Two Weeks

As of last night I have two weeks left at Petersburg. I'm also going to be a little more lonely for that time. M., who has spent the last two weeks here, headed back home to Pittsburgh yesterday evening. This makes me even more ready to head home when my time here is over. In addition Madeline, my housemate left yesterday since her volunteer internship was over. All of Quarters #34 is now empty except for me. I expect I might start visiting Merlin more often just for some company.

While M was here we did take a trip to City Point so I could work on a geocaching project I'm developing for the park. While regular geocaches are not allowed on park ground EarthCaches are. EarthCaches note places of geological interest and ask visitors to follow their GPS to a location and answer questions about it. Look here for more info on Geocaching and here for EarthCaches. One of the locations I'm working on has invasive rocks from Europe on the shore of the James river at City Point.

Flint Nodules

 The picture above shows flint nodules. They were brought over from Europe on ships bound for the British settlements along the James River. They were used as ballast in those ships to keep them upright and stable during the Atlantic crossing. When the ships arrived in Virginia they loaded up with goods like lumber and tobacco and had no room or need for the ballast, which they dropped into the river. Flint like this is rare in the eastern United States, but the shoreline along the City Point portion of Petersburg Battlefield is littered with such stones.