WASHINGTON, DC - WE'RE HERE

We left Fredericksburg, Virginia around 8am this morning under cloudy skies and the prospect of more rain. We have not seen sun since Saturday in Maumelle, Arkansas. We seem to be chasing or just in front of storms. Can't say I'm thrilled with the humidity. I forgot how it feels to be "sticky" all the time! Oh, well....We arrived at Cherry Hill RV Park in College Park, MD outside Washington, DC around 9:45am - thanks to Paige and Dave's excellent directions. The ride from Fredericksburg here was pretty uneventful; of course, I wasn't the one maneuvering around all those crazy drivers. We came north on I-95 to the I-495 (East Bypass) around Washington. There is suppose to be a storm hitting this area this afternoon, so we opted to catch up on laundry and to attend a presentation in the conference room this afternoon at 4:00pm about tours, etc. This park is amazing.
Yesterday, we decided to stop in Petersburg, Virginia and visit the Petersburg National Battlefield. We thought that we would only be there for a few hours and ended up spending the whole day there. This is a four mile driving tour and interpretive walking tour. We checked in at the visitors center first and watched a narrative that introduced the story of the siege and its impact on the course of the Civil War. Soldiers along this front suffered in trenches under constant artillery and rifle fire in lines only yards or feet apart and close to the opposing armies. The attempt to capture Petersburg failed and close to 15,00 men lost their lives here. We took a short walking tour near the visitors center to the "Confederate Battery 5" this was one of the Confederate defense lines (the Dimmock Line). Federal (Union) troops captured it on June 15, 1864. From here we walked down the trail behind this fortification to the "Dictator". The was a 17,000 pound seacoast mortar cannon that could lob a 225 pound cannon ball over 2 miles. The Union soldiers fired it into Petersburg over 200 times in a 9 month period during the siege of Petersburg. It was huge. I can't imagine how they ever moved it to this position, let along imagine the noise it made when it was fired. From here we made the loop back to the truck and 5th wheel and started on the driving tour. We stopped at each of the eight wayside exhibits and took the interpretive walking trails at each. It was difficult to believe that this area was farm land and that families were displaced and lost everything when the siege occurred to capture Petersburg. The troops cut down trees to in the area to build stake fortifications to protect their camps. We were fascinated with the amount of Civil War history in the state of Virginia and wished that we were able to take more time to visit more of these National Park Service sites. From what the park service personnel and volunteers told us, there are few visitors that are visiting these historic sites. We left the park around 4:00pm and headed north toward Fredericksburg for the night. We've taken too many pictures to post on the blog but you can click on the slideshow to view them.