After finishing that chore I couldn't wait any longer to call my friend Marnie in Indiana!! Unfortunately she was eating lunch at Applebee's & we couldn't talk for an hour, but we did get to talk for a little bit! We have emailed twice since then & exchanged pictures of kids & grand kids. Wow! 13 yrs. is a long time to catch up on a very dear friend! Just like my childhood friend Linda! A lot of ground to cover. Marnie said they would be in Harbor Creek, PA (near Erie, PA) the first of July while we are also home. Since I have a doctors appointment on the 6th in Erie, we are going to plan on getting together! I can't wait for that hug! As we were talking she said her husband had had a church in Apache Junction for 6 years! That was prior to us being out there, but it seems are paths are crossing often, just not at the same time! Hopefully we will be able to pay them a visit on our travels soon.
Last evening we spent some time visiting with friends here in Ashland, VA. Today Linda picked up Bill & I and we went out for lunch. She named three places for choices. Since we had already been to 2 of them before & I never knew that Bass Pro Shop had a restaurant, we chose to go there. The food was great & you sure didn't go away hungry!!!
This was the outside doors. Notice the door handles - they are fishing rods!
Inside the restaurant were 3 huge aquariums. This was a very "fuzzy" fish. They were all very colorful & beautiful. Linda got some good pictures with her camera. If she happens to send me some, I'll post them next time. 
This was inside the bar area. 
After lunch we headed to the Train Station which also serves as their Visitor's Center. Tomorrow Bill & I will be checking out some places on our own as their son will be visiting with them so it's family time. Those times are few since he lives in California.
The old baggage cart. Can't you just here those iron wheels rolling over the bricks?
Bill & Linda
Next we went to Hanover Court House & the Hanover Tavern. The court house was locked, so we only walked around outside, but afterwards we took a tour of the inside of the tavern. 
The outside of the tavern. Patrick Henry once lived here. He was married to the daughter of the owner, John Shelton who operated the tavern from 1750 - 1764, & in his absence would host & bar tend at the tavern. After reading some of the signs posted inside, they have found through research that the original tavern no longer exists & no one seems to know what happened to it. The north portion has been found to be dated 1791 & the south ell portion 1823.
Signs across street in front of Court House.
This is the Court House.
This is the old jail.
We only found one prisoner there. I think he was in for Temporary Insanity - after all he was travel the afternoon with 2 women. That was scandalous!!! I think he's still smiling though!
The magnolias are still out! Oh how beautiful! They are huge!! I won't tell you how we had to get these to our level to take pictures. I'm a blogger - you do anything (most anything) to get a picture!
Well, it took 2 hands to hold this down to my level with the camera! Look at the size of Bill's head & then the blossom! I never realized how big they were. I guess I've only ever seen them from a distance, probably driving by in the vehicle.
Back to the tavern. This was an interesting sign upstairs. You probably can't read it, but it says "Compared to New Englanders, early Virginians who drank tended to drink to excess." "Public drunkenness, while against the law, was rarely punished in colonial Virginia." Then it goes on to tell what taverns were used for - social places, places where you could get together to play draughts or checkers, cards during their stay.
This is in one of the former dining rooms upstairs. They have some of the renovations covered over with Plexiglas so you can see the renovations. Here you can see the early wallpaper. Below you can see the fresh paint on what they called the cage bar.
This is one of the dining rooms in the tavern.
Many times when the tavern became crowded with guests, the family running the tavern had to cram all of their belongings into one room. The lady at the front desk told us that Mrs. Chisolm, whose family ran the tavern from the Civil War through the 19th century was amicable to both the north & the south & because of that the tavern was never burned down. Smart lady - she played both sides for the good of her business!
This is the back of the tavern where today you enter & at that time was the entrance & faced the stage coach trail. You walk down the ramp & enter the lower floor. The top floor is closed to the public & is used for office spaces.
That concluded our tour for today. We got back to the trailer around 5:30PM & my legs ached so I decided to just download the pictures & take a short nap so I could put my feet up. Well, my nap extended to about 8:10PM!!!! Since we ate a big lunch, we just had dessert & snacks for supper. You know, the healthy meals!
1 comment:
I know exactly what you mean about the humidity. When we first got to Oklahoma, we wanted to turn around and go back to AZ. We were drenched.
Great tour!!
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