American History Road Trip
Appomattox Court House, Virginia
June 15, 2011
I really don't know why this place exerts such a hold on my imagination, but it always has. When I was a kid, I had a poster of a painting of the surrender on my wall.
Like Jerusalem, London, and the Great Wall of China, it's a place you hear about and read about while you're growing up, which makes it so amazing when you finally arrive and see that it's real.
On the first morning of our Southern road trip, after waffles at the hotel near Charlotte airport, we headed north to the hinterlands of Virginia to Appomattox, where Lee surrendered to Grant. Our plans for a quiet, reflective picnic on the banks of the Appomattox River were foiled by the gnats. But we still had a good visit, talking with the rangers and asking questions that I (mostly) knew the answers to.
