The Historic Walking Tour and the Raven Room

So this exists...

Just in case you didn't believe me when I said I was in Virginia, I have a picture of me with a GIANT Robert E. Lee statue to prove it.

On Thursday, Melissa and I went on a historic walking tour of downtown Charlottesville. I didn't learn much about Charlottesville, but I did learn that I could get sweaty in a whole bunch of places I didn't think would ever be an issue. I might have possibly gotten dumber on this walking tour... To illustrate, our guide (who managed to be even sweatier than I was, which is equal parts impressive and disgusting) was telling us about the house that had served as a hospital for wounded Confederate soldiers during the Civil War and when we asked him what year it had been built in, he said 1899. Because that's possible... He also talked a lot about how sad it would be if they took down all of the statues honoring the Confederacy... Yeah, mhm, so sad....................... I did learn that statues of Confederate soldiers always face south, so that's something, I guess.

The Raven Room - I didn't take this; see plexiglass comment.

Yesterday, we drove to the University of Virginia after rehearsal to see Thomas Jefferson's brainchild. Ok, one of his many brainchildren, but perhaps the best known after the Declaration of Independence and Louisiana. Did we go to see any of the Jeffersonian architecture? No. We went to see the mysterious Raven Room. Edgar Allan Poe (or Joe if you're me and think you're funny when you're not) attended UVA for one session (because we can't call them semesters) and a bunch of people -- The Raven Society -- decided to restore his room to period condition. It was neat, I guess, if you like staring at one room through a sheet of fingerprinty, smudged plexiglass for an inordinate amount of time. There is the obligatory taxidermy raven, because I'm sure that he definitely just had that thing lying around. *Rolls eyes*

Today was show day and tomorrow, it is on to the next town, or actually, the next vacation because we're unbooked again.