Cherokee salad

We stopped at a restaurant in Cherokee one day for lunch called The Princess. It had a buffet and was incredibly good.  I don't know how authentic the food is, but there was one cold salad on the salad bar I had never had before, but really enjoyed.

Raw collards, chopped small
Thin sliced tomatoes
Round balls of cheese...not sure if it was mozzarella or what.

And these three ingredients were marinated in a dressing that was similar to Italian, though not quite that. It was really good, and turned out to be one of my favorite foods there that day.

We had to ask what the cheese was. I thought it might be an egg of some kind, but when I bit into it the taste and texture was more like bland chicken. The lady thought I was crazy when I asked, but said it was cheese. I wish I had followed up with what kind of cheese, but I didn't.

Elk

Last week we escaped to Cherokee and Bryson City for a few days.  We had one day set aside for shopping and driving through the Blue Ridge Parkway. As we exited the parkway, the traffic was backed up like Highway 50 in Garner in the evenings. As we turn to head away from the traffic to head back toward our cabin, I see a flashing road sign in the opposite direction. "Elk Viewing...please get in right lane. Lane closed ahead."  We were puzzled, but have also never seen elk, so we turned around and got back in line.

 We were about 35 miles from Gatlinburg.

Sure enough, the right lane was closed off with cones where vehicles could pull of and view the elk in the field.

We pulled over and got out to head toward the area of the "viewing lane" where the herd was located.

When we got about half the distance toward the end, a park ranger came up and advised us not to get any closer unless we got on the road side of the cars. The bull above was staying closer to the road (there was a younger bull near the edge of the woods in the opposite direction) and the ranger said they are easily agitated and have been known to charge. He said it would be best for Bobby to stay behind or on the far side of the parked cars so he could dodge behind them for cover if the bull began to move. We decided to stay put.

The viewpoint from where we were standing.

And with my zoom lens. The building in the background was actually a historical farm museum where you could walk around and see the types of buildings and such. The apple orchard was actually fenced in to keep the elk out.

And on the way back, we ran into a smaller herd of 4-5, but the bull in this group was amazing. He was awfully close to the cars, close enough I was hoping no one was stupid enough to blow their horn.

countdown

The May election has come and gone. Mom's heart cath went well, though the follow-up with her specialist that was to happen this week has still not been schedule...evidently he's only seeing patients 4 days during the month of June and those are all booked...so her 2 week follow-up to change the medications based on test results won't happen until JULY. I'm more than ready for her to find a new doctor. On the upside the heart is healthy and previous conditions have not worsened or flared back up, so we are very thankful for the report we did receive.

My nephew graduated from high school. I was so excited about going and possibly seeing old friends, and then the rains came. CHS was the only school in the county (I think) who did not move it inside. Had they moved it indoors, each senior would have been limited to 6 tickets, as opposed to no limit seating on the football field. Seniors held their ground and it was outside, come rain or shine. But due to the clouds, Bobby stayed at the house with my Dad and brother and sister-in-law. So just Mom and I made the trek. Mom was worn out before we left, so we didn't head to the field for pictures afterward but headed home. We were leaving the next morning anyway, so it was just as well. I did get to see one old classmate - his youngest was graduating as well.

We came home and I was able to cut the grass before the rains came and get the laundry done, then after church we hung out with Bobby's baby sister and her family who were in from TN. I managed a quick run to Target to pick up meds and a few things we needed, and Monday we were running errands and trying to get things done around the house. Tuesday we headed to Ocean Isle (where his Mom and sis & fam were) for 2 nights. In the past we've either gone for the day or stayed for one day, but this is one of the few times we've actually stayed two nights. And it was a much needed break. The kids are older so everyone was a little more free to do their own things. I swam, did my water aerobics in the heated pool, walked in the ocean at my own pace, observing shells and small fish, and we went sightseeing/browsing one day. It was a tad bit hard getting back into the grind of laundry and errands and yardwork and such yesterday.

And now we're in June, which is turning out to be an insanely crazy month. Next week is finalizing details for 1st-3rd Kids Day Camp at church (which is the following week), and finalizing 3 quilt presentations with Quilts of Valor. Then we have Kids Day Camp, followed by a "catch up" week, then a week of VBS. The following week family will be in town as we celebrate another high school graduation, and then things are spotty for the remainder of July. There's a lot of other stuff going on, and hopefully I can post about them as details become more certain. I'm still a bit in panic mode that the six month of this year has begun. We should still be in February!!!!

last Gettysburg post

 I've never been one to ooh and aah over dresses. But this one, while pretty, made me laugh. I had to go back after reading the description and check it out. Those "flowers" on her dress are not only wildflowers from America, but INSECTS. Yes, Martha Washington attended the dance with a gown decked out in bugs. How awesome is that?

And I was a bit surprised by this, but I actually enjoyed the wax section of the Presidents better than the fashion segment of the First Ladies. The Presidents are built to scale, and briefly tell a little bit about each man. It was interesting to see how tall most of them were. The ladies were not made to scale, and their gowns are about 1/3 of the original size. But still, you could tell some about the styles of the time and the woman's personality by her dress.


The only thing I wasn't overly impressed with during the trip was the Cyclorama. That's a HUGE painting, the largest in North America, I think, that someone did of the battle of Gettysburg. It took several French artists to help complete it, and the canvas is placed in a circular barn. We bought tickets for it as part of a package deal with the battlefield tour, and I was most disappointed. It's a timed ticket, and after the presentation about it, you only have about 5 minutes to look and they tell you to leave. I'm sorry, but 5 minutes to view a painting that fills the equivalent of three rooms is NOT sufficient. That's an insult not only to the artists, but to the people who helped build the building to show it off. On the flip side, the gift shop for the park is very nice.

With all the controversy over the battle flag going on in the south and the constant vandalism of memorials and grave markers, we were a bit surprised to see how many battle flags and confederate items were on sale in almost every gift shop. Can't find something for sale in the south? Visit Gettysburg. In almost every shop we looked, someone was walking in and saying "Wow! You actually have this for sale? You can get this here?" and a puzzled shop owner would say "Yes. Why?" It was interesting to hear and see that things that are banned and "outlawed" here are considered just a part of history there.

I'm glad we went. It is truly a beautiful place, even if the history behind it is overbearing and heartwrenching to both see and think about.

Niagara Falls, NY

Several years ago Bobby made out a "bucket list" of places he wanted to visit. I dutifully wrote them down, and within a year I had lost the list.  Yeah, I'm such a good wife. He does remember most of the places on his list, and since most of them are local (as in the state of NC or within a day's drive of NC), we've been trying to visit at least one year.

North Carolina is participating in "Row by Row" this year, which is a HUGE but different type of quilt shop hop. Basically, you go along to see what stores are participating in the state, and if you're visiting that area during the summer, you can go to the store and get a free pattern. The first person from each state to complete 8 rows and use them in a finished quilt wins a grand prize, and the first person to return to a shop with a completed quilt that uses that store's pattern wins a small store prize. While browsing through the states and their Facebook pages, I realized there were TWO shops participating in Niagara Falls...one of the places on MY bucket list. :)  I think you know where this is headed.  We actually had 6 free days in a row on our calendar (well, we did both have to cancel one activity each, but those happen every month and can easily be missed), so we went.
Driving up we went through West Virginia and PA, coming back it was PA and VA, and even though we had planned to visit a historical site in VA on the way home, my absolutely amazing husband surprised me by changing that stop and telling me to find quilt shops on that route. So while I've only completed 2.9 rows, I now have 13 patterns. :)

I've never been that far north before, and had no idea what to expect. I've had several friends tell me that it's hard to find places to eat while traveling north, and to some degree that is correct. Fast food places, other than Subway and the occasional McDonalds, are hard to find. It became a joke in the van as we saw many signs "McDonalds in 3 miles" that we must have a different definition of a mile (we never saw the restaurants...and I was looking for a bathroom!) but we did get to try some different chains and non-chain restaurants that were good.

And I loved the scenery. Somewhere through PA it was like a switch flipped, and suddenly the trees and foliage were different. I kept wishing my Granny was alive so I could photograph the plants to send her and see what she'd say (she knew the names of almost all trees and flowers), but then I started wondering if she'd know them as well.  I've always thought blue spruces were beautiful, and we saw a great number of them.  The houses were also quite different, and I'd like to know the architectural origins behind the tall, skinny two-story structures. And I know it wasn't a city thing, as we passed a large number of farms that had the same style of house. I couldn't help but be reminded of the President's comment the first time he ran for office and actually got to tour the US...I never knew how beautiful America truly was. (That's not a direct quote, but that was his meaning.)  And I get what he was saying. Our country is very diverse and different, but it truly is a beautiful place.

Rainbow Bridge, that passes into Canada. My only disappointment was that since we weren't staying for the night, our passports didn't get stamped, but were only scanned.

Part of the Horseshoe Bend falls. We rode the boat, like the one pictured, up close to the falls, and that was incredibly awesome.

And a view of the Falls from the bridge.

Due to circumstances and our time frame, we didn't go out at night and view the falls (they light the falls up with colored lights at night), nor did we have time in Canada to take the tour behind the Horseshoe falls. But I thoroughly enjoyed what we did get to see and do. Next time I'd like to stay on the Canadian side and walk the streets and check out shops.

The weather took a dip right before we got there, so the temps were in the 60s (the highs) while we were there, which I thoroughly enjoyed, even if my cold-blooded counterpart didn't and had the heat on at the hotel.  We both managed to survive (me the heat and him the coldness outside). Had the weather been nicer, I think I could have sat at one of the observation decks for hours and just watched and listened. It was truly incredible.

I was also reminded of just how blessed Americans are. It was nice and amazing to walk down the streets and hear a multitude of languages flowing around me, from Cantonese and Mandarin to Persian languages to Russian and French. We see a lot of Muslim scarves here in Raleigh, but it was the first time I've ever seen burqas in real life, and we saw quite a few of those, as well as Mennonites, Orthodox Jews, and Hindus. I felt like I was in the middle of the melting pot, and it was nice.

It was a trip worth taking, and one a part of me wouldn't mind doing again. :)

Woodrow Wilson Library and Frontier Farm Museum

Prior to last week's vacation, I had never visited a presidential library. I was expecting a museum, but also, well, a library. I knew you wouldn't be able to check books out or anything like that, but I did expect to be able to read or view copies of the President's writings. Turns out, it's just a museum. Perhaps his writings are stored there, but we only saw one example of them.

One very cool story we did learn, though, was that Wilson was homeschooled by his father, who was an Episcopalian pastor. Many people advised him to give up on Woodrow, then called Tommy (his first name is Thomas), as he didn't master his alphabet until the age of 9.  He wasn't really reading until the age of 11 or 12. And yet, he later learned to read in other languages as well. Scholars today tend to think he might have been dyslexic. Whatever his learning disability was, writing was difficult for him. He taught himself how to write in shorthand, and found it much easier. All of his presidential writings (as well as most adult writings) are in shorthand.

And for the record, Wilson was born in Straunton, VA, but they moved away to Georgia when he was less than two years old. His opposition to World War I was a result of his growing up in a South decimated from the Civil War (his father was a chaplain to troops and their house/manse and church was used as a field hospital for both sides).

Also in Staunton is the Frontier Farm Museum. We could have easily spent half a day or more there, though we barely had two hours. Basically, there are miniscule farms detailing how early settlers in Virginia lived both in their native country and in their early years in Virginia. Old world settings from Germany, Ireland, England, and West Africa were amazing. I was give out before we made it to the early America circle, and stopped at the gift shop while Bobby raced on to the American side. He said there were actually more workers and animals there and we could have spent a good two hours there alone. There was a young girl, about ten, there with her parent (who was a worker), and he enjoyed asking her questions. This place was definitely worth the entry fee.

I had seen German buildings in Old Salem, which are somewhat similar to old English farmhouses, but the Irish house was a delight.

Who doesn't love a stone wall? (Besides Robert Frost)

Check out those gate posts (and matching barn)

And that lovely stone wall...is actually a pig enclosure...ugh...the smell on a hot day!

The one lone sheep and cows were across the field and the chickens were in the barn, but the CAT was in the house.  We also saw geese (like ours) at the English farm house, as well as cows, and the goats weren't enclosed into the African settlement yet, the Germans had a cow and lots of chickens, and Bobby said the American farm also had cows and pigs and chickens. I don't think we saw a dog, though.

I didn't take pictures of the super quaint restaurant where we ate breakfast that morning, but the ladies sitting next to us (think old men who meet regularly at coffee shops) were absolutely hysterical to listen to. Their conversation constantly hopped from one current event to the next (and every other one was a celebrity situation), and the table had at least one conservative and one liberal who were not afraid of disagreeing with the other. When one tartly said to the other, "WELL! That's YOUR opinion" we were trying very hard not to burst out laughing. They were quite entertaining. And of course, as we get ready to leave, the owner is beginning to set up for lunch, and she brings out these chocolate pies that rival Meadow's Restaurant - the meringue was HUGE. For a minute I thought Bobby was going to stay.

Antique shops, quilt shops, used book stores, home cooking restaurants (we ate supper at a place that had the most awesome homemade rolls!), a presidential library and cool museums...Staunton, VA was definitely a place worth visiting.

last week

For our anniversary last week, we headed towards the Shanandoah Valley in Virginia. It was awesome. In many ways it reminded me of Tennessee (the steep hills and pastures), and the huge houses in the valley areas reminded me of the houses in Washington DC and Richmond, VA. There were quite a few mansions and plantation style houses, but in the smaller outlying areas, there were also small farmhouses on vast pastures and farmland.

As far as small towns go, Staunton and Culpeper are two places I would gladly spend two days in checking out. As Bobby said, our half a day at each place barely scratched the surfaces. Well, we actually spent almost a whole day in Staunton, but still, we could have spent much more time there.

But my favorite pictures from the trip come from our one hour on Skyline Drive (the same road as the Blueridge Parkway, only you have to pay to get on it).

and this is the second deer

from the ride out...his antlers look so fuzzy!

Sadly, there's no picture of the bunny rabbit from that drive...

the last of the quilt show

I'm sure if you searched twitter you could find pictures of all the car quilts, the gorgeous applique  quilts (I did take one of an all Black @ White Baltimore Album style quilt, but my hands were too shaky and the pic was way too blurry to save...a big problem with my larger camera), and the theme/statement quilts. I thought I took photos of several landscape quilts, but if I did, I can't find them on my little memory card. But below is a quilt that I absolutely loved. Made as a wedding quilt for a Jewish couple, I was mesmerized by every single detail...and this quilt was full of them. The oak tree represented the bride, and the other Australian tree represented the groom, who was from Australia. 

 



 At the bottom in each corner, there was an applique bird representing their state/province.

 And the wedding date...

 I love how using three shade of fabrics on the roots gave the tree dimension. From a distance, you can almost feel the hole in the bottom of the tree.

 Sorry for the blur on this one, but this was right before lunch and I was getting shaky (plus I had caffeine that morning). But I wanted a close up of how she layered the fabric for the tree limbs and the leaves. I'm sure there's a stabilizer underneath as the edges aren't finished (meaning you wouldn't put this on a bed except for decoration or would use it as a wall hanging), but the simplicity in the quilting was amazing as well. There wasn't an excessive amount, but it was well placed and truly made each leaf pop. I  really hate I didn't get this artist's name.


Next is a landscape, which I have on my bucket list of quilts to make.

 Even though I have a quilt idea/wall hanging in mind for my Mom that involves birds, I never ever thought of anything this detailed! And a close up of the blue jay:

I think this is what they call fiber art, or thread painting. Each of these colors in both the blue jay and the cardinal are created by sewing threads back and forth (on the sewing machine). It's possible someone used an embroidery machine, but judging by the colors and placement, I can't help but wonder if it wasn't done by hand on a quilting machine. What I wasn't able to determine was whether or not the background was simply quilted fabric, or if the artist used fabric paint. Regardless of what techinque was used, it was exceptionally pleasing and impressive to look at.

And that wraps up all the photos for 2014's quilt show. Thankfully there was only one nude realistic quilt this year, and I think I managed to steer Bobby away from it. If he saw it, he didn't comment on it. Had he seen some of the feminist/political quilts from a few years ago, he would have never agreed to go. But I think he had a good time, despite the crowd and the difficulty that always creates with a wheelchair. I don't know that we saved any money by tacking this on to the end of our vacation as opposed to me riding the bus with a Raleigh quilt shop, but we were home a little after dark, as opposed to 11:30pm had I taken the bus.

Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival, part two

This quilt was one of the many crowd stoppers. There seems to be two different types of modern quilting: the 3D geometric shapes and the no pattern anything goes style (which really isn't modern, as groups were doing that during the Civil War).  I don't know how many quilters went up to the tag to read the name, artist, and pattern while I was waiting to take the picture, only to step back with a baffled look, shake their head, then walk on by. The reason?  It's an original pattern that a scientist/quilter created.  Normally (but not always) you see patterns like these created by males, often former engineers, who either retired or lost their job due to downsizing, and took up quilting after pestering their wife or Mom who was a quilter. After all, quilting does involve shapes and math. But this lady wrote up her description full of large words that no simple person uses, but basically saying she had to figure out a way to curve the pieces at different degrees to make the sphere. 

 I love her color choices, especially how the purple and black toward the bottom blend into the background without disappearing (and if that's not purple, don't tell me!)

A close up of the curved piecing. It appears that she cut small pieces at the same angles and then sewed them into strips like a fan pattern. But this is one of those things I probably wouldn't get up the nerve to try without a pattern.

 And a more distant look at the "circle" spiraling out. I hate I didn't photograph the name plate, but like everyone else, I was too put off by all the jargon.

And tomorrow will wrap up the quilt show!



Cold Harbor, VA

Tonight as the wind blows, I'm reminded of the bitter cold wind and the snow flurries the days we were in Richmond, VA.  The last day of our history part of the trip, we drove to Cold Harbor. Bobby's great-grandfather had six older brothers who fought in the Civil War. Three of them never came home, and one of them died at the Battle of the Cold Harbor. Below he's braving the elements to read one of the signs. You can tell by the grimace on his face that he is VERY cold.

By this point in the war, soldiers have learned a little more about fighting, and have ceased some of their face to face combat and have started digging trenches with wood supports. In the pictures above and below, you can see the remains of the CSA trenches. Whether the farmers were unable to remove them or decided it wasn't worth the time and effort is unknown, but this area was not farmed again. Nearby farms that did not have trenches on them found that if they ever dug too deep, they'd encounter skeletons.

The trenches were built into T shapes.  I was amazed at how intact some of them still were, at least 36" high. Excerpts from letters and diaries were included on signage throughout the driving trail. Some soldiers recounted how the creek ran red as they had no other cover than the creek's brushes as they unexpectedly encountered an entrenched unit.  One of the three houses, still standing in the nearby vicinity told how the family was traumatized as they hid in the cellar, hoping to be undiscovered and the troops would leave, only to realize their home was being turned into a field hospital, and they had to sit in the corner and watch the blood drop through the floor boards from above. I cannot imagine. I think this site more than any other helped portray the horrors of war, and its cost to the people who lived through it. And that was one thing that I was impressed with the Confederate Museum...all the quotes from soldiers on both side telling how sick they were of "soldiering" and how they had witnessed more death and evil than any person should ever have to see in a lifetime in just one month. 

I have to admit, while I would highly recommend doing this trip in much warmer weather, I did enjoy it. And hopefully tomorrow I can post our last day, my day, when we headed home via Hampton, VA and the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Conference.

St. John's in Richmond, VA

Briefly changing time periods, we stopped visiting Civil War Era sites, and switched to the Revolutionary War. When Patrick Henry and others were trying what to do with ongoing issues with England, their group was dismissed, making it treason for them to meet and discuss political matters without being called back into session. Richmond was the nearest location to Williamsburg (the then capitol) that had a place big enough for everyone to meet. The Pastor of St. John's Episcopal church agreed to let them use their building for the meeting.  It was here where self-trained lawyer Patrick Henry ended his speech with "Give me liberty or give me death."

Our tour guide in the church that has been expanded three times from the original building.

 I found some of the original pews most interesting.  All the newer pews are built to match, though not as tall as these. The doors were placed around each seating area as there was no heat in the day. Families brought heating stones and bricks to place around their feet, and the doors kept the draft away, enabling a little bit of warmth for each section during the sermon.

 As the church has been expanded, there was nowhere to go in the already full cemetery but over graves. Here is a marker in the nave, showing where a former minister is buried underneath the church in that spot. I personally found this a little disturbing.

 Loved the carpet...we saw carpet like this in many places throughout Richmond. Can you imagine having to sweep/brush this clean?

I hope to research this phrase later. The symbol in this window can also be found on tombs throughout the graveyard. Our tour guide told us it stood for "In His Service"...the I, H, and S are intertwined in the more "modern" symbols.

 We saw arched tombs like this in Beaufort, NC, and the tour guide there said it was to keep tombs from washing away during floods. The James River is nearby here, but the church is on such high ground I can't imagine water ever getting this high. It was so cold that day that no one was hanging around outside to ask about these two very different tombs.

 And an older example of the "In His Service" symbol.

 Never seen a tombstone quite like this one. The shame is traditional, but the engraved urn is unlike anything I've seen (not that I've visited a whole lot of graveyards).

 The front of St. Henry's church.

 More tombs that are almost underneath the church.

And here are some on the other side of the building that are also against the church, and you can see what appears to be others up under the building itself.

If you ever visit Richmond, this is a must on your list of places to do. It's not a free tour, unlike other museums, but it is educational in a great way, the tour guide is open to questions of any kind, and the elevator from the street (entrance from the street to the visitor's center is not accessible and we had to enter on the other side of the block) takes you directly into the cemetery. I must say, I was not prepared for the door to open and immediately be facing tombstones. I almost felt like we were in a movie. But the cemetery itself is fairly accessible, as is their brick rampway to the visitor's center, and the tour guide easily adjusted the tour entrance to make it work for us.  An incredibly awesome place that will make even lukewarm history learners interested. And I must say, I learned quite a bit.

One quick note, the walkways around the church block are accessible, though there are a few spots around trees where the roots have buckled the bricks or the sidewalk and it take a little maneuvering.

Richmond historic homes

Richmond homes, their styles, closeness in proximity, and constructional materials, reminded me a lot of Washington, DC. It was too cold to walk the streets and enjoy the views, but I did manage to snap a few pictures from the van window.

 One of the things I love about old homes is the turrets, as pictured above. When I was a  child, my younger sister and I used to say we wanted to live in a house that had one so we could have a round bedroom. Now, I realize how impractical that would be, but I would love to actually go inside a house that had one just to see how they decorate the rooms.

 Old churches, especially those with bell towers, are also a fascination for me. Most of the old churches in downtown Richmond were stone with gorgeous stained glass windows. If I had to live in a city, I'd like to live across the street from an old beautiful church.

This is not a great shot, as I was trying to capture the different styles on the same street (at least 4 grouped here) and how close the houses were to each other. Some houses a person literally could not walk between them, others had enough room for a heating/air unit, or a small gate, but that was it. And this also captures a difficulty I would have living in the city: parallel parking. It's a feature I never mastered when learning to drive, despite my Dad's most valiant teaching efforts, and throughout the years I've always found a parking deck or somewhere else to park that didn't require it. So far, it really has been that simple. But here?  There's no other option.

I'd like to visit Richmond in the springtime when it's warmer and walking weather.

Richmond, VA

The Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, VA will be moving its artifacts into a new museum (combining with another group). The White House of the Confederacy, as seen below, and ten steps away from the museum will remain open. After visiting, we understood the need to relocate. You can see Virginia's Commonwealth University surrounding the location. Since the university has expanded it's medical center, dwarfing the museum and historical house, visitors to the site have dropped more than 50%.

For history lovers, it was a great place to visit. Displays were organized by time, but also included a lot of personal information, including excerpts from diaries and letters.

Another museum that medical history lovers would enjoy is on Broad Street, shown below. We visited there on our last day. While cold and windy, there wasn't snow flurries that morning, and the sun was shining. 2/3 of the way up the elevator/stair lift, it started smoking and then quit. Bobby was stuck, unable to get out (you now, the safety mechanisms that keep wheelchairs from rolling that also trap you in when the things malfunction) and the VERY kind and professional park rangers called the fire department to get him out, while also bringing him their personal blankets and offering their own jackets to keep him warm. The firemen were nice, considerate, helpful, and they got him out of the lift, as well as down the ten cement steps, after carrying his heavy chair down the steps. They more than earned their pay that day.  As I've told him more than once in the last 15 years of marriage: Life with you is never dull.

While waiting for the firemen, I did quickly walk around the display room, saw the bone shattered by a bullet and how it was amputated (and the soldier from NC died while in the Union hospital), and spent even more time in the gift shop, quickly checked out my "girly" Civil War book that Bobby would have never ever picked out, then joined the excitement on the porch as they removed him from the lift.

I have to say, US Park Rangers and Richmond's firefighters, specifically Truck 1 Engine 1 Team, are the best in the world. I so wanted to pull out camera and start snapping pictures, but the rangers were already embarrassed and horrified by the incident, and I now most public officials aren't overly thrilled about photos of them in action, so I didn't even ask. They were hauling very precious cargo, after all, and I wanted their focus to stay on him. But I would recommend both of these museums to history aficionados (along with the Tredegar Museum, which will also be the new location of the joint museum).