Richmond

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Clay woke me at triple nickels this morning. I had to try to figure out what the hell he was talking about since  I asked him to wake me at 6:30am. After I asked, he told me it was 5:55am. He was so pleased with himself I just shut up and rolled with it. Better an early start than a late one.

The Comfort Suites room is huge. There is a living room entrance with a coffee/microwave/fridge area across from a big single sink bathroom. It has a shower over tub. Through a door is a large bedroom with 2 double beds, a chest of drawers, a bedside table, TV, desk and chair and 2 lamps. There is a window over a parking lot. It includes a complete complimentary breakfast buffet. No complaints whatsoever except for it being 15 miles north of Richmond with nothing in walking distance.

Here is today's proposed itinerary as I have time now and later I may be exhausted.

6 to 8:15am breakfast
8:30am bus departs for VA State Capitol and Capitol Square
9am arrive
10:45am City Hall Observation deck for views
11:30am bus departs for American Civil War Museum
noon Box lunch from Garnett's at picnic area of National Park Service
12:45pm divide into 2 groups at ACWM for guided tour of museum and NPS visitor center of Historic Tredegar
2:30pm bus to VA Museum of History & Culture and VA Museum of Fine Arts. They are in the same block and we are free to visit either or both untill 5pm. The art museum we are told has the largest Faberge collection outside Russia.
5pm bus to Riverfront Historic Canal Cruise
5:30pm cruise
7pm Explore Shockhoe Slip area and dinner on our own
9pm bus back to Comfort Suites in Glen Allen

Sounds like a full day! I'll post this and come back and edit it if needed. As before I'll hope Clay will attach photo slideshows.

I'm back after 9pm. I have some updates. We were expected at the VA State Capitol and had a private guided tour. It was fabulous. VA has a new underground visitors center to enter the Capitol and NC should take a lesson! Even more impressive was that Vice-President Mike Pence was visiting Richmond today campaigning and even though all the streets around the Capitol had barricades and police and Secret Service, the folks at the Capitol had let them know we were expected and on the 2nd pass when we pulled up and asked a police man, he told us where to go and they'd lower the barricade to admit us and they did!

City Hall Observation Deck was closed today. There were 2 cranes working at the top of the building so we don't know it was closed for work or because of Pence and the attendant security. In any event,, we wound up instead at the Richmond Railroad Museum instead. They had opened early today expecting a scheduled group who did not arrive and were happy to welcome us instead. They gave us guided tours again here!

We also were honored by a special treatment at the VA Museum of History where we got guided highlights tours and a special presentation. They took some special NC related artifacts out of the vault to share with us only. They had a George Washington journal/diary that they opened to his entry about visiting NC. It was a special touch.

We had a so-so dinner at Sine Irish Pub. It was a convenient walk from the bus drop/pickup.

The rest of the day went as scheduled except that we ended at loading the bus back to the motel at 8:30pm for 9pm arrival back. It was a long day.

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