russellviii

If ToddieM can claim this one, then by golly, I’m going to make a connection here and bag this one for myself too.

Perhaps I had just gotten myself a bit too psyched up for this one.

I had read about the Battle of the Crater, where Union forces had secretly tunneled beneath Confederate lines, packed the whole thing full of explosives and detonated it. The resulting blast shook the ground violently. Huge pillars of debris sprang up into the air. Men and equipment were thrown around violently. As a direct result of the blast, 268 men were killed, two cannons, weighing in excess of 1000 pounds each were tossed effortlessly into the distance.

The blast left a crater nearly 300 feet long, over 100 feet wide, and 30 feet deep.

Following the confusion of the blast, Union soldiers attacked Confederate positions. Not thinking, many of them jumped into the crater where they became trapped, easy targets for Confederate soldiers.

The battle was brutal and bloody. It created an amazing story, one of the stories of Civil War battles that I find most intriguing of all.

The unfortuate thing is that seeing the actral crater itself was so anticlimactic. The crater has filled in over the years through natural sloughing off due to erosion and perhaps other factores as well. The once might crater now looks like little more than a low spot in the lawn. It is a mere shadow of its former once-great self.

I’ll arrive in the Richmond area on Monday afternoon. My meeting is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. My plan is to zip down see the Petersburg Battlefield first thing in the morning, and have a look around. I can then hurry back up to my hotel, change clothes, grab some lunch and make it to my meeting.

I was always amazed at the story of tunneling under the city and trying to blow it up. I figure that as long as I’m this close, and have a prime opportunity, I need to take advantage of it. I’m eager to learn more about it and to see what is left of the crater.

I had a meeting outside of Richmond and flew into the airport there. I’ll be back there again next week for another meeting. Hopefully I can see a few things while I’m out there this time.

A friend of mine who lives in Boulder goes to the same church that the Ramseys attended when they lived in Boulder. He gave us directions to the house. It was located just a short distance away from the hotel where I was staying.

I went with another traveler. We drove by, stopped and looked. It was kind of eerie. It was dark, but we tried to take a couple of pictures anyway.

The neighborhood was different than I had imagined. It was a nice neighborhood, upscale, but somewhat older. The houses are large, but not palatious.

The house appeared to be empty. I imagine that people are probably not lining up in droves to buy it.

I went here to attend a conference in late February 2009.

It was about 30 miles from the Denver airport. I liked Boulder because it was much prettier and more relaxed place than Denver.

The Simpson’s promotion is over. It looks like I’ll never be able to actually visit this place, so I’m removing it from the list.

The museum reopened just a few weeks prior to my visit to DC. Of course the problem is that the museum closes at 5:30 p.m. When you spend most of the day in meetings it gives you very little time for things like museums.

However, on the final day of our meetings we finished a little bit earlier than normal. Of course I had to stick around for a while, as there were a handful of people who wanted to talk to me. When the meetings were over I dashed up to my hotel room, changed clothes, and zipped back down and hopped on the Metro.

I wasn’t sure what time the National Musuem of American History closed, but I certainly wanted to be there before it did.

I arrived at the museum at about 4:30. I figured, well, I’ve at least got an hour, so I ran in.

The lower level of the museum featured a display about steam power. This was very interesting to me on several different levels. For one thing I earned my degree in Mechanical Engineering, and I find old equipment like this to be fascinating. Also of interest was the fact that my great-grandfather and his brothers owned and operated a big steam-powered sawmill about a century ago. I’ve seen some old pictures of it. There was a big steam engine inside the mill which, via leather belts, turned a shaft in the ceiling of the mill. This shaft ran across the length of the building. All of the saws and other machines inside the mill were connected, again via leather belts, to the rotating shaft in the ceiling. The steam engine was the power source for the entire sawmill.

Inside the museum they had several steam engines which operated various types of industrial operations. They had some which turned shafts with leather belts. I couldn’t help but wonder if any of them were like the steam engine that ran my great-grandfather’s sawmill.

After looking at the steam power display for a while I meanandered over to the display on transportation, where they highlighted things like steam-powered railways, and the development of automobile travel and the advent of freeways. I had made it through to the section covering the 1950’s when a security guard came and told me that the museum was closing and that I would have to leave.

I s…l…o…w…l…y walked out of the museum. As I approacehd the exit I happened to spot the C3PO costume from Star Wars on display. I managed to get a close look at it and snap a picture before I left.

Pentagon City is a large mall located right on the Metro line in Arlington.

I frequently stop here to eat, as there is a fairly large food court, with a good variety of places to eat. When in the DC area, I frequently stay in the Crystal City area. Pentagon City is right on my way into downtown when I’m heading in after work to take pictures, or just hang out.

I know that there are a multitude of better, more exciting places to eat in Georgetown, Alexandria, and other places nearby. I just happen to go to Pentagon City a lot because it’s fast, convenient, and relatively inexpensive.

There are also a number of shops where it’s easy to pick up a few souvenirs from the District. Ah, that reminds me, I bought a new tie while I was there. :-)

Beneath the tree there are a multitude of small villages, each encircled by an electric train.