North V South (Carolina)

When we left Front Royal, Pierre and I decided to go to South Carolina, Charleston to be exact...so off we went...that’s the beauty of RVing.. you can just decide to change it up and head anywhere! We stopped in Richmond, North Carolina for about a week to see the area... we stayed in Petersburg, it’s kinda outside of Richmond, because I wanted to go to Norfolk too. (We never made it to Norfolk 😕)...The Petersburg area has quite a history, in that more battles were fought here during the Civil war than anywhere else! At the time of the Civil War Petersburg was the second-largest city in Virginia...after the capital Richmond, and the seventh-largest city in the Confederacy. Now...amid the Civil War Petersburg was key to Union plans to capture the Confederate capital Richmond, because of the railway system! Many of the trenches that they dug can still be seen at the Petersburg National Battlefield 

Richmond is teeming with its own history as well, it is the capital of Virginia, and it is among America’s oldest major cities. Patrick Henry, a U.S. Founding Father, famously declared “Give me liberty or give me death” at its St. John's Church in 1775, helping to ignite the Revolutionary War. 

It’s a beautiful city with tons of murals painted on the old buildings. Pierre and I spent two days just walking and driving around the city, we took a boat ride downtown, along the James River and that took us thru Tobacco Row!

Tobacco was a major export of Richmond Virginia and there are many tobacco warehouses and cigarette factories along the James River, so it is called Tobacco Row. Beginning in the 18th century, many growers and shippers of Virginia's major cash crop of tobacco maintained facilities there. Substantial multistory brick buildings were constructed to protect the tobacco from loss due to fire. 

The area was vacated by the tobacco companies in the late 80’s and it fell into disrepair. This area also flooded a lot, being so close to the James River so in 1995 after the City completed the James River Flood Wall, developers rushed in and snapped up the old buildings, turning them into loft apartments, condo and office space! 

We took a day to go to Jamestown Settlement, you can take the ferry to the island..what fun⛴

Jamestown Settlement started off with tons of bad luck...first the settlers arrived in Virginia during a severe drought and this affected the colonist ability to produce food and obtain a safe supply of water, that and with the fact that the settlers arrived too late in the year to get crops planted, so in just a few months, eighty percent of the settlers were dead. 

They needed help bad and so England sent some ships to help them, but these ships ran into a hurricane and they were shipwrecked on Bermuda, poor Jamestown seemed doomed! While help was stranded in Bermuda, the colony at Jamestown got in even worse shape, they called this the “Starving Time”.. 1609 thru 1610, the Jamestown settlers faced rampant starvation for want of additional provisions. During this time, lack of food drove people to eat snakes, rats, dogs, horses and even boil the leather from shoes for some sort of sustenance. Only 60 of the original 214 settlers at Jamestown survived. There is scientific evidence that the settlers at Jamestown had turned to cannibalism during the starving time. Ugh! 

after the ships arrived with provisions the colonist started to do better, but things with the local Indians started to get worse and worse, now, one of the colonists who arrived with the food and supplies was John Rolfe, and he carried with him a cache of untested new tobacco seeds from Bermuda, which had grown wild there after being planted by shipwrecked Spaniards years before. Rolfe began to grow and harvest tobacco in Jamestown and he became successful and wealthy. Now the relationship between the Indians at this time was still very unsettled and with that he married Pocahontas, she was the daughter of the chief and this brought several years of peace between the English and natives.

Pocahontas, she became the thing of legends!

Jamestown Settlement was thought to be lost due to the flooding of the river, but with the buying and selling of the property and people digging around there, they started to uncover Jamestown! Today it is an active archaeologist dig, and archaeologists are finding out more and more about how these people lived and died. they have uncovered whole skeletons and a quite few skulls, some of them they have named!

"JR"

This is "JR" named for the Jamestown Rediscovery, they found out that he was a young European male and they even know how he died, he died of a gunshot wound to his leg. The bone still carried the bullet and fragments of lead, his leg showed no signs of surgery, infection or healing suggesting that this traumatic injury led to his immediate death. 

"Jane"

  These remains of a cannibalized "Starving Time" victim were recently found. They know little about her other than she was English and about 14 years old. This is a facial reconstruction based on her skull. Along with "JR's" reconstruction we can come face to face with these two people and see what they looked like when they arrived in Jamestown. this was so cool and we had a great time, along with learning alot about Jamestown Settlement!

Underground in Front Royal Virginia

Tucked away among the hills and valleys in and near the Shenandoah National Park and the Great Valley of Virginia, is Front Royal, originality called LeHewtown, after Peter LeHew, a French Huguenot who purchased 200 acres here in 1758, it was later incorporated as Front Royal November 15, 1788. 

We wanted to drive the Skyline drive and see some of the Shenandoah National Park.  Skyline drive is a 105-mile road, that has 75 overlooks providing spectacular views of the Shenandoah Valley, this road runs the entire length of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. 

Pierre and I took a couple of days to see some of the local attractions, one that intrigued me was Skyline Caverns. The caverns were discovered by Walter S. Amos, in December 1937, he was a retired geologist and mineralogist from Winchester Va. and the caverns are estimated to be approximately 50 to 60 million years old! I have never been underground in a cavern so I was apprehensive.. to say the least...when I was scuba diving I did one cave dive and I was not impressed... when we got there, we were the only ones for the next hour tour, so we has the guide to ourselves and our guide was fabulous, impressive and educational. She was real good with me, because I was feeling a bit panicky...but once we started on the tour I calmed down and became fascinated with the whole experience! It stays a a balmy 58 degrees all the time in the caverns, regardless of the weather above...so I had to wear a jacket! There were stalagmites, these are formed on the ground and they might reach the top....stalactites, these are form from the top and stay tight on the ceiling...get it? But of course, the highlight of these caverns is the Anthodites, Anthodites are an unusual form of six-sided crystalline structures made of pure calcite. They were beautiful, and Skyline Caverns is one of the few places in the world where this type of formation can be seen.   

Whether it's your first time underground, like me or you're an expert, these caverns are a must see..if you are up in this area!

Because we had so much fun in Skyline Caverns we decided to do the Luray Caverns also, they are located in Luray Virginia, About an hour drive. I felt comfortable that I could do these caverns too! Luray Caverns were first discovered in 1878 and these caverns were a lot different than the Skyline Caverns in that the walkway was quite large and I thought that took away some of the natural feel, and there were so many people, we were in a group of about 50 people, so I couldn’t hear a word our guide said, but that’s ok, the caverns were breathtaking and wonderful, the amount of stalagmites and stalactites were incredible, and when you think of the time it takes for these form its mind blowing....Skyline Caverns were cold, but these we warmer and I didn’t even need a jacket!