June 24, 2016
Day 24 Jamestown to Richmond
Today we rode the Virginia Capital Trail from Jamestown to Richmond. It was nice to be on a bike trail and not have to watch for cars, but there were a lot of road crossings.
Our first stop was at the County of Charles City Courthouse trailhead. The old courthouse there is supposed to be the third oldest courthouse in the United States. The judge looked very suspicious to me and the two characters he had in his court looked definitely dangerous!
We wanted to see a Virginia plantation, so left the trail for a 1 mile ride to the Berkley Plantation, birthplace of Benjamin Harrison and William Henry Harrison. A short paved road took us to a ½ mile loose gravel drive. We decided that was too far to walk the bikes, so headed back toward the trail. We rode a few more miles to the Shirley Plantation. Google said it was 1.5 miles off the trail. The first mile was great, then we hit a dirt road. That was OK, but with 1/3 mile to go, a sign pointed right up a rocky road. Kerry headed up there and I was VERY anxious. I hate riding on loose rocks. Viktoriya did the intelligent thing and dismounted her bike and let Alain ride it alone. We reached the building, parked the bikes and entered the building only to find that we were in the wrong place. We were at the restaurant/winery and the plantation was another ½ mile up the dirt road. We WALKED the bike back across the rocks, then took the dirt road to the plantation. It turned out to be worth the aggravation. The Shirley Plantation was part of a land grant given in 1613. The home was built in 1738 and has been occupied continuously by members of the same family since then. They are on the 12th generation and a family still lives in the home. We walked around the grounds and outbuildings before taking a tour of the first floor of the home. Our tour guide, Edie Johnson, was just great. She was warm, welcoming and very entertaining telling the story of the plantation, great house and its various residents over the years.
After we finally got our plantation tour, we headed on to Richmond. We made a most welcome stop at Dairy Queen, then rode on to the end of the trail. Our Garmin map failed us at the end. The trail dead ends in old downtown Richmond and our map tried to send us on a road we didn’t see. We took off through downtown, at rush hour, and hoped for the best. The drivers were, as we have come to expect, very courteous. After getting completely turned around, we stopped and let Viktoriya and her GPS find us good directions. We made it to the AirBNB house then with no problems.
The house was very nice. The owner has a beautiful golden retriever mix named Lily, who was a wonderful hostess. She greeted us with great affection every time we saw her and let us love on her in return.
Living in the land of early bird specials and dinner at 5, we weren’t prepared for the long waits at our first choice restaurants at 7:30 on a Friday night in the city. We settled on a Mexican place that was OK, but not what we had been hoping for. The area of Richmond we stayed in, not too far from VCU, seemed vibrant and thriving.
Walking back to the house from the restaurant, we came to the corner of Cary and Allen streets. Photographic remembrance was in order.
Today's ride: 63 miles (101 km)
Total: 1,343 miles (2,161 km)
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