Restless

A few weeks ago, UVa had spring break.  I do not say "I had spring break" because I worked the entire week.  My colleague and I decided we were going to take a few days off and we not only ended up coming in the entire week but I even stayed late on Friday.

But of course, despite what sounds like stellar work ethic, I was feeling as much in need of a good break as everyone else.  So, on Friday, I called up one of my sisters for help.  We came up with a plan: to meet somewhere near the middle of our two houses and visit something off the highway that we've always wanted to explore.

My sister decided on Chapman's Mill.  We were pretty excited to investigate this historic site which played some part in the Civil War.  We were encouraged when we noticed a lot of other cars parked near the entrance to the spot.  Apparently everyone else really likes this place too!  Then we wandered along a trail until we got to this:

 Ummm.... Also note, we were the only ones on the trail by this point.  But undeterred, we forged onward to the mill.

So...yeah, it got destroyed by fire twice.  It was a great view of a skeleton of a building.

 Oops!  So much for our historic outing.

We had a good laugh at our expense.  We also really liked the sign with its description.  Apparently, the mill was used by the Confederate soldiers during the War to store two million pounds of meat (!!!) while they occupied the area.  When the soldiers left, they set it on fire so the Union troops wouldn't have access to the meat.  The captions also made us smile.  On the left it says, The Mill.  On the right it says, The Fire.

 Here I'm trying to take an artistic shot of the building.

Well, that sightseeing adventure took all of 10 minutes (mostly to walk to this point).  Since we were on some trails we just started walking along.  We started finding lots of people who were all decked out in hiking gear, equipped with plenty of water and walking sticks.  We didn't really get what the trails were about until we got to the car and realized that there was some outlook that everyone else was hiking up to.  So we turned around and hiked up to the outlook in our non hiking gear and without water bottles or hiking sticks.  

 The ground sparkled!  "What is this?  Twilight?"  ~ My sister

 The hike proved to actually be a hike.  But after an hour of hiking we reached the top.

 It was a beautiful view.

 So our adventure turned out to be a real adventure after all.

I recommend it.  The view was great.  The hike was not too difficult and very beautiful.  And of course, the company couldn't be beat.