Exploring

Most of my day was spent exploring and trying to find my way around the confusing set of roads that is Petersburg. The roads aren't nearly as bad as Pittsburgh's but in its own specially annoying way Petersburg has the capability to make me think I've gone directionally deficient. I spent better than an hour looking for the very cafe in which I am typing this blog entry regardless of the fact that I passed it earlier in the day. Hopefully here in a week I'll have a decent working knowledge of the Petersburg layout.

Oddly enough, I find the National Park to be much easier to navigate. I found a bike trail today that, with a pleasant 15 minutes of pedaling, will bring me to the main road through the park directly adjacent to the main education building (a converted maintenance storage facility). This is where I'll be doing most of my work. It took me an hour of exploration to find this trail. Tomorrow I'm going to try biking all the way to the visitor's center. This will, I'm guessing, increase my daily ride to about 4miles or thereabouts.

The trees that have grown up since the siege of Petersburg create a wonderful place to get lost in. The trails are terrifically lonely and wandering and open into wide and inspiring views of the battlefield and fortifications. The Five Forks area is particularly far flung away from the city. I visited there earlier today. This station was manned solely by an interpretive ranger. He conducted me through the displays with ease and knowledge that I cannot help but envy. He then, after overawing me with his grasp of the intricacies of the battle, proceeded to tell me that this station illustrated his ignorance. My supervisor told me later that he'd been volunteering and later working at the park for a long time. What I wouldn't give to have started that early. 

Much to my excitement I have heard today a rumor that there is a member of the staff who might be willing to train me to fire a muskets. More on this later...