Richmond

I saw on the news today that they might charge more on plane flights to not get the middle seat. I never realized how bad it was until this flight to Richmond. I was in the middle seat between a couple of big guys. It was in my long flight that was almost four hours. It was bad. They weren't hugely overweight, just big. And if you are that big, I at least should have the arm rests and you don't have to have your legs spread out. It was awful.

Anyway, I drove into Richmond and parked in the parking garage of the Richmond Library. It was the only free place I could find. I thought I would hang out there a little bit, then go do some other stuff. Basically use them for their parking space. I did that and when I got back saw a sign in which they pretty much said not to do that. Oops. I did buy some things at a gift shop they had to assuage my guilt.

Here are the day's tour highlights:

• I first saw the church were Jefferson Davis was on a Sunday morning when he got word he had to leave the city because the Union troops were breaking through. 
• I went to the capital building. They've added wings so it doesn't look like it did during the Civil War, but its the same building. It was filled with kids on school tours. I'm sure their highlights will be the bus trip and what they each ate at McDonalds. I sat in on part of one of the presentations - Just enough to hear the speaker tell them some stuff that was wrong. Its fine. They probably weren't listening anyway. 
• Jefferson Davis' house which is called the White House of the Confederacy. It was cool with a knowledgeable tour guide. I knew that one of Davis' children died in a fall from the house. I saw that place. That is a little morbid, but it is interesting to see places that I had heard about.
• Edgar Allen Poe Museum. He was born there. It wasn't in his actual house, which is gone now, but it is in the oldest existing house in Richmond. It wasn't super cool, but nearby, so worth it. 
• Hollywood Cemetery. You know I love cemeteries filled with famous people. Like most cemeteries, the roads there were really curvy. Someone once described them as the Candyland of Death. Anyway Presidents Monroe and Tyler, Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Confederate Generals J.E.B. Stuart and Pickett, and a Supreme Court member. Cool.
• Several Civil War battle sites around Richmond. More on that another time.

A big, tiring, but fun day.