Lexington, VA

Continuation of Natural Bridge trip...

Lexington- what a beautiful historical town! My first stop in Lexington was the cemetery that Stonewall Jackson (Thomas Jonathan Jackson) was buried in. 

 The grave of Stonewall Jackson. Part of his family was buried there too.

 I found this small gravestone almost hidden by a big bush. UNKNOWN SOLDIER CSA 1861.

After exploring the cemetery I walked on over to Stonewall Jackson's house, that he owned but only lived in for about 2-1/2 years. This is the front of the house and those 2 front doors used to be at street level. They had to lower the street 8 feet or so to make the road less steep.

I couldn't take pictures inside the house, but I liked this historic scarecrow in the gardens outside Jackson's house. You can read about it in the picture below.

I learned a lot about Stonewall Jackson on the tour. For instance he was quite a religious man and somewhat reserved. He married Elinor Junkin, whose father was the president of the Washington College, which is located in Lexington. Elinor died giving birth to their first child and the child was stillborn. Jackson married Mary Anna Morrison a couple of years after Elinor died. They had 1 daughter who died as a baby and another who lived to adulthood.

Jackson was good friends with his sister. When Jackson joined the civil war for the Confederacy, his sister stopped all communication with him because she was a staunch Unionist. She didn't even attend his funeral.

The side of the Jackson house. The front part is the original part and the back part is an addition to the house that was already in place when Jackson and his wife moved in. Isn't it funny that part of the house that Stonewall Jackson lived in was made of stone?! :)  hahaha. So funny! I know.

Washington and Lee University is named after George Washington who put a lot of money into the college and Robert E. Lee who helped get it going and keep it going. I didn't know before I went to Lexington that Robert E. Lee and George Washington had a connection with the university and also Lee married Washington's step-granddaughter. I thought that was pretty cool.

It's a beautiful campus! All of the buildings were this pretty red brick with the large columns.

Lee Chapel. Robert E Lee had this chapel built on campus as an assembly hall. It is not a consecrated church, although there were non-denominational prayer meetings each morning. On the main level is the assembly room and in the basement is a little museum with the history of the university and Robert E. Lee's contribution to the college.

The grave of Robert E. Lee inside Lee Chapel on the main level. Some of Lee's family members are buried in the basement of the chapel.

Robert E. Lee's horse, Traveller, is buried right outside the chapel.

Here's the marker for Traveller's grave.

Standing in front of the chapel this is the view.

Another church on campus!

I ate at Sweet Treats Bakery for lunch and it was pretty dang good!

I, of course, had to get a dessert at the bakery after I finished my lunch. I do not remember what I got but I remember it being delicious! 

The man who was helping me in the bakery was very friendly. He had an interesting story. He told me how he used to be a businessman in a large company in the D.C. area and that working there pretty much sucked out his soul. So he moved to Lexington to help out his brother in the bakery and he said that moving there saved his life. He was glad for the change. He likes it in Lexington but said he would like to come back to live in the D.C. area someday.

Virginia Military Institute or VMI is also in Lexington. The campus was pretty deserted, since it's summer time. It was actually a little eerie at first because I saw no one and it was a big open space with some of the windows boarded up in the buildings.

It got better when I eventually saw people. I went to the museum on post which is in the basement of the chapel and in the chapel they were preparing for a wedding.

I liked Lexington. It was a cute little town with lots of history. Stay tuned for more posts about my weekend...

Natural Bridge

Do you ever have those times when you have to get away? Away from traffic, away from people, away from real life, just for a little while? Ok, maybe I'm the only one but regardless I have been needing one of those weekends for awhile now and it's not easy to find the time to just get away but 2 weekends ago I finally got to do just that. 

My chosen place of destination... Natural Bridge, VA, Lexington, VA, and Buena Vista, VA which are all relatively close together. 

One of my coworkers told me about Natural Bridge awhile ago and when I looked it up on the internet, I immediately knew I was going to go there sometime in the future. Since I wanted to make a weekend of it, I looked up what there was to do around Natural Bridge and set a weekend I could go and off I went.

                                  

If you feel so inclined, you can click on the picture above to make it bigger and read about the history of Natural Bridge. 

                                 

My first view of Natural Bridge! 

                                  

Isn't it beautiful?!

                           

Lost River. They do not know the source of the water in this picture nor to where it goes.

Lace Waterfalls was at the end of the trail at Natural Bridge.

Lace Waterfalls!

Along the trail at Natural Bridge! The trail is about a mile long and it's beautiful!

The view of the arch from the other side.

Foot selfie :).

One of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World, but I am not sure that it actually is. I think the only websites that say it is, are the Natural Bridge websites. But still cool nonetheless!

That same night they had a drama of creation show at the bridge, where they had a narrator read the creation of the world from the Bible and had a light show and music. The narration and music were a bit cheesy but it sure was cool to see the bridge at night time. :) 

Stay tuned for more posts to come about my trip...

Oatlands Plantation

On Saturday was a beautiful spring day! I decided I needed to do something outside so I typed in "gardens in Northern Virginia" in google search and the Oatlands Plantation in Leesburg came up. I decided that was where I wanted to visit and it was beautiful! 

George Carter inherited the 3400 acres of land that the house is built on in 1798 but did not start building the house until 1804. At first the house was smaller and built in the Federal/Georgian style and then in the 1820's George renovated it into Greek Revival style as seen in this picture. 

George made money by growing wheat, raising sheep for their wool, grinding grain and milling timber, and had a greenhouse to grow foods that normally could not grow or struggle to grow in Virginia, like bananas, strawberries etc. If you want to learn more about the history you can go their website.  http://www.oatlands.org/

Isn't it beautiful?!

Next to the house was a beautiful terraced 4 acre garden. The tour guide said that since the garden was terraced essentially they had a little different climate on each level to grow different types of things. It was interesting and I loved it!

I liked this well in the garden and I think it was even a real well and not just for decoration.

On the grounds of the house and gardens, they were preparing for a wedding. And I think I found the spot where the actual ceremony was going to take place. :) It was an awfully beautiful spot!

Here's what would have been behind the bride and groom as they got married.

I liked this bench in the gardens!

The only remaining barn on the grounds.

I liked that this compass was sitting on top of a turtle.

The back of the house.

Saturday was such lovely day outside and the tour and gardens were beautiful!

I want to tell a story that I want to remember. I went to the souvenir shop after I was done touring the house and grounds to buy a souvenir. There were two nice ladies there and I started talking to them. I told them how I decided to venture out of the downtown D.C. area for touristy things and one lady started suggesting places for me to go in D.C. as well as Charlottesville. She got so excited telling me about these places. She even had some magazines she had recently purchased in her purse and she pulled them out and was showing me pictures of some of the places I should go. She was just so nice and it's fun to see people get excited about something they are passionate about (historical houses in her case)!

After I left the shop, I still wanted to go for a drive, so I drove west on 7 towards Winchester, VA but I didn't go all the way to Winchester.  I did drive through Berryville, VA though. Berryville was a cute and charming little town, where the speed limit was 25 MPH all through the main road of town and I ended up eating dinner there. Then I visited my brother, Pete and his family for a while before I headed home.

Move Along

We all have good days and bad days. Hopefully we have more good days than bad. Sometimes we just need that little push or motivation to get us through a bad day, whether it be an unexpected email or text from a friend or family member or words of wisdom from a wise person or reading a specific passage of scripture or lyrics to a good song.

A few days ago my morning didn't start off particularly well and I was not looking forward to the work day but as I was driving to work a song came onto my iPod that really spoke to me that morning.  Move Along by All American Rejects.

The whole song is awesome, but I especially like the chorus. 

"Speak to me, when all you got to keep is strong, 

Move along, move along like I know you do

And even when your hope is gone 

Move along, move along just to make it through

Move along

Move along"

"When everything is wrong, we move along"

It was just wanted I needed that morning. After listening to the song, I perked up and decided I was going to make it through the day and that it would be a good one!  I don't remember particularly what happened that day but I do know that it was a good day, a better day than it would have been.

Although life is hard at times, we have to move along. It is much easier said than done sometimes, but if we can just make it through the next 10 minutes, through the next hour, through the day, something good will eventually come! "Move along, move along, like I know you do. And even when your hope is gone, move along, move along just to make it through." 

Medical Museum and Meadowlark Gardens!

I've had the pictures for this post ready since the day after we went on our little excursion and I am just barely getting to writing about it. I'm a little behind. I also have one more post about Mexico City that I need to finish and my trip to California but that's beside the point. 

On a beautiful Saturday at the end of March my friend, Coralee and I went to the temple and then went to a medical museum near the temple. The temple was lovely, of course. 

And the museum was fascinating! It's not a super large museum, but it was cool nonetheless. I work with Coralee and at work we both read surgeons' certificates from soldiers who fought in the Civil War (and enter the info from those records into a database system and then there are professors who use that information for writing papers and books and doing studies etc.) So basically we read about all sorts of injuries and diseases from the Civil War everyday. 

At this museum they had an exhibit about injuries during the Civil War and we of course had to go and see it. How could we resist? :)  

Apparently doctors and surgeons send body parts (with permission) that are affected with certain diseases or injuries to this museum to be studied so that doctors can learn more about those diseases or just because it's fascinating. You can read a little more about the museum here.  http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/medtour/nmhm.html

A real brain and spinal cord preserved in some sort of liquid. 

A skeleton of a man with chronic rheumatism. It says that his "condition worsened until nearly every joint in his body became fused." That is not good. 

On the right is a replica of the 12-pound ball that struck the leg of a man during battle. His leg had to be amputated and that's the guys bone that got hit by the ball. OUCH! 

Coralee and I at the museum! There was lots more stuff, but I didn't take too many pictures. The museum was fascinating, maybe a little disturbing at times but awesome! 

After the temple and the museum it was time for lunch. I wasn't sure if I would be able to stomach food right away after the museum so we went to Elevation Burger near my house and my stomach was okay by then ;). It was a nice enough day that we could eat outside. 

Coralee went home after we ate and then I went to Meadowlark Gardens and it was beautiful!

The water was still partly frozen.

I love Meadowlark!

And on my bench :) Overall it was lovely March day!

Ukraine

I served my mission in the Ukraine Donetsk mission, the part of Ukraine where all the chaos is going on right now.  I have learned that all of the cities I served in now have Russian troops in them, Kharkiv, Gorlovka, Lugansk and Donetsk. I do not know how this whole situation is going to turn out (besides Russia taking over) but I pray for the Ukrainian people in general and that all of the people that I love who still live there are okay. My heart is breaking right now as I type this and I hope somehow it will be okay.

John 14:27 "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."