Sunday, July 18, 2021- Chancellorsville

     Today's plan was to get to Petersburg by 1:00 when the city museums open and try to see as many of the old places where Scott used to work as we could, starting with Blandford Church.   We got a late start yesterday and didn't get as far as we had hoped when we called it a night, but we were rolling again by 7:30 am this morning and figured we'd easily be in Petersburg by 1:00.  We were making good time and even had a relaxing stop at the Maryland Welcome Center at South Mountain.  We had never stopped there before, but discovered it had a playground where Abby could stretch her legs, climb and slide for a little while.

     The trouble came when we turned south off of the Washington beltway onto I-95.  Scott read that Richmond was a little over 90 miles away and made the joke that "Richmond was a hard road to travel." (A reference to a Civil War era song.)  He probably jinxed us because it was about then that traffic really became bad.  It's always bad around Washington and Northern Virginia, but we had hopes that since it was Sunday morning, it wouldn't be that bad.   It was slow enough that around Dumfries we decided to get off of 95 and drive on Route 1 (the "Jefferson Davis Highway") for a little ways.  We looked for a good time to get back onto the expressway, but just found that it was still backed-up and slow moving.  By the time had a lunch break and made it as far as Fredericksburg, Scott decided to call an audible and go with Plan B.  He took us to the Fredericksburg National Battlefield Visitor Center, which was also one we hadn't been to since we lived in Virginia, probably.  Unfortunately, when we got there, we found that the visitor center itself was having work done on it.  There was gift shop, but there were no exhibits, and worse yet, there were no restrooms.  Scott was having some issues and decided that it was pretty important that we find a better stop with a restroom.  

     We got back in the car and went to the Chancellorsville Visitor Center, about 20 minutes away.  Fredericksburg is interesting, but we've always had an attachment to the nearby Chancellorsville Battlefield.  After all, it was where the 154th New York had its first battle and was a place we have some fond memories of from our honeymoon.  We got there and found that the visitor center was indeed fully operational (including its bathrooms) and had been redone since we had been here so many years ago.  We went to see the new movie, which was made in 2014, but Abby was a little too fidgety and Julie had to take her out to the exhibits while Scott finished watching the movie.  By the time he was done with the movie, they had moved on outside.  He went through the exhibits kind of fast, but did spot at least three specific references to the 154th New York.   He bought a book called Chancellorsville and the Germans which he had heard about but was unable to find in Gettysburg last April.  

 

     Julie wanted to drive the battlefield, but there were two problems.  Scott had recently digitized many of the battlefield tour tapes that we have but didn't think he had the Chancellorsville one handy.  The first problem is that the National Park Service (or whoever is in charge of the gift shop) no longer sells CDs of the tours.  They are downloadable, but we decided against doing that because of the second problem- Abby probably wouldn't get much out of the slow car ride except for more time strapped in a car seat on a day that was already very full of car-time.  On our own, we ended up finding our way to the route that Stonewall Jackson took to get onto the flank of the Union army.  This route was key to the attack that devastated the 154th New York but it is also a quiet, beautiful ride through mostly wooded areas.  Julie and Scott both enjoyed taking that route during our honeymoon, and tried it again today, even without the benefit of the tour tape.   Julie was a bit disappointed by the many encroachments and developments that seem to have been built even in the last 30 years, but we still liked the ride, and since the roads were so quiet, we let Abby out  of the car seat for the drive.  Scott liked listening to Rush the Growler's "Chancellorsville" song as we made our way through the woods and we ended the drive by stopping at the 154th monument that was put up in 1996.  It's on a busy road and a little hard to get to, but Scott made sure we did it and got some more pictures.

     After that stop we headed on to Petersburg.  The traffic on 95 was still pretty thick, and even came to a stop once as we were approaching Richmond.  We pressed on through Richmond and made it to Petersburg in time to check in to the hotel in Hopewell by about 6:00.  It was five hours after we had originally planned to be here.  We unpacked and let Abby play a little before we went to dinner at a nearby Shoney's.  After that it was about dusk, but we wanted to at least take a drive through main unit of the National Battlefield and look for deer like we used to.  Once again, it was quiet enough to let Abby out of the car seat, and she enjoyed looking out of the open window.  We ended up seeing a pretty good-sized herd of deer near the park exit on Crater Road and stopped to look at them for a bit.  We then went on down Crater Road, past our old apartment and explored around Petersburg itself, from Walnut Hill to Old Town.  We'll go back again when we can take more pictures and video, but we noted a lot of changes already.  We went back to the hotel after a stop for ice cream for Abby and called it a day.