peninsula, that lies between the York and James Rivers. This last is the one Williamsburg, Jamestown, Yorktown, Newport News, and Hampton are on.
But I was aiming first for the bit of the Northern Neck closest to Fredericksburg.
Pres. James Madison's birthplace
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| Belle Grove Plantation B&B |
Belle Grove Plantation was the home of Madison's mother's parents, and she was staying with them when he was born.
His father lived in Orange County near Charlottesville, and Madison himself ended up settling there at Montpelier. I'd like to visit there when I'm in that part of the state.
Belle Grove today is a bed&breakfast and had a "closed" sign on the front gate, which is why my photo above is from such a distance. I got there too early to take a tour and didn't want to hang around for a couple of hours just for that.
More Virginia countryside
I had hoped I'd find a situation either at Belle Grove or before there or soon after there where the critters and I could stop for lunch, or at least to get out and walk around a bit. Alas. It had taken an hour and a half to get this far - probably because of the forest scenic drive - and suddenly I couldn't find anywhere to stop. No parks or shopping centers or rest areas or anything. So I kept driving - and it took another 45 minutes.
Belle Grove is a few yards from Port Royal, on the other side of the Rappahannock River. If I tell you that in the 2000 census Port Royal had a population of 170, and in 2010 it had 126, you may get the picture. A gas station and a few other buildings (mostly decrepit) seem to be all that's left: it was established a few hundred years ago as a port city at the head of the Rappahannock, used by tobacco farmers to export their product. It was on the stage line and was a thriving place. But that was then.
Not far outside of town I saw a historical marker saying that 2 miles south of that spot was the farm where John Wilkes Booth was captured and killed by Union soldiers in 1865.
A few more miles down the road lies Fort A.P. Hill, "An Army Community of Excellence," they say. It belongs to the US Army and is used by all branches of the military for arms training and maneuvers. That lies just outside of Bowling Green (VA) and I still hadn't found any place to stop. When the road I was on got close to I-95, I finally found some businesses and pulled into an Arby's, which was the first place I saw. To rent a parking space I patronized the business and realized it'd been a very long time since I was last in an Arby's; their menu has expanded dramatically. Because my name's fairly common, I've started using Momma's name to be called to pick up my order. And the nice young woman at the counter couldn't spell Barbara. And after she struggled for a bit, I suggested Jane, which is the name Momma always gave instead of her own. Jane worked.
I couldn't figure out if this Arby's was just catering to highway customers or whether there was a nearby town, but they were doing a roaring business, with a stream of cars for the whole hour I was there (including dog-walking time).
I've started noticing a few trees with white buds on them. It just seems odd because today is pretty clearly still winter to me. The wind's been picking up (and picking the RV up too) so the wind chill must be down around freezing. But they're promising it'll get better later in the week.
Which reminds me, the predicted dates for the peak of the Washington, DC, cherry blossoms are April 3-6 this year. They showed on the morning news the other day that there are tightly furled buds already showing on the trees, and they apparently have the bloom date down to a science.
Which also reminds me, while I was in the DC TV viewing district, there was a lot of drama over Liberty and Justice, a pair of Bald Eagles that have nested for 14 years at the same place in DC, and there's a camera trained on it all the time. During the 4 weeks I was in western Maryland and northern Virginia, poor Justice got driven off by a younger male (named Aaron Burrd); but then Burrd left and Liberty left too. (The city was breathless, worrying about the next act.) Then Justice came back and everybody worried that maybe Liberty was gone for good, but suddenly she showed back up too and now they seem to be happily back together. (I think people figured it was more palatable drama than the drama taking place non-stop in the city below.)
Lower Peninsula
When I skirted Richmond and hit I-64, which leads ultimately to Norfolk, I started noticing that all the highway exits have arms on them like you'd see at a railroad crossing. There are also arms where those side roads enter the highway. I'm assuming they're deployed when the road that the exit leads to is closed, or when the highway is closed, but I couldn't find any explanation online. I guess I need to find a Virginian to tell me. It just seemed odd to me because it must have cost the state a lot of money to have one of those arms at every entrance and every exit to an interstate highway, and I can't think of any reason that would justify such an expense.
Something that was clogging the highway was road construction that stretched for miles and miles. They had so many of those big orange and white striped barrels along the road that I'm betting someone in charge of highway contracts has a brother in the highway barrel business. Virginia was using the barrels the way everybody else uses cones, and I'm now in a position to tell you that cones are easier to see, block less of the roadway, and are easier to maneuver around. I had puh-lenty of miles to figure it out.
Online mapping said it'd take me 3 hours to do this drive; add on an hour for lunch and an hour for the scenic drive and view of the plantation, and I figured I'd be here in less than 5 hours. It actually took us more than 6 and I was bushed for some reason. (Probably dodging all those barrels.)
But we made it and this seems to be a nice campground.
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