Pocahontas State Park, VA

Had lukewarm beans and Ritz crackers tonight because I have no confidence in my fire. Lord help me I hope i get better at it. Had the tent up, stakes and all, in just under ten minutes. But it took me close to two hours to get the fire started. It's a weak little fire, smoky as hell and full of charcoal. That's what I can do. I can't get wood to burn, apparently, but I can turn it into charcoal like nobody's business.

I learned today that I don't like Richmond. It's a junkie little city. It seems barren: the streets are too wide for the number of people on them. Granted, I was only in the downtown area, but on a weekday afternoon, it just didn't seem right. The old man behind the visitor's desk at the Confederate Museum was appropriately cranky for his position. When I asked for directions to Tredegar, he seemed mildly offended, explained that since National Park Services moved in, their take on the war is "much different than ours." Then he asked where I was from, and when I told him Philadelphia, his manner seemed to get a little more curt still. and when I asked if i could walk there, he said sternly, "No. It's too far. And it's all downhill."

He was right about the Civil War Center at Tredegar. The Confederate Museum was warm and old; the Civil War Center was big and echoed too much; it smelled new and was full of video reels. You can tell it was built for schoolkids, and it was full of Northerners like me. The Confederate Museum had a decidedly Southern tilt, not unwelcome and not unexpected, but it made me feel a little like a damn Yankee. I heard and old lady giggle appreciatively when she read aloud that General Gordon became the first Grand Dragon of the KKK; I heard another ask her husband if "Union" means "North." He told her yes, and added firmly, "the War of Northern Aggression!"

I think in Virginia, judging from my view of the state from its northern highways, the Civil War and the Confederacy so surround the people that it shouldn't be startling to hear it called the War of Northern Aggression. Driving down I95, you pass Chancellorsville and Spotsylvania. There's a state highway named for Lee and one named for Jeff Davis. and a shrine to Stonewall Jackson. Shrine, not monument. That's deification of the best sort.

I wonder if I can go much further south than this without feeling grateful for Poppy's pepperspray.