Friday, July 3, 2009
We got up early and had our breakfast at the Holiday Inn Express Hotel and hit the road for the 10 hour trip back to Washington DC. We drove back to West Virginia and then this time took the "southern route" from Charleston to Lexington Virginia. Charleston is the capitol of West Virgina and we saw the state capitol dome as we drove by on the freeway. West Virginia is very beautiful from the freeway. We stopped at a craft center near Beckley where they have WV crafts on display and for sale. We then drove on into Virginia and pulled off the freeway to tour Virgina Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington Virgina. VMI is where Stonewall Jackson was a professor before the American Civil War. (See picture above with Jackson Statute) He is buried there and they filmed part of the movie "Gods and Generals" there. Robert E Lee is also buried in Lexington, Virginia. as he was the President of Washington and Lee College after the war. In 1864 the North burned down VMI as a military target.From Lexington Virginia we headed up the Shenandoah Valley back to Washington DC. The Shenandoah Valley was the scene of many battles of the Civil War and was hotly contested by both the North and the South. Our daughter dislikes my driving and as a type A personality likes to do all the driving; but, she became tired and let me drive from the Virginia border up to near Washington. She then took over because she knows her way around Washington DC and has learned to drive like a native. When she drives I have learned to keep my mouth shut and just hang on! Actually she is very skilled in that type of traffic which this "country boy" is not. We arived back at her condo and went to bed early to get ready for a Capitol 4th of July!
