Weems, VA

Location: Weems, Virginia, USA
Date Visited: November 2014

I spent Veterans Day in the Northern Neck of Virginia. After some meandering, I ended up in Weems at Christ Church, one of the oldest original colonial churches in the state.

Built in 1735 by horrible people (sorry, but when you successfully petition the colonial government for permission to cut off your slaves' toes, you don't get any praise from me, regardless of your other accomplishments), Christ Church is a simple but very lovely little Anglican chapel. I was raised Catholic, so having the pulpit in the exact center of the church and pews in little cubicles, facing all directions, is foreign to me.

The docents were marvelous. I appreciate anyone who thinks of me as "young," but given that these women were easily twice my age, that's their prerogative. The one who gave me the tour of the church was especially funny. She mentioned that the Carsons - the folks who built the church - had their own special cubicle of pews directly across from the pulpit, within which the pews were two inches deeper than the rest of the church. The docent whispered to me, "We think the Carsons had big butts."

She also kept asking me where I was staying for the night, and didn't seem to understand that driving home that night wasn't a big deal. I was roughly two hours from home, and it was only midafternoon. But I guess when you're older that becomes a very long drive.

It was getting pretty gloomy and rainy by that point, so I drove out to Windmill Point, snapped a quick photo, then headed across the bridge on Route 3 (shown in the second page above). Oi, Virginia river bridges are terrifying. I don't generally have issues with heights, and this wasn't nearly as scary as the Bay Bridge, but the two-way, no-median traffic was a touch unnerving.

Colonial Beach, VA

Location: Colonial Beach, Virginia, USA
Date visited: November 2014

I spent Veterans Day exploring the Northern Neck of Virginia. My first real tourism stop of the day was the George Washington Birthplace National Monument. The houses were closed due to some kind of mechanical failure, rendering them unsafe, but I learned a lot at the visitor center and got to see the graves and the obelisk. I also stopped by the beach, where I picked up an oyster shell, one of the eleventy billion collected in the sand. Where I grew up, rivers don't have sandy beaches, so it's still novel. (Okay, where I grew up we didn't have any river, but I certainly spent more time by them than the ocean.)

Montross and Lancaster, VA

Location: Montross and Lancaster, Virginia, USA
Date Visited: November 2014

I spent Veterans Day exploring the Northern Neck of Virginia, the peninsula between the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers. I'd never been, which is apparently a strange reason for visiting somewhere, but that's what exploring is all about, right? The first page above is my entire route; the next couple days will be some pages dedicated to some specific stops.

The second stage comprises a few stops, including the Westmoreland County Historical Museum and Lancaster Tavern, where I stopped for lunch. The Mary Ball Washington Museum and Library was closed, but I wandered around the buildings outside a bit.