Richmond, VA

A friend of mine, Analise, moved to Richmond, VA recently. She put herself through college and graduated from UNCW and intends to go to VCU for a Master's in Social Work. So proud of her!

She graciously allowed me to come visit her and showed me around. I arrived about 1:30p on Sunday June 8. Brought my stuff in and we went out to lunch at City Dogs on E. Cary St. I liked their fries and shake but was not impressed with their dog. It was actually one of the worst dogs I'd ever had. Go figure!

Then we walked around downtown and I learned there is a river running through the city: the James River. Who knew?! I wanted to take the Canal Cruise, but Analise wasn't interested, so we strolled.

Riverfront Canal Cruise

Later that evening, we went to one of the top ten doughnut shops in the country, Sugar Shack. We showed up about 5 minutes before closing and each asked for 2 doughnuts. The lovely employee said "It's almost closing, I'll just fill in the rest and give you a dozen." So we got 6 free doughnuts. Their maple doughnut is TO DIE FOR and I don't even like doughnuts that much.

These were gone 2 days later

Monday we did some geocaching. We went to Hollywood Cemetery.

The first geocache we tried for required we go visit a specific grave, gather some information and then use it  to go to the final stage to find the actual cache, which we eventually found.

The first cache site

The little girl buried by this dog loved this statue so much, her grandfather bought it for her. When she died of scarlet fever, he put it by her grave to prevent it being melted down for metal during the Civil War.

We continued our walk through the cemetery and stopped by Jefferson Davis' statue.

Our poses were supposed to match. I didn't angle myself right.

Then we moved to the trails past the cemetery to find the next cache at Texas Beach. Analise had heard about this place, even written it down, but had never been. We learned a lot on this hike. It was a very, very long hike. There were not clear markings from the cemetery to the Beach so we actually went much further than we needed to. We ended up in a parking lot, but that lot had a map. So we jumped on another trail that crossed paths with the other, then went up and across a large metal bridge.

We saw a truck driving on the train tracks, without tires, as we descended the many, many stairs. But FINALLY, we arrived at Texas Beach and made a quick find of the cache.

The beautiful Texas Beach

We soaked our feet in the James River and made our way back, which took longer than expected after a shortcut proved unsuccessful and we had to double back. But eventually we made it to the car and off to dinner at The Galaxy Diner, which was DELICIOUS. Highly recommend!

Tuesday we made some homemade cinnamon rolls and then went to the Edgar Allan Poe Museum.

Poe statue in the garden

We saw Poe's writing desk. The back of the chair is cut to encourage Poe to sit up straight.

Poe's Writing Desk

And then we took a final picture in the gift shop amongst the ravens.

Nevermore

I stopped off at the Sugar Shack again to pick up another half-dozen of doughnuts to bring back to my dad to thank him for watching my dog, Buster.

Clockwise from top L: Caramel drizzled cinnamon bun, chocolate glazed, oreo crumble strawberry glazed, salted caramel, original glaze, salted caramel

I had a ton of fun in Richmond. I hope to make another trip up there in the future and then continue on with Analise to DC and Baltimore, Maryland. 

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