Virginia and New Orleans 1998

On Labor Day, Zach and Paul Velker ran a10K race, which is billed as the toughest 10K in America, and probably is. The race started at am and our plane left for VA at noon. Zach barely made it home in time but we did make our flight. We flew into Richmond, picked up the car and headed west. Our first stop was Appomattox. The village is almost unchanged since Lee's surrender and the McClellan house still has the table on which Lee signed the surrender document. In fact, the room is set exactly as it was on the surrender day. From there it was off to Natural Bridge and the Shenandoah Valley. The
Natural Bridge is one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. Besides admiring the Bridge we hiked the trail that runs along the stream that runs under Natural Bridge. Got that! George Washington's initials are carved at the bottom of the Bridge from the time he was surveying the area.

We spend the night in a wonderful Hampton Inn (Did they say Hampton Inn? That's right). It had been converted from an old mansion into a Hampton Inn and retained much of the original charm. It had the look and the feel of a B&B. Lexington is the home of VMI and Washington and Lee University. For our run that morning we ran around town and through both schools. Lexington has a lot of charm and is a very nice town. From there we went to Luray Caverns, the largest caverns in the east.
How are caverns different from caves? We don't know. The caverns had an amazing variety of rock formations; flows, columns, stalactites, and, stalagmites. We spent most of the afternoon driving down the Blue Ridge Parkway toward Charlottesville. In Charlottesville, we visited Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello, the same one on the back of a nickel.

Then it was on to Richmond where Zach was working with the IRS for 3 days. Cathy spent her days exploring the town and in the evenings we found some nice restaurants. One afternoon we decided to run to the park which housed the zoo and several historic buildings and monuments. We found out all the streets were not on the map we were using as our guide. So, an hour and forty minutes later we finally returned to our hotel. When Zach finished with the IRS, we took the plantation highway to Colonial Williamsburg. Besides visiting Williamsburg and enjoying our run through the colonial streets, we visited Jamestown, and Yorktown. We thought Yorktown much nicer than Williamsburg because it was not as commercialized. We finished our visit at the one, the only, the colossal Williamsburg Pottery. We returned home Saturday night and had enough time on Sunday to wash clothes, cut grass, and repack our bags for our departure on Monday morning for New Orleans.

In New Orleans, Zach was again working with the IRS. During the days Cathy explored the city. We did stay over several extra days. We made daily visits to Bourbon St, the French Quarter, and Jackson Square. We rode the trolley through the Garden District, where many fine old homes are located.We rode on a real steamship on the Mississippi River. One day we went running off toward the zoo and ran so far we had to catch a trolley back to the hotel. The week after we left the city was threatened by Hurricane Georges and had quite a lot of rain.