9/4/15 - Blackstone, VA

After breakfast this morning we drove into Richmond.  We went on a tour of the White House of the Confederacy where Jefferson Davis and his family lived during the Civil War.  No pictures were allowed inside the house.  Then we went to the Museum of the Confederacy next door.  We walked over to the Virginia State Capitol.  The building dates back to the 1790s and the design was conceived by Thomas Jefferson.  It was recently renovated and expanded and they did a beautiful job.  There is a famous life size statue of George Washington in the rotunda.  The state government of Virginia is the oldest legislative body in the western hemisphere -- it dates back to 1619.  

After touring the capitol we went to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.  They had one of the Faberge Easter eggs made for Czar Nicholas of Russia.  Next door to it was the Confederate Memorial Chapel -- it had some pretty stained glass windows.  Then we drove to Hollywood Cemetery.  We had 20 minutes to find three graves in this large cemetery before it closed and we managed to do it without a map of the graves.  The first stop was at Jefferson Davis’ grave and then we stopped at James Monroe's and John Tyler’s graves.  Near the cemetery was Triple Crossing Brewery so we went there and had a beer.  On the way back to the Casita there was Extra Billy’s BBQ and Brewery, so we stopped there and had a beer also.  We got back to camp at 10 pm and I fixed a quick supper.  We finally went to bed around midnight.