Exploring Virginy!

Today was time to add another form of transport to our ever-expanding collection – we caught an Amtrak train from Union Station, Washington DC to Roanoke VA (which is USPS-shorthand for Virginia). We had been warned about the quality of, or lack thereof, of the food available on the train, so we brought snacks as we were told that lunch would be waiting for us in Virginia.

Over 30 years ago, when Nick was a lowly FlgOff in the RAAF Reserve, he went to RAAF Edinburgh for an exercise and met a young USN Lt who was a Navigator on P3s. Nick subsequently gave Matt the lowdown on getting to Sydney courtesy of a scheduled service from Adelaide to RAAF Richmond. And whilst Matt was in Sydney, Nick played tour guide for him. As a result of that connection, we have maintained contact, with the good old annual Xmas card and then emails when that became an option.

Matt and his wife, Polly played host, chauffeur and tour guide for us in Roanoke and surrounding areas in Virginia. We got to do some shopping – yes, Nick bought some more travel shirts and I got a pair of jeans. We also got to see Target in the US. Wow! That really put our Target stores to shame and that was before they were downsized! We managed to dip our toes into a bit of Civil War history – we visited Lexington which was in the heartland of the South. We visited VMI (Virginia Military Academy) which had a big names as alumni – General George S Patton (transferred to West Point when he learnt that he would have to pass a test to get a commission in the Army if he stayed at VMI), General Omar Bradley (like Patton, he transferred to West Point), General George Marshall (think Marshall Plan). General “Stonewall” Jackson was a professor at VMI.

These are the State flags of the States at the time of the US Civil War

We also visited Washington & Lee University – it was founded by George Washington and was called “Washington College”, but after the end of the US Civil War, General Robert E Lee became the President of the College and brought in some amazing reforms to the teaching curriculum. After his death in 1870, the college was renamed to its current name (in 1871).

On another day, we drove along a section of the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is crossed by the Appalachian Trail. We also managed to visit the D-Day Memorial which is in Bedford VA. The memorial was built with private funds but it was taken under the wing of the US Government and became the National Memorial. We were lucky enough to visit on the Sunday before Memorial Day. It is a really beautiful memorial and has some amazing tableaux to represent various stages of Operation Overlord.

This represents the different stages of coming ashore on D-Day – the wading ashore, the dead on the beach & the getting across the beach.

Why is it here, in Bedford VA? Whilst Bedford didn’t send the largest number of men to war, the number of ‘Bedford Boys’ who were killed either on D-Day or within the first couple of days, represented the highest percentage of local boys killed, based on per capita population.

Many people equate this Tableau to refer to the Rangers storming Pointe-du-Hoc, but apparently it also refers to the greater storming of Hitler’s Atlantic defenses.

Another thing that we experienced whilst staying with Matt & Polly was a Storm. They don’t live in tornado country but they are very serious about storms. We learnt the difference between a Storm Warning and a Storm Watch. We also experienced a power outage that lasted several hours and observed how they had planned for that eventuality – they had a propane-fueled generator hard-wired into their system. This means that if they have a power outage, the generator kicks in automatically and powers most things.

No storm on the other side of the house – but it was coming!

Tyson was in Dallas whilst we were in Buchanan and we were able to give him warning on what to do. It turns out that the stadium in Dallas lost a scoreboard (blown down in the wind) and was without power for several days.

The impact of this storm was felt by us on the Monday, when we were supposed to be flying to New York City. We had come to the airport in Roanoke, booked out luggage through and we were waiting for our flight. At about the time that the incoming flight from NYC landed, we were advised that our flight was cancelled!

Fortunately, we were able to rebook for the same flight but in the next day. And we could message Matt, who came back to the airport to pick us up and take us home. Tuesday morning dawned, time for Take 2, which was thankfully successful.

We were supposed to have 5 full days in NYC but we lost a day, but we will managed to survive. You will have to wait for the next installment to find out how…

Nick & Moe, the VMI Mascot. The real Kangaroo was eventually replaced with a costume.

In case you are wondering why VMI has a kangaroo as it’s a mascot… Apparently, there was a private zoo nearby to Lexington and it had a couple of kangaroos and wallabies. The owner of the Zoo thought it was a good marketing idea to take one of the kangaroos to a Football game, in an attempt to drum up some business. This became a regular occurrence and eventually in the late 1940’s, VMI adopted the kangaroo as its Mascot and he was christened “Moe”. This is the explanation that we were given by some of the cadets that were working in the VMI museum.