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Bicycle Tour - VA to TX (miles4megan)

On October 18, 2006 I flew out of Austin and joined my bicycle, which had already arrived in Richmond, Virginia. A few days later I embarked on a one month solo bicycle odyssey, starting in Yorktown, Virginia and ending in Texas. My ride was dedicated to Megan Horton, a 14 year old who had recently received a donor heart (you can read about it at http://miles4megan.blogspot.com/). I traveled along back roads in Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. Cycling over 1000 miles towing a 60 pound trailer, I got in shape, lost weight, made new friends along the way, and renewed my faith in the character of the American people.
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Fabric for sale - Tent in Yorktown, Virginia<br />
October 21, 2006
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Fabric for sale - Tent in Yorktown, Virginia
October 21, 2006

YorktownVirginiafabric tent yorktown

  • Wooden Shoes for Sale<br />
Yorktown National Battleground<br />
Washington Cornwallis Engagement<br />
October 21, 2006
  • Deep River Jr. Ancients Fife & Drum Corps<br />
Yorktown National Battlefield<br />
Yorktown, Virginia  - October 21, 2006
  • Deep River Jr. Ancients Fife & Drum Corps<br />
Yorktown National Battlefield<br />
Yorktown, Virginia  - October 21, 2006
  • Soldier @ Rest<br />
Yorktown National Battleground<br />
Washington/Cornwallis Siege & Re-enactment<br />
October 21, 2006
  • Fabric for sale - Tent in Yorktown, Virginia<br />
October 21, 2006
  • Yorktown Rifles and Drum<br />
October 21, 2006
  • Deep River Jr. Ancients Fife & Drum Corps<br />
Yorktown National Battlefield<br />
Yorktown, Virginia  - October 21, 2006
  • Deep River Jr. Ancients Fife & Drum Corps<br />
Yorktown National Battlefield<br />
Yorktown, Virginia  - October 21, 2006
  • Deep River Jr. Ancients Fife & Drum Corps<br />
Yorktown National Battlefield<br />
Yorktown, Virginia  - October 21, 2006
  • Deep River Jr. Ancients Fife & Drum Corps<br />
Yorktown National Battlefield<br />
Yorktown, Virginia  - October 21, 2006
  • Deep River Jr. Ancients Fife & Drum Corps<br />
Yorktown National Battlefield<br />
Yorktown, Virginia  - October 21, 2006
  • Mid-day Break, Yorktown, Virginia<br />
October 21, 2006
  • Reenactor<br />
Yorktown National Battlefield<br />
Yorktown, Virginia  - October 21, 2006
  • Bill Jones and Albino King Snake<br />
Williamsburg, VA<br />
October 22, 2006
  • Duke of Gloucester Street<br />
<br />
When Virginia's General Assembly created Williamsburg in 1699, it ordered that its main street "in honor of his Highness William Duke of Gloucester shall for ever hereafter be called and knowne by the Name of Duke of Gloucester Street." When President Franklin Roosevelt visited 275 years later to dedicate Duke of Gloucester Street's reconstruction, he said it "rightly can be called the most historic avenue in all America." <br />
<br />
To walk down Duke of Gloucester Street today is to step into the 18th century. Between the Wren Building and the Capitol, in a stroll of less than a mile, among the sights the visitor may enjoy are the Harnessmaker-Saddler; Bruton Parish Church, Palace Green, the John Greenhow Store, the James Geddy House, the Mary Dickinson Store, the Shoemaker's Shop, Market Square, the Courthouse, the Magazine and Guardhouse, Chowning's Tavern, the Ludwell-Paradise House, the Printing Office, the Prentis Store, the Post Office and Bookbindery, M. Dubois Grocer's Store, the Mary Stith Shop, Tarpley's Store, Wetherburn's Tavern, the Milliner, the Silversmith, the Raleigh Tavern with its Bake Shop, the King's Arms Tavern, the Pasteur & Galt Apothecary Shop, and the Public Records Office.<br />
 <br />
The august avenue known as Duke of Gloucester Street began as a narrow Indian trace that rose to the dignity of a horse path in the 17th century. In those days the community that would become Williamsburg was called Middle Plantation. Through the little village, the horse path followed the crest of the meandering ridge that separates the watersheds of the James and York Rivers. When the Virginia legislators grandly gave it the name of the heir to the English throne, Duke of Gloucester Street rolled through a series of swampy ravines and at one point was obstructed by houses. <br />
<br />
George and Martha Washington and Thomas and Martha Jefferson are among the men and women who have walked it. Bill and Hillary Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Lyndon Johnson, Dwight David Eisenhower, Harry Truman, and Winston Churchill are among those whose feet have trod in the steps of the likes of Peyton Randolph, George Wythe, St. George Tucker, Patrick Henry, and James Madison. <br />
<br />
Photo taken:  October 22, 2006
  • Colonial Capital

After fire destroyed (for the third time) the Jamestown Statehouse in 1698, the burgesses decided to move the colony's government to Middle Plantation, soon renamed Williamsburg. On May 18, 1699, they resolved to build the first American structure to which the word "Capitol" was applied. 

Henry Cary, a contractor finishing work on the College of William and Mary's Wren Building (the legislature's temporary home) took charge. He raised a two-story H-shaped structure &#8211; really two buildings connected by an arcade. Each measured 75 feet by 25 feet; their south ends terminated in semicircular apses penetrated by three large round windows. 

The first floor of the west building was for the General Court and the colony's secretary, the first floor of the east part of the building was for the House of Burgesses and its clerk. Arched windows marched across the facades. 

Stairs on one side led to the Council Chamber, a lobby, and the Council clerk's office; stairs on the other side led to three committee rooms. A second-floor conference room connected the classically corniced structures, and a six-sided cupola on the ridge of the hipped and dormered roof crowned it all. Though the west wing was completed by July 1703, it took Cary until November 1705 to finish all the work. 

The building that stands today is substantially the same as Cary's, but it is the third Capitol on the site. To blunt the threat of fire, Cary's Capitol was built without fireplaces. Candles and pipes were barred. But in 1723, the secretary complained that the building was damp, so chimneys were added for fireplaces to help keep the Capitol dry. Between 7:00 and 8:00 a.m. on January 30, 1747, someone noticed that the building was burning. When the flames died, only some walls and the foundation remained. 

Photo taken October 22, 2006
From: http://www.history.org/Almanack/places/hb/hbcap.cfm)
  • Christopher Wren Building

The College of William and Mary&#8217;s Christopher Wren Building is the oldest academic structure still in use in America. Construction on the building began August 8, 1695, two years after the school was chartered; it is the signature building of the second oldest college in the nation (next to Harvard). Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, John Tyler, and John Marshall studied in its rooms. George Washington was once chancellor of the college, which is now a distinguished university. 

Three times destroyed by fire, the appearance of the brick-walled Wren Building has often changed, but it stands today much as it appeared by 1732. It was the first major building restored by John D. Rockefeller Jr., after he began Williamsburg&#8217;s restoration in the late 1920s. 

The Wren, or more properly called the "College Building" was occupied by 1700. In the early years, the building housed the president, masters, ushers, teachers, and students of a grammar school for 12- to 16 year-old boys as well as an Indian school until 1723, when the Native Americans moved into the Brafferton. (No organized school for African American children existed in Williamsburg until 1760, when the Bray School was established.) Until 1729 the building contained only the grammar school. The Virginia General Assembly made use of the building from 1700 to 1704 while the Capitol was being built, and dancing master William Levingston briefly rented one of its classrooms. 

The Reverend Hugh Jones, a William and Mary mathematics professor, wrote in 1724 that the College Building was &#8220;modeled by Sir Christopher Wren&#8221; and sowed the seed of a dispute yet to be settled. Wren was royal architect, and his office may have drawn up the plans, but the only direct evidence that Wren designed the building personally is Jones&#8217;s statement, which is much disputed by scholars and historians.

Photo taken: October 22, 2006
From: http://www.history.org/Almanack/places/hb/hbwren.cfm
  • Christopher Wren Building

The College of William and Mary&#8217;s Christopher Wren Building is the oldest academic structure still in use in America. Construction on the building began August 8, 1695, two years after the school was chartered; it is the signature building of the second oldest college in the nation (next to Harvard). Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, John Tyler, and John Marshall studied in its rooms. George Washington was once chancellor of the college, which is now a distinguished university. 

Three times destroyed by fire, the appearance of the brick-walled Wren Building has often changed, but it stands today much as it appeared by 1732. It was the first major building restored by John D. Rockefeller Jr., after he began Williamsburg&#8217;s restoration in the late 1920s. 

The Wren, or more properly called the "College Building" was occupied by 1700. In the early years, the building housed the president, masters, ushers, teachers, and students of a grammar school for 12- to 16 year-old boys as well as an Indian school until 1723, when the Native Americans moved into the Brafferton. (No organized school for African American children existed in Williamsburg until 1760, when the Bray School was established.) Until 1729 the building contained only the grammar school. The Virginia General Assembly made use of the building from 1700 to 1704 while the Capitol was being built, and dancing master William Levingston briefly rented one of its classrooms. 

The Reverend Hugh Jones, a William and Mary mathematics professor, wrote in 1724 that the College Building was &#8220;modeled by Sir Christopher Wren&#8221; and sowed the seed of a dispute yet to be settled. Wren was royal architect, and his office may have drawn up the plans, but the only direct evidence that Wren designed the building personally is Jones&#8217;s statement, which is much disputed by scholars and historians.

Photo taken: October 22, 2006
From: http://www.history.org/Almanack/places/hb/hbwren.cfm
  • Charles City County<br />
October 22, 2006
  • Mount Vernon, Virginia<br />
October 23, 2006
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