amkean pronunciation

I used my first full Richmond day to go to museums. Indoor stuff. I went first to the National Park Service Tredegar site, where I had the place to myself. "Do you want to see the movie?" "Obv." That's exactly what I said, as far as you know. There's not a ton of great stuff at this site, but some good overview maps and videos.

Next to the NPS site is the American Civil War Center, a private museum. I paid the admission and spent maybe 15 minutes inside. There's a thematic unity to the museum, looking at the motivations of homeland, union, and freedom. There were videos that I didn't watch because I didn't want to take the time, and they seemed inauthentic. They weren't reenactment videos, just multicultural people standing around talking about Civil War issues. So it was kind of a flop, but the Quartermaster museum in Petersburg might want to consult with them about museum cohesion.

The exception to the indoor stuff was my morning visit to Hollywood Cemetery. Again, they were using the off season to do construction, but I was still able to see the graves of Jeb Stuart and Jeff Davis. Not to mention James Madison and John Tyler.

I went downtown to the Museum of the Confederacy, whose name makes it sound rednecky, but is actually one of the best Civil War museums around. It's engulfed by the VCU hospital complex, and there was much fanfare for the then Final Four-bound VCU basketball team while I was there. I parked in the hospital ramp and walked the wrong way so that I went around a superblock to get to the museum. It was there I realized I had forgotten my podcast in the car, but I figured out the short way back. I'm guessing the podcast is the same that you could rent at the museum, but it was informative and better than just looking and reading. I took the Confederate White House tour, which was okay. The tour guide was dynamic.

Labels: travel