Squirrels that fly, ponies that rumble; the interlude begins!

The Interlude between The Graduation and The Wedding got off to a magnificent start.

The names are Nutasha, Nutzy and Betsy; readers can choose the order.

On Thursday May 25 we moved about 100 miles further east to a lovely, large state park on the suburban perimeter of Richmond and were soon heading into town to watch the AA minor league baseball Richmond Flying Squirrels square off against the Binghamton Rumble Ponies.

It was a pretty good game (the Squirrels lost 6-3) and we had fantastic seats three rows in back of the Richmond dugout; but the unquestioned highlight of the evening was Betsy’s victory in the “sing that song” contest. Check it out by clicking on this link.

Friday was spent visiting three diverse Richmond historic sites, starting with a two-hour walking tour of Hollywood Cemetery, the final resting place of such notables as U.S. presidents James Monroe and John Tyler, CSA president Jefferson Davis and 28 confederate generals, including J.E.B. Stuart and George Pickett. In fact, more than 80,000 people – and counting – are buried in this historic, well-maintained, hilly cemetery with its sweeping views of the James River and downtown Richmond. However, according to our guide, none of the 80,000 interred here (of which about 12,000 are Confederate casualties) are black, at least not "officially". Welcome to Virginia.

The James River (slightly visible on the right side of this photo) was filled to overflowing by recent rains. From this point east the James is a wide, deep river more than capable of accommodating colonial-era, ocean-going ships. However, near this point where the photo is taken there is "the falls," a long stretch of flat, rocky rapids. So Richmond first developed as a portage point for the transfer of cargo (primarily tobacco) that came down the river from the west, bound for overseas export to the east. But Richmond got its biggest boost when the Commonwealth's legislature (and second governor, Thomas Jefferson) decided to relocate the capital from Williamsburg, near the Atlantic coast, to this more central location that was less vulnerable to attack by the British.

In terms of space, location and design Jefferson Davis probably has the best grave site in Hollywood Cemetery.

Defender of the Constitution? Am I the only cemetery visitor that reads these words inscribed on the base of the Jefferson Davis statue and wants to vomit? How about this for an epitaph? Jefferson Davis: Anarchist, Traitor, Racist. May he roast in hell.

Our next stop was the home of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall and this might be a good time to explain that we made a decision to focus our fairly limited sightseeing time in Virginia on its pre-Civil War history because there are so many Civil War battlefields and historic sites that we could not begin to scratch the surface in the time available.

Marshall famously sought to build collegiality on the court by encouraging the justices to board together when they were in Washington (including many meals served with ample supplies of wine). But when the court was not in session Marshall lived in this house in downtown (both then and now) Richmond with his family from 1790 until his death in 1835; just a few blocks from the Thomas Jefferson-designed state capitol.

We capped off our action-packed day with an informative house tour at the Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site, which is only a mile or so from the Marshall house. Walker was the first African-American woman to be the president of a bank, managing to prosper as a businesswoman during the Jim Crow era. Similar to the Marshall house, the ownership of the Walker house passed directly from descendants to the current conservators and that has allowed both of these house museums to be, essentially, frozen in time with many original furnishings on display.

On Saturday, the start of the Memorial Day Weekend, we headed down to Yorktown which is on the coast maybe 60 miles or so east of Richmond. We soon found out that just about everybody else in town had the same idea. It was indeed a busy but surprisingly easy visit that really helped us visualize and understand what could arguably be called America's most important battle, the one that effectively ended the Revolutionary War and gained independence for the 13 colonies (23 months after the battle ended).

There was a parade in downtown Yorktown

Yorktown is an odd combination of national park-like historic preservation and interpretation and "let's go to the beach and get drunk" partying. But it somehow seems to work and we will be going back on Tuesday to take in the new Revolutionary War Museum and nearby Jamestown when, hopefully, things are a bit quieter.

Once I was able to convince these two guys - French Admiral Francois de Grasse (left) and Continental Army General George Washington - to work together in the fall of 1781 the rest, as they say, was history. De Grasse defeated the British navy in the Battle of the Capes near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and sent them packing for New York to regroup. The French navy was then able to bottle up British General Charles Cornwallis and his 8,000 troops in Yorktown where Washington and the troops he had hustled 450 miles from New York along with French troops led by the Marquis de Lafayette built a massive ring of earthworks and laid siege to the town. After days on end of withering cannon fire had reduced one of America's largest port cities to rubble, Cornwallis surrendered and the colonies had, effectively, gained their freedom (even though the Treaty of Paris was not signed until nearly two years later).

On October 19, 1781 British troops lined up for nearly a mile along the road leading to this field south of Yorktown, Virginia to lay down their arms in a formal surrender ceremony overseen by Washington and Lafayette. The American experiment had, effectively, begun.

Sunday was, hopefully, the last rainy day for a while. We braved he elements to drive in a long loop up to the "neck" of Virginia to visit Stratford Hall, the ancestral home plantation of a long line of influential Lees, and the Washington Birthplace National Monument - both on the banks of the Potomac River- and then over to Fredericksburg for a snack at an historic downtown eatery on the banks of the Rappahannock River.

We are spending the holiday today resting and recouping in lovely Pocahontes State Park before heading back to Yorktown/Jamestown tomorrow for some more history lessons.

The Civilian Conservation Corps constructed the first six Virginia State Parks and did significant work at this site southwest of Richmond that later became Pocahontas State Park, the state's seventh state park and still its largest. A local girl from nearby Chesterfield was the winner of a contest to name the park in honor of the Native American woman that, according to legend, saved the life of Jamestown settler John Smith when his head was, quite literally, on the chopping block.  Note: It's still not confirmed if Pocahantas and Sen. Elizabeth Warren are related (as President Trump has suggested).