We never actually intended to go to Richmond. It started when I asked Clint to scout out open flights to New England, having had a vision of autumn in Vermont with roaring fires and apple orchards. But Richmond was more likely than Montpelier, and after doing a little research, we were intrigued by its history.

Our first stop after the airport was the Confederate White House (and the next-door Museum of the Confederacy). I may have missed this day in history class, but I didn't realize there was such a thing. Jefferson Davis, a sickly man, conducted official business inside his home, hosting the likes of General Robert E. Lee as well as Abraham Lincoln (he showed up right after Davis fled the city). When Richmond fell to the North (we thought they could have picked a city a little more southern), they fled this house, leaving many artifacts for us to find. I didn't know that there are Davis ancestors today, descendants of their one surviving child, Maggie.

With time running out in our Saturday, we stopped by the Civil War Visitors' Center, hoping to pick up a couple of brochures on where to find battlesites. Apparently, this is the sort of thing better done with a guide, because armed only with a dot on a map, we failed to find a single site. This sort of thing seems worth another trip, however.

Dinner was taken at a pub in the attractive Shockoe Slip neighborhood. Like Boston, it has its period charm down pat – cobblestone streets, old-fashioned iron street lamps, narrow storefronts with appealing window displays.

Sunday morning, we headed east out of Richmond to meet our first English settlement at the sea. The real Jamestown is an archeological site, so the recreation is located a “holler” away. It is lovely, of course, with period guides, one even with a British accent. They had several reenactments going, including this one of a matchlock gun. The most interesting bits of knowledge to me were that the church was built first, and that blacksmiths were really only repairmen, not jacks of all (metal) trades.

We also explored two boats in the harbor, replicas of the ships the settlers came on. The smaller ship looked like it could hold about 5 people comfortably, but in fact it held 7 crew and 10 passengers. Ouch. The beds were lumpy straw, the hold was tiny and crowded, and there were maybe two board games I saw, for four months. And they didn't know what they would find in America (they expected to fight the Spanish, but found none, which may explain their combative relationship with the Powhatan Indians). How could they have done this?

Coming from Illinois, not even two hundred years old and important to no war, we lose sight of real American history. Though much traveling is done to explore America as it is today, a healthy dose of perspective is always welcome. Even if it wasn't intended.