Hot History

OK, they're not at all related - but more history today and it was hot again.  I started the day with a flat tire, so that ensured that I was tail-end Charlie for a while.  Couldn't find anything in the tire so here's hoping it doesn't recur.  

The first 10-ish miles was negotiating our way out of Richmond.  There are some nice looking historic areas, but we stayed in a pretty seedy area and saw quite a few areas going in yesterday and out today that were pretty run down. Once out of town we were on nice country roads.  There didn't seem to be quite as much agriculture as the past few days. More undeveloped lands and forests, some horse farms and some rural residential. We are more inland now, so more rolling hills, especially down to little bridges over small creeks and rivers and then (sometimes steeply) back up the other side. At about 17 miles we came to the cute little town of Ashland. They had some ornaments out that we bikers seem to be attracted to. 

They had a nice little area set up outside the public library. One of the monuments proclaims Ashland to be the Center of the Universe. Well - I guess ya gotta dream big. 

And on yesterday's theme of "biggest", "best", "fastest", etc. I had to take a picture of the sign below because it took two lines to make their point.  

We were greeted by horses at roadside

and saw some nicely fenced farms that I'm sure had horses hiding out somewhere.  

Some pretty country roads with some "terrain features"

and some farms that had been there a lonnnnnng time.

It has been a few days now since we've seen any palm trees, so we must be making some northern progress.  It had also been a few days since we had seen any logging trucks, but there were a few out there today.  I'm assuming the fields below had been logged.  In any case, they were a mess.......

Just a short way off the route was the Stonewall Jackson Shrine.  With a  title like that how could I resist?  Apparently he had been injured, had a limb amputated, was brought here to recover but died of pneumonia instead (or something like that).  

As we came into Fredericksburg, we rode about 3 miles on beautifully treed Lee Dr - the site of more Civil War battles and close to Robert E Lee's headquarters.  I took a detour in Fredericksburg to visit the Fredericksburg Battlefield grounds and visitor centre and the Fredericksburg National Cemetery.  There are over 15,000 Union soldiers buried there and only about 3,000 were ever identified.  

I've never really had much interest in American history, but when you're riding right by and standing right on the fields of battle I somehow become much more curious.  I probably have the numbers wrong, but there were something like 8,000 casualties in Fredericksburg over 3 days - yikes!  Total deaths in the Civil War (which lasted from 1861 until 1865) - 700,000.  Holy cow!  Once again, they've done a great job of preserving and presenting the story.  

Here's a house, belonging to regular citizens at the time, that still has the bullet  holes in the walls.

 A few more miscellaneous shots from the battle grounds.......

Stats for the day:

120 km from Richmond VA to Fredericksburg VA.  Hot & humid.  Temps from 20C to 34C.  Amped up the climbing today.  3100 feet of uphill including more than a few climbs of double-digit grade.