A Living Magazine - Day 302 - Homecoming - Fredericksburg: Cynthia and Architecture

It had been a good night, and exactly like the other five nights at that second spot. I woke up at 4:00 a.m. and tried to fall back asleep but couldn't. So, I lay around for about three more hours and then packed up and started downtown. I wanted to get to Starbucks to see if any donations had come in...   

This was an interesting fence construction,

seemed a bit odd to arch two-by-sixes over each other.

Thankfully, three donations had come in! I could eat! It was also enough to get to Washington the next day and to live on until I planned to leave Friday. I bought my train ticket.

I also checked in with my friend, Cynthia - a hometown friend from Yarmouth, Maine - to confirm a lunch. She lived 45 minutes, and let me know that we were all set to meet at the Colonial Tavern, an Irish pub down on Lafayette. We planned for 12:30 p.m. And I left to get down there on time...

I cut through Marye's Heights Battleground and got a better picture of this...

Wow!

I happened to pass one of the Starbucks employee's I'd met a few days ago, David, walking his dog. We hung out and talked for a while. I hope he checks out this blog and keeps in touch. I gave him a card.

As I reached Lafayette, I started to get a much better idea about just how incredible the architecture of Fredericksburg was and made a mental note to really check it out after lunch...

The Amtrak station.

I met up with Cynthia and we had a great lunch. She got a salad and I got a plate of fried mushrooms, and we had a beer. It was great to reminisce over all the things we used to remember about growing up and living in Yarmouth. We had not seen each other in about thirty years. She was very funny. Although we sometimes do not see eye to eye politicly, I discovered that we think about most things in the same way. I've I've grown to expect, there is just nothing like face to face communication.

We agreed that children might be a bit overprotected these days. Having your child trust you can be better than hard discipline, she said. Her kids know that they can confide in her and tell her the truth about what they're doing. That is the way my mom was with me. I could call her even very late at night and she would let me pretty much do what I wanted. It was the trust that was important. And, as a kid, I worked to maintain it--even with all the stupid shit I used to do. As long as I called, we were all set. Still Cynthia and I had some laughs about stories from our separate years in college.

It got to the time in the afternoon when she had to leave, because of traffic and family obligations. We said goodbye, and I hoped it would not be another 30 years before we could hang out again...

Alex and Cynthia.

After such a nice lunch, I was in the mood for exploration. I wanted to really get a taste of the historic downtown of Fredericksburg, the stores, the architecture, find the library to print my train ticket and then locate a sleep spot closer to town...

Interesting.

These beautiful little houses and stores lined nearly every street...

Ha! Love it!

A store selling cat themed items had a kitty sleeping in the window.

I would love one of these in my little future house.

I found the library and they let me print my ticket for free. Very nice. Then I left to continue my photo tour...

Except for the lack of a palladian window above the doorway,

this is a perfect example of Federalist Styled house.

Now it was time to search for a sleep spot. I thought I'd seen a few around and across the Rappahannock River...

One of my favorite pictures.

These looked like feathers, but they were actually reflections of the half moon in the river water.

Damn! A tent. There goes that possibility.

I searched around the neighboring town of Falmouth, but there just wasn't anything. When the sun was very low I suddenly remembered an area I'd seen the other day while walking along the Blue and Gray Highway. It was two miles back, but worth a try...

On my way back past the battlefield, I heard an incredibly tight hardcore band practicing. They were so good that I thought maybe it was a recording. Then I actually saw them playing and took this video...

I walked up to congratulate them, but they launched into another piece and I didn't want to bug them. I think they were recording. Near the same area, I searched around the walker's path right where Lafayette meets Blue and Gray--right next to the hill where my characters fell. Again after going way in, I saw a tent! So, I got back to my idea about Blue and Gray.

Finally, I found the place I'd seen the other day. It was a grassy inlet, scooting along the side of a hill. When I walked in I saw a dry concrete spillway that led to the top of the hill. I walked up it, looking for a level place. It was only at the very top that I found a good spot.

It was a really warm night, and I was pretty sure no one would see the tent, so I left the fly off...

I wasn't exactly sure where I was. I saw a bright blue light next to me and through a fence by the tent. I couldn't figure out what it was there for. Then I saw a pickup truck drive by fairly close to my location, and it became clear to me. The blue light was an emergency beacon for students. I was on the other side of the sports complex I had filmed two days before from William Street.

I finally had a chance to relax. I had clicked my old pedometer after lunch and put it in a top pocket of the pack just to see how much territory I would cover before camping. I checked it and found it was just over eight miles! No wonder I was so tired. 

I crawled into the tent and fell asleep, setting my alarm for 6:00 a.m. just in case I didn't wake up on my own. My train's departure time was 9:19 a.m., and I had about a mile to walk. I also wanted to get some coffee in the morning and check Washington out online, for a basic plan of what to do when I arrived there around 11:00 a.m.