Virginia is for Lovers

 

This week's Show Us Your Life topic is about our hometown.  I have lived in the Richmond Tri-Cities area for almost my entire life- minus the four years at William and Mary and the one year we lived in Minnesota.  Richmond is not always the most exciting place to live, but it is ripe with history and that's my favorite thing about it. So here is the brief, two minute historical tour of RVA.

Patrick Henry gave his famous "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" speech in St. John's Church in what is now the Church Hill area of downtown Richmond.  When I was in the fourth grade we went on a field trip to the church and if we had memorized the speech, which I had, we got to say it where he had once famously stood and given it.  That was pretty cool.

Richmond is also quite famous for being the capital of the Confederacy.  That was the home of the CSA's President, Jefferson Davis, which is now a museum.

Jefferson Davis is buried in the famed Richmond Virginia's Hollywood Cemetery, where US Presidents John Tyler and James Monroe are also buried.

This is the Poe Museum, where poet Edgar Allen Poe lived and wrote many of his famous works.  

This is a shot of the current Richmond skyline. If you look closely to the right and in the back, you will see the James Monroe Building.  It is the tallest building in Virginia and I worked there for two summers on the 23rd floor.  My first year working there was the summer of 2003.  Because it was the tallest building in VA, and just miles away from the Fed., there was a lot of concern about terrorist activity. (This being a fairly recent post 9/11 world)  So they would often have emergency drills where we all had to exit the building via the stair well.  They didn't tell us when these drills were going to be, all of a sudden lights would flash and the lights would turn off and then "you'd know" that you needed get outta Dodge.  Well, let me tell you, going down 23 flights of stairs is NOT an easy task.  You'd think that since it was going down, it would be easy, at least that's what I thought until I woke up the next morning and my legs felt fire ants were eating my muscles from the inside out.

I do love Richmond, but I have always wanted to live in small town. My fantasy is a Southern version of Stars Hollow!  If you know where that is- please let me know, haha!