“Virginia”
7/21/17, “A Busy Summer”
Richmond, Virginia
I suppose this dateline is not as
glamorous as some of the other datelines I have entered into this
Travelogue. I suppose this building is
not as impressive as some of the other establishing shots that have begun
entries around the world, but not every trip can be to the Great Wall or the
Taj Mahal. For starters, there are only
seven Wonders of the World, and I’ve already been to all seven. There are 417 units of the National Park Service. I want to see them
all. This trip will bring my count over 300.
There are fifty state capitols, five territorial capitols, and an administrative building in the District of Columbia, along with the national Capitol. I want to see them all. This building marks
number 38, and it is a special one, as it served as the Confederate Capitol
during the Civil War. That count will
soon be up to 40, after I have been to Annapolis and Honolulu, along with
having visited all five territorial capitol buildings and the administrative
building in DC.
That is what this summer
has become. A series of brute force
domestic road trips. Including this
weekend, I be visiting, I think, over twenty new NPS units before I leave for
Hawaii, maybe closer to 30. When I last
wrote from SFO, I was talking about how open my summer was. Not so anymore. It has become busy. These trips, along with the NHL run in
Westchester and NRHP run in Scarsdale will utilize each weekend before I leave
for Hawaii.
It will be a draining
summer, to be sure, and I wonder if I overburdened myself. It will all culminate with my trip to
American Oceania, which will, at last, enable me to say, “US Complete.” That does not mean all 417 NPS units and all
50 State Capitols. Sure, I will be 80%
of the way to both of those goals, but completion of those goals will have to
wait for my 30s, and they were not among the goals that I set for myself to
achieve by the time I turn 30.
Okay, so
I don’t have much to write about Day 0, and I actually suppose I have more to
say about Night -1. As usual, it was
another dinner and movie night with the K-Man, a WWII-themed edition. We would go to a German beer hall and see
Dunkirk. We had planned to allow two
full hours at the beer hall and a cigar before the movie, but he was late from
the airport, so we only had an hour at the beer hall and note enough time for a
full cigar. That did not lessen the
amount of food or alcohol we intended to consume, but trying to consume two
hours’ worth of food and alcohol in one hour was a major tactical error.
We each ordered a “boot” of beer, which is
two liters, just shy of a six-pack.
Forget the amount of alcohol, trying to consume two liters of a
carbonated beverage in an hour, with food, is a fool’s errand. We also got a basket of pretzels with dips
and a platter of sausages. In two hours,
we would have had no problem consuming it all.
In an hour, we failed, miserably.
The K-Man, true to form, consumed about half of his portion, eating half
of a pretzel and a quarter of the platter of sausage and drinking half of his
boot of beer.
In a decision I would soon
come to regret, I pointed to the door and announced that I would be ashamed to
walk out that door without finishing my boot.
I also had to pick up the slack on the sausages, and I ate a whole
pretzel. That’s what’s called a
contributing factor to what would later occur.
I struggled with the boot, again, more because of the volume of liquid
than anything else, but I managed to finish it.
I took one pretzel and one sausage link to go, and we were off.
I would say that we walked from the beer hall
to the theatre, but I think using the term “walked” gives to fluidity of my
motion too much credit. We each smoked a
Prensado on the “walk.” The theatre was
on Third Avenue and 59th Street.
I was good until I got to 57th Street, which was when I came
to regret finishing the boot. I will
leave the details to my reader’s imagination.
The movie was certainly well-done, and it was very interesting, but it
had no real dialogue and almost no acting.
It was more an experience than anything else. I wound up forgetting my food at the theatre. After the movie, we took a cab back to my
place, and said our goodbyes. I finished
my cigar and packed for my trip.
I had a
productive day at work, but it was broken up by having to go uptown for some
radiography, but I was told that I needed an appointment, in sharp contrast to
what I had been told by my doctor’s office.
I got sesame chicken from the Chinese restaurant across the street and
biked back to the office with the rest of the Graycliff I had lit up for the
ride up. I finished what I needed to do
at work and then headed to the car rental place.
It was a bit of a process to get the car, and
we were not out of the garage until 6 PM.
The place was at Eighth Avenue and 44th Street, but it still
took close to an hour to get to the Lincoln Tunnel. After that, it was an easy enough drive, and
I didn’t even need GPS until I got to Richmond, as it was just a straight shot
on I-95. I started with my traditional
Davidoff Yamasa Toro, and I put on “Red” once we got on the highway.
We stopped at one of New Jersey’s iconic rest
stops for dinner and gas. I got a
burger, onion rings, and a milkshake, followed by a coffee, which I knew would
easily last me until lunch tomorrow. I
then lit up an LFD. We soon saw the
Delaware Memorial Bridge, and we drove without stopping. My next cigar was a Perdomo. About half past midnight, we were in
Richmond, and our hotel was about two minutes off of the highway, in the heart
of downtown Richmond.
We went to the
room to drop off our bags, and I didn’t even change, a decision I now regret,
it being 80 degrees at night, and my long pants causing me much misery. We then walked towards the State Capitol, and
Pablo continued on to the McDonald’s. I
was shocked to find the plaza around the State Capitol closed overnight. That was a first.
I looped around to find a place to sit in
view of the Capitol. Fortunately, the US
Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit was right across the street. It had a nice view and, being federal
property, was not subject to the rules of the State of Virginia. I sat down on the wall, lit up an Ardor, and
proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can publish and
get back to my hotel to get to sleep. We
have to be on the road at 6 AM, and I will be thrilled if I can get two full
REM cycles.
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