Leaving Richmond

Photos

Here is today's itinerary while I have free time. I may come back later and flesh this out.  Hopefully Clay will add his photos.

We were up early again. Today because I woke up hollering with a nightmare at 5:30am. Breakfast didn't start until 7am. It was good but a bit different today. We both made waffles.

8:45am checkout and load bus
9am bus departs for Valentine Museum to pick up local guide
9:30am bus tour of Richmond, Hollywood Cemetery, Main St. Station and railroad triple cross
11:30am return to Valentine Museum to drop off local guide and return to Staples Mill Rd. area for lunch (we dropped at both McDonalds and Wendys from 11:45am to 12:45pm)
1pm Arrive Amtrak Station at Staples Mill Road
1:34pm board Amtrak #79 for return trip
5:30pm or so disembark train in Cary

We're home safe and tired! So, some updates and variations to the scheduled itinerary. First, the big bus we'd be on for 2 days did not appear. A small bus showed up! Not enough room for us all + our luggage. We left the luggage at the motel and it rejoined us later at the train station. It worked out but caused some stress. We had not packed to have our luggage left behind and handled.  Next we completely dropped Hollywood Cemetery from the tour without explanation or comment. We didn't really see the Main St. Station though we drove past it. We walked a bit along the canal from last night to check out the railroad triple cross and the flood wall as well as the sculpture of the Box that a slave had himself shipped out of Richmond. We'd seen all that from the canal cruise yesterday and it was a closer look. Today we also learned that the ground level train tracks of the triple cross have not been used since some time in the 1950s! Technically, it seems like that makes it a double cross to me...

We had normal seats today on the Amtrak Carolinian and enjoyed the ride back. What a difference! We had about 14 inches of leg room each today vs. the 10.5 inches that we shared with the passenger facing us on the ride to Richmond. Also, it helped that today's train was on time!

It was a jam packed trip but we enjoyed it. We still enjoyed the old NCTM trips when they used vintage cars instead of just traveling in Amtrak coach. Oh well.