Historic Virginia

At present I’m doing a jigsaw entitled “Historic Virginia”.

I’m quite fascinated to discover how places & events I’m aware of from film & books are actually in Virginia. To my mind it is like so much of the United States, part of a vast unvisited country. Our only real acquaintance with the USA was on our cruise up from Vancouver, Canada, to Alaska. And somehow I suspect Alaska is a very different part of the States as it lies so far in the remote north, cut off from most of the other states of the USA.

So what did Virginia mean to me? I was aware that Richmond was in the state & with it the CIA base in Langley. I was also aware it was so called after the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I. Oh, and the Virginian in the western TV series of the 60s of that name was supposed to come from that part of the United States.

Now I’m discovering that the likes of Shenandoah & the Appalachian Mountains are also here, both areas I’ve come across in films. Shenandoah I also associate with the American Civil War. I ‘m surprised to discover how many people are associated with it – George & Martha Washington’s & Thomas Jefferson’s birthplaces, Grant had his HQ there during the civil war. Indeed no less than 8 US Presidents had their homes in Virginia. There’s a James Monroe museum & a Frank Lloyd Wright house. In the south there are old plantation houses. There’s even a Tudor house – I suppose early settlers would have aspired to houses of the latest style in the old country they’d left & that would have been Tudor. It never occurred to me Arlington Cemetery would be in Virginia.

The coastline looks interesting with the great Chesapeake Bay & dotted with islands.

I’m feeling quite an itch to visit the States at the moment, Virginia in particular.