Ashland, Virginia

(The Ashland Train Station and The Henry Clay Inn directly behind it)

I need to document Ashland, even though we've moved through and we're now in Illinois...but I have to tell about the quaint little downtown of Ashland and its people so that if you're ever in the Richmond area, be sure to stop and visit this real life Pleasantville.

(Standing at the historic Ashland Train Station)

Our search began with some difficulty finding decent lodging in the area, until we came across the Henry Clay Inn situated along the railroad tracks in downtown Ashland. We stayed here for two weeks which gave us an opportunity to explore the Civil War history of the area and get to know a lot about the inn and the town itself...we even crashed a street party one weekend.
Early one Saturday morning, the Master got an itch to ride the train--and I'll have to say, I'd always wanted to ride a "real" train, so I gave in and we bought two tickets to Washington, D.C.. We boarded the train at the old Ashland station (right in front of the inn) and rode the two hours through the country of Virginia...we saw a strange pyramid built from old river stones in the middle of a meadow (complete with U.S. Dept. of the Interior Historic sign---but unreadable of course), Stonewall Jackson's homestead, countless farms and pastures and a little stopover that would've passed for the setting of Fried Green Tomatoes, called Squashapenny Junction. I still can't figure out how to get there by car...some of these places you can only see them by train...literally.
The entire ride was very nostalgic...everything I saw--seemed to have stopped somewhere back when Ruthie was born, and that's pushing it. 1966 at the latest. The same goes for Ashland. I think that's why I liked the town so much.
Along the way, I learned that the little white "W" signs you see along the railroad tracks mean for the engineer to whistle for the crossing ahead, I'm sure I could've figured this out years before but I'll credit that to my Woodruff education.
We stopped off in Fredericksburg, another very old town steeped in Civil War history--I felt as if I was in a Ken Burn's documentary---all I needed was the background music, it would've been perfect. Damn I'm a dork.

We had a few other small stops, a few got on, a few got off...and on we went. By the time we made it to Union station, the Master was ready to see D.C.---we only had a few hours, so we decided on the Mall, which was tourist trap central but hey--with only one train back to Ashland, what could we do? I decided to show him the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial, because it was the one monument that meant a lot to me and I knew it would be special to him so I made it my duty to get to it first.
(Downtown Ashland, Amtrak train passing through)

After a sweet and merciful citizen saw us in desperate need of help with the Metro, we boarded and found our way to the Mall---and the Master got his first glimpse of the big stick...the Washington monument. We saw the big sites, the Captiol, the Smithsonian, the new WWII monument, the reflecting pool ( I showed him where Jenny jumped in and yelled Forrest---I refrained from reenacting this due to his embarrassment), the Lincoln memorial and finally we made it to the Vietnam memorial...I do want to say this---stay away from D.C. in July---TOO crowded. It's always been much better in March, so go in the Spring if you must.
We did make it back to the Metro and Union station to board our train back to the country on time---and I left with one hefty blister, which is obviously unavoidable.
Later that evening we found ourselves wandering downtown peering into the store windows of Ashland...the little grocery store still makes deliveries, the toy and hobby shop sells antique model trains, and the book store is a little hole in the wall named "Bell, Book, and Candle" just like the movie. We heard music coming from behind the library and decided to investigate and found the entire village shagging to a live band at a town street party and BBQ festival...so we had some brew and watched the yuppies dance and try to flirt with the teen-agers.
We had a good time, but we were glad to get home and see Dolly again.

We only had one day to clean up the house, move some left over furniture, pick up the camper, pack again and get ready to leave for Chicago but we did it---and we made it.
I'll put in another installment for Marengo, Illinois soon---until then, we'll keep floating on!