I'm Back

I am officially back in Pittsburgh. I left Petersburg around 2pm after turning in my badge and keys. That was melancholy duty but I was excited to be back on the road. I got in late last night, having spent more time than I care to mention in traffic around DC and parts of Maryland. M and I went on a bike ride today down the length of the North Shore Trail. Living in Petersburg I think I had started to forget what a pretty place Pittsburgh is. Today was a perfect day for such a realization; sunny and cool (by Virginian standards) with a nice breeze along the river. Its enough to make anyone happy to be home.

This is the end of this blog. Thanks to all of anyone who read it. I hope it was at least entertaining, and at most a little instructive. Next time you're in Virginia stop by Petersburg. Even if it is 115 degrees in the shade the place is worth a look and there are some wonderful people there trying to tell the story of a very important place.

 

My last day

 Yesterday I had a group of kids who came from Poplar Grove Hospital. These high school kids were institutionalized because they have had behavioral issues; mostly problems with authority figures. I 'd belying if I said I wasn't a little leery of this tour before hand. But I think they may have been one of the best groups I've dealt with. They were interested, asked questions, and were very attentive.

I have one more group of kids coming in today. We're going to go on another archaeological dig with Prince George Historical Society. Should be a fun time if the rain holds off.

While I am very ready to return home, it is a little sad to have to leave. I've really enjoyed my time here. Because   (or in spite) of having had a chance to see the inner workings of a park I feel like I'm even more committed than ever to the ideals of the National Park Service.

Tiffany Windows

Yesterday after work I went on a tour of Blandford Church. I'd been hearing about the church since I got here. It was the first thing that people at the National Battlefield told me I should go see. The church was built in 1735 was later abandoned and fell into disrepair. During the Siege of Petersburg the cemetery around the church became the burial place for thousands of Confederate troops. After the war even more Confederates were re-interred there. Currently there are around 33,000 Southern along others dating all the way back to 1702 buried in Blandford Cemetery. The church was restored in 1901 by the Ladies Memorial Association and turned into a memorial to the Confederate dead. The cemetery, while a historic location, is also still operational.

Blandford Church is small, and through the old brick and timber construction is impressive, the real draw are the fifteen Tiffany stained glass windows. The pieces of glass seem to draw in ambient light and glow even on very cloudy days. My favorite is the window depicting St. Paul and memorializing the Washington Artillery (from Louisiana). The tour guides told me they didn't allow pictures inside the building, but I took some anyway. I had to be sneaky about it so I apologize for the quality and angle of the pictures.

St John

St Mark

St Bartholomew 

St Paul

Pictures from my hike through Five Forks

Wandering the Woods

Today, in the hopes of finding some large granite boulders that I had heard were somewhere in the area, I woke early and drove to Five Forks Battlefield. I'm hoping to create one more earthcache for the area by finding these boulders and marking them as a place of geologic interest. I'd been assured that the granite outcroppings exist, but on my first attempt I had failed to find them. I did locate a large marshy lake on my first venture however, which I considered to be worthwhile.

When I arrived at Five Forks around 7am the air was still what passes for cool here in Virginia (75 degrees), but it was quickly warming up. The temperature dropped however when I entered the pine woods. The pines are huge loblollys and maintain the shade all day. I wandered about for nearly an hour - finding nothing - before I made a detailed study of the map. The map clearly labels one trail as the 'Pine Rocks' trail. Despite having read the map before I never thought to guess that this might be where I could find some very large rocks. Pine Rocks trail was , of course, the longest in that section of the park. It covers the better part of the left side of the map above. By the time I found the rocks, which are suitable impressive, and made my way back to the road I had hiked something close to 4miles and walked into something like 4,000 spider webs. For some reason that probably has a lot to do with annoying me a certain species of spider has a habit of trying to block the trail with web after web. At an interval of sometimes no more than 10 yards the webs significantly slowed my progress. It took me close to two hours to hike the distance.

Now I am engaged in writing the proposal for the earthcache. Hopefully I'll be able to get it published before I leave.

Earthcache

In trying to encourage people to visit Petersburg National Battlefield I have developed two Earthcaches which are a type of Geocache. People can download the GPS coordinates from the internet, which will lead them to points of geologic interest. So far one of mine has been published, one more is under review, and I'm hoping to possibly write another before I leave at the end of this week.. If you'd like to see the one that has been published click Creek Sharks!

Standing by the Fort

This morning we were expecting a group of 30 children to show up at 9am for a tour of the park's recreated fort and earthworks. I came up with an activity a month ago in which I let the kids pretend to be soldiers and Civil War photographers at the site. They use the fort as a backdrop and come away with some pretty good pictures every once in a while. We put the pictures on CD and send them to the parents. This necessitates taking two huge trunks of soldier's uniforms, ladies dresses, canteens, haversacks, and other accouterments to the site in advance of the group. Our group arrived a bit (1 hour) late today and so I was out at the fort with boxes full of Civil War paraphernalia set out on display for a while. Several groups of people wandered by, looked at everything, asked questions, and before I knew it I was basically explaining the site, the clothing, the topography and answering questions from everyone who walked past. Now I don't mean to make it sound like I was mobbed by people, but there was a steady stream of visitors coming past who I hadn't expected to be there. I explained French military terms to one man, uniform styles to his wife, gave directions to a couple from out of town, and talked about the deforestation caused by the Siege of Petersburg with an older gentleman.

By the time the group of kids got there I had been talking quite a bit and had to launch right back into it again. We talked about the process of making glass-slide negatives, famous Civil War photographers, why uniforms were made of wool, and dozens of other things. It made for a very full morning. I loved every minute of it. Things like this I will miss when I leave here.