Excommunivacation, part three.: zeroenthusiasm

zeroenthusiasm

Excommunivacation, part three.

Aug 31, 2019 23:59

132 miles.

DAY TWELVE
Wednesday, August 28th

I got less sleep than I would have liked to have gotten. We went through our morning routine of retreating to the Walmart bathrooms to wash our faces and brush our teeth, but quickly began our day of exploration in Fredericksburg. At the very end of a long, relatively new road, just beyond some luxury apartment complexes and a performance art amphitheater, there was a very sad monument to slavery almost completely hidden but for a black fence tracing its perimeter. Covered in bushes, no one would ever see it unless they were trying to find it. Of course, we were trying to.

Once known as the Spirit of Freedom Garden, it was intended to be the first phase of a much more ambitious project: the National Slavery Museum. The brainchild and proposal of Virginia politician Douglas Wilder, he announced the idea in 2001 between his years as governor and eventually mayor. It was to be built on 38 acres of land donated by the retail group developing the "Celebrate Virginia" complex that was designed to attract tourism and consumption. Those were the multimillion dollar properties we'd just driven by across from cleared lots where more meaningless bullshit would be planted. There would be a full-scale replica of a slave ship hanging from the ceiling inside the museum, a theater, a library, an atrium, and maybe even some tobacco and cotton gardens. A non-profit was formed and fundraising began. Bill Cosby donated over a million dollars to it, and corporations like Philip Morris and Wachovia were pledging hundreds of thousands of dollars towards the project. Numerous artifacts were donated to be put on display at the future museum. But after Wilder racked up a couple years' worth of property tax costs without even breaking ground, he was inexplicably denied tax exemption. Those costs, along with Wilder's inability to follow through on anything, secured its demise in 2008, right during the recession he placed much of the blame on. By 2011, the non-profit was bankrupt and he was refusing to answer questions about the museum or even about where all the donated artifacts went. The land it was set to be built on had been sold to someone else. All Wilder had to show for himself was one-third an acre of placards walking you through the history of slavery on a wooden pathway.

We walked up a path and almost missed it entirely, just a few feet up and on the other side of thick bushes. I noticed the small steps that once represented the slave auction block, hidden in tall blades of grass. We had to shove through thick layers of thorns, vines, weeds, and spiderwebs. We followed the thin wooden boards that created the walkway and saw the individual signs, chipping away and barely able to be read anymore. It was pretty bleak to see the story of slavery literally buried and obscured, deprioritized by the state and corporate real estate developers; a shame in our history still preferred kept as a dirty secret.

Now, neither of us cared about war or American history, of course, but quirky grave stones always caught our interest. We knew a grave stone marking the burial of Stonewall Jackson's arm was somewhere outside of town amidst all the other historical land, so we went looking for it. We rode down winding back roads and by land littered in old cannons and signs denoting significant locations. Fredericksburg was best known for the Civil War. I used to visit almost every summer since my mother's side of the family was from there. I remembered seeing the preserved war trenches and George Washington's childhood home, and caring so very little about it. When we pulled into the dirt trail to Ellwood Manor, we saw a 'closed' sign and a gate blocking us from going any further. Undeterred, we parked, stepped over it, and walked the rest of the way, by fields of corn stocks and a tree buzzing with yellow jackets. We were trespassing. Half a mile down, we saw the manor that was once used by the Confederacy as a headquarters and hospital, closed to visitors for the day for reasons unknown and irrelevant to us. We were on land that was once a plantation. Just beyond that was a cute little herb garden and stairs down toward more grass and corn. A sign stood in front of a small patch of land with a single tree and the rock grave stone where Stonewall Jackson's arm lay. It was ridiculous, but we were happy to be outside and moving around.

We went back into town to track down another bleak artifact of our horrific American origins. Sitting and standing out of place on a corner of a downtown intersection where popular bars and restaurants were now located, a historical plaque and an actual stone block marked the location where enslaved black human beings were once sold at auction as property to other white human beings. Is relocation it to a museum had recently been voted on, because most people didn't really want to see it. The single black councilman who led the vote for its removal referred to it as, "like a trophy for racist folks."

We set back out to the outskirts of town again. The abandoned Virginia Renaissance Faire was a bucket list spot for me, and I was determined to see it despite plenty of warnings online about aggressive cops guarding it, citations, and the dangers of hunters on the premises. A small pull-off gave us a place to park off of a long road of nothing more than crop. There was no cop in sight--not even any 'No Trespassing' signs. We parked, I changed into my steel-toed boots, and we took one of the two trails visible to us based on someone's YouTube video. Open for only three years between 1996 and 1999, the Virginia Renaissance Faire was an ambitious creation. Not only was it built pretty far outside Fredericksburg, in a heavily wooded area surrounded by swampland so as to create an immersive experience for attendees, they also built multiple detailed and full-size structures in an authentic medieval European style. In the end, it seemed this dedication to authenticity and the location it wound them up in was what resulted in the disappointing turnouts and profit losses that forced them to eventually close and relocate. Not even the most avid of Renaissance Fair types were up to the conditions of entering such a realistic land. Most of the decorations and props were moved to Wisconsin and another Faire was opened 25 miles away, but the artificial town they'd built was left standing to be reclaimed by nature.

Thankfully, we chose the right path. We kept walking until we finally saw the top of a gable peeking out from the trees. Finding the other buildings was easy from there. Some haphazard trails from feet and four-wheeler tires helped guide us, but we had to keep stomping through shrubbery. Plants and trees had really begun to devour the site since many of the pictures I'd seen online had been taken. We saw many, many houses in all their neat Elizabethan glory. Some had towers, some were made of what looked like stone. Most of them were pretty vacant inside, some collapsed inward, but all were overall pretty clean for an abandoned site. We explored most of them thoroughly as it began to lightly rain on and off. It all just seemed to keep going, the size of a small town. At the end, we were able to find the pirate ship where performances happened, set up like a stage but also like a docked ship on a small pond. Again, we were so surprised at what Fredericksburg had hiding in their woods. After over two hours there, we were covered in sweat, rain, and pieces of the plants, twigs, and webs we'd broken through. We were extremely exhausted and hungry.

There weren't any proper vegan spots, so we chose to steal food at a Wegman's hot bar. There was so much vegan Chinese food, so I loaded up a pile of lo mein, hunan mushrooms, General Tso tofu, sautéed green beans, steamed broccoli and mushrooms, and a side of veggie sushi rolls. I had to also get a bottle of cane sugar Cheerwine since I was officially back in the south. That Wegman's was the biggest I'd ever seen, and had the most spacious and unsecured hangout area on the second floor. After eating, we hung around there for a few hours, just enjoying the couches. Entire tables filled up with old people playing boardgames and some kids playing Dungeons & Dragons. It was probably the coolest place to hang out in all of Fredericksburg. We drove to Richmond that night since it was only about 45 minutes away, and slept in the car at another Walmart Supercenter. A cop stood watch out front of it all night, but we were left alone. The air was a little cooler, so I slept much better.

The hidden remnants of the unfinished slave museum.

Ellwood Manor and Stonewall Jackson's arm's final resting place.

Where human beings were sold.

The abandoned Renaissance Faire!

Free dinner courtesy of Wegman's!

DAY THIRTEEN
Thursday, August 29th

Richmond had always been one of my favorite cities in America; my #2 of dream cities to ever live in. I'd been there so many times over the last decade that I'd seen a lot of it. I wanted to see new things and create new memories there with Alyssa, though. Thankfully, I was able to find spots I'd never heard of. The first thing we did was go looking for this "Pipeline Trail" by the James River I'd read about. Literally hidden in the middle of downtown, it took us a few minutes to find among the entanglement of the busy street, the train tracks, and the more official and maintained trail people were walking on. There were no signs pointing to it or anything because it technically wasn't a city-recognized public place. We almost walked right by it, but I quickly noticed the little wooden staircase in the shadows, covered on both sides by bushes next to a trash receptacle, any signs near it plastered in graffiti stickers and tags.

It only went for about a mile, but it was such a unique and fun way to see the river and go for a short hike. A small makeshift beach was occupied by a few ladies toward the beginning, and a couple people appeared to briefly walk part of the trail, but it was otherwise a very uninhabited spot--a true hidden gem in the city. The pipeline ran along the tracks above it, and a train passed us overhead just as we began our walk. On one side of us was the James River, the view of which only got more and more expansive and stunning the further we got. Eventually, the grate catwalk with handrails ended and we were left to continue on just the cemented pipeline itself. Several couples were off the path, sitting by the water. A man was lathering up and bathing in the water at one of the large rock formations. At the end, we admired the view of other bridges far away, the white tides, and a large rookery of resting blue herons who took over an entire power line. The pipeline was actually a part of the local sewage system and carried runoff from the streets to a storage area downstream. It was nice to see how easily city infrastructure so mundane (or gross, even) could be turned into something interactive for a community. As we walked back and began to leave, we came across a cute, chunky little woodchuck.

Then, halfway back to the car while tagging a lamppost, I noticed in my periphery I had a bug friend sitting on my shoulder. I had been admiring all the dragonflies we'd been seeing for the past week, and I suddenly had one up-close and personal right on me. Alyssa gently got them off using a leaf and we tried to assess if they were okay. They tilted their head as we took close-up shots of their cute little face and, slowly moved their wings slightly up and down like they were resting and recharging a bit. We poured them some water just in case, since we couldn't find any helpful advice online about reviving potentially injured or sick dragonflies, instead getting dozens of results about what "it meant" to see one, as if the mere existence of them around us wasn't magical enough. I picked the leaf up and it flipped upside down, which upset them, sending them flying over onto Alyssa. When I tried to move them off of her, they finally took off, healthily and confidently. We felt very lucky to have gotten to meet them.

Our next stop was another hideaway from the city I'd never seen before: Belle Isle. We parked at a small lot on Tredegar Street and looked at a map of the island. As far as I could tell, you could not drive to Belle Isle, and the only ways to it were via the pedestrian bridge suspended beneath the Lee Bridge or by hopping across the clusters of big dry rocks downstream. We decided to ride our bikes across the suspension bridge, which was so fucking cool even though it was such a short distance. The views of the James River and the city skyline were incredible. Once we got to the other side, we locked up and started wandering around on foot, particularly interested in finding some of the ruins left behind by the centuries of various purposes the island once served. The first pieces we saw were of the Old Dominion Iron and Nail Company. A stranger told us we could find more stuff if we walked underneath Lee Bridge. Up ahead was the Bike Skills Park, a small obstacle course with dirt ramps for bike kids to freestyle, but they all left before I got there to watch. We did see a stone shelter and an environmental building. We got on the loop trail that went around the island. It was just under two miles long and at first took us through shady wooded areas with ruins hidden behind trees off the dirt path. There were pieces left behind by the iron mill that once made nails, wires, and horseshoes, of a hydroelectric power plant, of a granite quarry, and of a Confederate prison where over a thousand Union soldiers were kept and allowed to slowly die from the elements, some frozen and others starved. We wanted so badly to get up onto what I could only assume was the main operation building of the power plant that ran there until the '60s, but could not find any safe or reasonable ways to it. The city had erected one tall metal wall with a door welded shut to prevent anyone from getting any further on what was probably the only real walkway to it. Some kid on a bike showed up on the other side of the leaves and asked what we were doing just as a segue to brag about his own travels.
"Guess where I woke up today! Fredericksburg! I rode my bike here!"
I responded, "Cool," and refused to engage, so he went away.
I hated the automatic pissing contests started by every dirty traveler kid who forced conversation on me while on the road. Ultimately, we wound up swept away by the beauty and magnitude of the James River, which we walked along for half a mile, admiring the view. We kept stepping off the path to walk along the big rocks. With no cars, the natural conditions were more or less preserved and able to really flourish. Of course there were a couple shirtless young bros trying to fish (and winding up empty-handed), but it was mostly families and groups of friends enjoying this special little place their city had. I didn't see any alcohol, just groups of kayakers practicing on the rapids, couples swimming, and an old dude with a deep southern accent neck-deep in water, positioning himself perfectly to relax as the tide massaged his entire body like a Jacuzzi. I stepped out into it, keeping my footing by staying on the large patches of thick algal grass. Across the way, we could see the hilltop of Hollywood Cemetery and the old Tredegar Iron Works. The sky was a clear blue. I stood in awe at how relaxing and beautiful everything around me was. We hopped back on our bikes and rode back over.

Sore, thirsty, and hungry from another day of nonstop movement on our feet, we sought dinner at one of the new vegan spots in town, this one a vegan burrito bar near the college called Plant Baz, whose owner had apparently previously opened a NuVegan location in town but abruptly closed it under sketchy circumstances and never paid his employees. First things first, I filled up on an entire Hydroflask of water. The girl working there was really friendly and patient with us as she explained how to order and gave us samples of each vegan protein option they had: pulled pork, chicken, shrimp, steak crumbles, and spicy fish. The shrimp was the spiciest and both the pork and chicken were made from jackfruit. This place was basically an entirely vegan Chipotle, except they sadly lacked a cilantro-free rice option for me. I got my burrito stuffed with steak crumbles, black beans, queso, mild salsa, lettuce, Daiya mozz shreds, and tofu creme. The dude making it pointed out that I had a very wet burrito, and he was right. We also got a ten-piece order of drummies, half coated in buffalo and half in agave-based honey mustard, which came with a huge complimentary order of sweet potato fries. The wings were so fucking good and we were both so stoked on the place as a whole. We drove back to Walmart a little early because we were just so physically spent. We lay in our bed and sat on our phones. It was really fucking warm out that night.

The Pipeline Trail!

Dragonfly friend!

Belle Isle!

Plant Baz!

DAY FOURTEEN
Friday, August 30th

We were up pretty early again because the heat demanded it, so we killed some time getting what some might generously call a "brunch" at a small local doughnut shop cafe chain called Sugar Shack. We got four doughnuts: vanilla glazed, chocolate frosting, espresso, and French toast. I'd read some pretty bad reviews on HappyCow, and one from the other day said there was a video online of an employee spitting on a tray of doughnuts, but we both thought they were great--especially great, even. Alyssa did hate their coffee, though, but she was one of the biggest coffee snobs I'd ever met.

After that, we headed to another oddities shop, as we did every opportunity we got, called Rest in Pieces. We parked outside ten or so minutes shy of their noon opening time. A group of goths showed up shortly after and waited along with us. Inside was fascinating, and it was probably the best and most well curated oddities shop we'd in America by then. In terms of variety, they had the usual taxidermy animals, animal skulls, and framed pinned insects, but also small human bones and teeth, a glass jar full of dog and cat teeth, a wide selection of preserved animals in glass cubes and balls, antique medical tools, old medicinal containers, vintage educational props, succulents galore, a stocked shelf of herb packets and essential oils, old and creepy religious artifacts that included an allegedly haunted portrait of young boy taken in Richmond, books about herbalism and all that other occult witchcraft hocus pocus, a whole shelf of phrenology busts, and a sick selection of exclusively black t-shirts, buttons, and patches, including designs by Matt Gauck, horror movies, and old industrial and new wave bands. They had the articulated skeleton of a two-headed calf that had lived for 18 days before dying, and the mounted heads of another that still had the skulls inside of them. They had the entire neck and head of a giraffe. There was a stuffed raccoon with a cup full of raccoon baculum bones. While some items were of course expensive, like the $4,000 hippo skull, a lot of it was really incredibly cheap. I think a lot of their money probably came in through their taxidermy and pinning classes, which cost $100-350 and regularly sold out.

Something that made me feel a little bit better about it all, too, was that the state of Virginia forbade the sale of wild animals for profit--this included dead or alive, full or in parts, and hence all taxidermy--with the exception of animals like deer or elk, since they were hardly considered animals anymore, it seemed. As a result, all of the taxidermy in the store was purely displayed for the curious, giving it more of the museum experience we always pretended we were having at these places we never spent any money at. In fact, human bones and organs weren't legal to sell in the state, either, so those too were only for display. In addition, none of the animals, not even the insects, were killed for the purpose of art. It seemed to be the most ethically-minded situation of its kind. As a vegan, I obviously didn't relish in the death of animals, but death interested me overall, nonetheless, and in the same way I scoured medical blogs and videos online for people who had been injured or maimed, I felt a similar intrigue for the deaths of non-humans--death and the less pleasant aspects of reality piqued my interest, and in observing non-human animals as no lesser than humans, this naturally included them. Besides, it was not like we'd ever buy a dead animal or a part of one, anyway.

After that, we did a lot of wandering around Richmond, tagging the streets and admiring the wide selection of murals. We stopped in an awesome little DIY book and record shop called Small Friend. Alyssa got barked at by an employee for trying to take a picture of an embroidered patch for sale, as if copyright and intellectual property were at all compatible with punk or leftism. They had an excellent selection of books, vinyl, stickers, posters, and sarcastic decorations, though. We stopped in a cafe called LuLu's so Alyssa could pee, and the girl who sold me a bottle of root beer there looked just like the hippie teacher from Recess. We walked down alleyways and looked behind the scenes because everything from a city's trash to its vandalism was interesting to us.

I wanted to take Alyssa to my favorite place in Richmond: a 100-acre park and estate called Maymont. It’ was yet another hidden and magical place open and free to everyone in Richmond. 75 or so years ago, Maymont was bestowed upon the people of the city after the deaths of the wealthy philanthropic lawyer and his wife who owned it. We entered by the start of their stunning gardens. The first section was the Italian Garden, marked by expansive and vibrant flower beds, flurries of adorable pollinators hard at work, fountains, sundials, a long pergola wrapped in vines and more flowers, and an amazing view of the waterfall and Japanese garden down below, all surrounded by an arboretum of over 200 species of trees and other woody plants. Finished in 1910, it was modeled after the Italian styles of the 15th and 16th centuries. We walked down the descending granite stairs along the man-made waterfall where water poured at the top from the open jaw of a stone lion's head. The way down to the Japanese garden had little shady trails cut through bushes of thick and spiny leaves that led you to better views of the waterfall and to a small structure you could sit inside of. At the foot of it all was a cute little bridge and torii arch that brought us to a less extravagant trail. The red maples provided a lot of shade. We walked to the pond full of koi fish, geese, and turtles, and watched a little boy feed them hamburger buns.

While walking around the Japanese Garden, I heard a frantic buzzing nearby that I instantly knew was a cicada in distress. I looked around and saw they had fallen from one of the trees hanging over the koi pond. A fish nipped at them, but quickly realized they didn't want to try and eat such a loud and weird-looking bug. Alyssa and I tried to figure out how to get them out as they calmed down and probably accepted death. She found a twig long enough to fish them out as they floated closer to the edge of the pond. They quickly latched onto it and we brought them to the pit of a tree. We hoped they were able to resume cicada business as planned.

We continued our non-consumptive tourism around Cary Street, Richmond's especially colorful and whimsical block of consumerism, and took it all in. There was a Rocket Fizz, though, so I got a six pack of weird sodas, half that sounded disgusting but curious, and half that might have actually tasted good. We sat on the sidewalk and sipped at them one by one. The pickle-flavored soda tasted like carbonated pickle juice; the PB&J soda tasted more like strawberry jelly than anything else; the mustard soda almost made me puke and was the worst soda I'd had since ranch soda; strawberry shortcake was pretty darn good, actually; the Johnny Ryan grape was the best grape I'd had; the blood orange soda just tasted like orange soda without the kick. As a bonus, we also found a vegan mint chocolate bar that tasted exactly like a Junior Mint or York Peppermint Patty! We stopped in a cute cupcake place and bought nothing, and then looked around at the quirky little toy store, World of Mirth, where we still didn't buy anything.

For dinner, we ate at another new vegan place: a small, incognito southern comfort food spot in a shopping plaza with a Food Lion called Hang Space. We were anticipating the bowls we'd seen on HappyCow and on the newspaper clipping hanging on the wall when we first walked in, but they sadly weren't doing those anymore. We just wanted some damn mashed potatoes! After we got over that disappointment, we each got the "Chick-Fil-Ain't" that the girl working the register suggested with a side of "Tickles", which consisted of tots, minced pickles, and their "tickle sauce". This food was so good. The thick patties of fried breaded chicken were massive and flavorful, and I wound up getting another one with barbecue sauce and slaw to-go. The Tickles were a revelation of an appetizer, too. We also got to eat while sitting on one of their comfy couches, a padded seat we both really needed after a long day on our feet.

We went to the part of town where an entire factory district had been gentrified with the usual ugly condos and pretentious breweries, and loitered at a huge but thankfully empty bougie cafe for a little while. We were waiting to go to the movies. At around 9, we walked over to the Movieland and saw the extra-long director's cut of the film Midsommar, which was playing only in select theaters for one weekend only. It was one of the best films we'd seen all year, and one of the greatest horror films we'd seen period, and the director's cut was even better and fuller, with many scenes that provided more depth and development than allowed in the original theatrical release. Of course, there had to be one couple who came in a little visibly tipsy and spoke to each other at regular room volume until I loudly shushed them. The dude turned to me and we had long staring contest before he said, "Really?"
I said, "Yes, please."
And that was that.

Sugar Shack doughnuts!

Things like this van completely covered in Jesus stuff freak me the fuck out.

Rest In Pieces!

Some nice murals we saw around town.

Small Friend!

Maymont!

Some disgusting sodas from Rocket Fizz!

Hang Space!

DAY FIFTEEN
Saturday, August 31st

We intentionally took the route off the interstate to get to Charlottesville. We both planned on doing this as much as possible so we'd see more of the actual country than just repetitive interstate ugliness. As always, it was a good choice.

Instead of an endless road surrounded by uniform trees and the occasional rest areas at the same gas station chains, we got to pass through small towns we'd otherwise never hear of, as well as a whole lot more nature. Our first stop in the city was their Freedom of Speech Wall, which was a 7-and-a-half-foot-tall by 54-foot-long slate wall through which anyone and everyone was encouraged to share their opinions with chalk. Ironically, chalk was not provided, thus ensuring only those with the means could speak freely--unintentionally very accurate depiction of how it worked in the world at large. Inscribed on one side was the text of the First Amendment. It had been erected in 2006 courtesy of The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, which had recently folded and was looking for another group to take over the wall maintenance, such as wiping it clean twice a week. The monument stood right in front of City Hall and next to a huge performance pavilion. Passed out on the ground right in front of it was a homeless man who'd had some crumpled dollar bills thrown on him. There were a lot of different sentiments shared on the chalkboard, mostly pertaining to immigration. Surprisingly, no dicks or swastikas. Some misspelled statements about Antifa were on the ground, however, calling them communists. The area it was in was a pretty nice and interesting place; one of those downtown stretches of brick pedestrian walkway lined in small local shops. We kept walking down the Main Street. There was a tiny carousel for small children, the obligatory cafes and bars, and then an Urban Outfitters.

We went to the New Dominion Bookshop, the oldest bookstore in the state of Virginia. We walked to the back and right back out, then around the corner to try and find their little hidden rose garden I'd read about. Just a few feet down a narrow alleyway, there it was... with a 'No Trespassing' sign hung in front of it. Perhaps due to the owner's untimely death the year before, it appeared less pruned and tended-to than the beautiful pictures I'd seen online, and the single table with two chairs sat empty.

We found another soda and candy shop. I left with two drinks I thought would taste good and stared in awe at the giant gummy bear. None of the candy was labeled as vegan and there were no ingredients lists anywhere near the confections. The worker there mentioned in passing being exhausted and that they were about to start three jobs.

We went downtown. Before the Nazi tiki torch march and subsequent murder became the new stain on the city's name, there was their monument to Lewis and Clark. Unveiled in 1919 at a downtown intersection, the bronze statue showed Meriwether Lewis and William Clark standing triumphantly. From the direction we came at it, that was all we could see at first, and that was the view many others would initially get, too. But as we walked around, we finally noticed the third person immortalized in the statue, Sacagawea, hunched down beneath them in a way that instantly had Alyssa and I interpreting her as a servant or pet. It was pretty bad, especially considering the success of their travels hinged largely on her assistance as a translator, navigator, and unifying bridge between them and the tribes they came in contact with. Apparently, we weren't alone on this feeling, because critics in the next century went after it, proposing it even be scrapped. Instead, in an excellent PR move by the city, they somehow found two biological descendants of Sacagawea and asked them to write something nice that would later be inscribed on a plaque in the bushes around it. This was their attempt at an act of reconciliation. Did it work? No.

We went to the IX Art Park solely in search of the Love Butt, but when we got there we found so much more genuinely cool art, and were in time to see some of the annual Freefall Music & Arts Festival in progress, which took place six consecutive Saturdays between the end of August and beginning of October. This first installment was the Zaltandi World Dance Festival. It was taking place outside of a brewery, of all things, but alcohol thankfully wasn't permitted anywhere near the seating or stage where many children were. Of course, the host made sure to encourage buying plenty of it in between every act. We admired all the wacky art around the lot. A mangled guard rail had a wonky emoji painted on it. Some creepy figures with big eyes and square teeth took up a section of wall a corny couple had to have a hundred pictures taken together in front of. Cement blocks were made into goofy faces. There was a stationary bike made to look like a unicorn. Photographs of animals were propped high up like banners. We got to see the Elite Empire dance group close the first half of performances for the day. They put on a sick set of majorette dancing with a team of two dozen or so young girls between the ages of 7 and probably 15. It always made me want to weep seeing kids just have safe and positive fun and be so visibly confident and empowered.

But we were there for the Love Butt, which had been stuffed under some trees on the other side of the parking lot like it was an embarrassment or something. The pink hue of its skin was dying, but it was inescapable in its 1,600-pound, 10-foot-tall glory. Apparently, this thing made its first appearance in the city when comedian Kurt Braunohler toured the country with it in tow for, in his own words, the sake of being random and bringing joy to a difficult world--and also in promotion of a TV show he was trying to get off the ground at Comedy Central, of course. Charlottesville became its permanent home later that year for some reason. We left the park as a the crowd began to participate in an interactive dance performance.

In trying to find a decent cafe to loiter and recharge at, we stumbled on Snowing in Space, a cafe that was better described by themselves as a "coffee bar". It was basically Alyssa's dream place: a bar, except coffee in place of alcohol. Not only did they have their specialty nitro brew coffee on tap, they also did coffee flights, which she took immediate advantage of. I sipped them with her even though I still mostly found coffee to be pretty yucky. She was getting me to appreciate it a bit more, though. I ordered their "Hug" drink, which was a nitro brew with almond milk and a house-made lavender syrup. It was the greatest lavender coffee drink I'd ever drank. The decor had a recurring Bill Murray theme, so I asked the woman working about it. She told me the owner and founder was a brewer and used to watch Groundhog's Day every single night before bed. The name of the place was also an homage to Bill, and that movie in particular. In it, Bill Murray sarcastically asks, "Is it snowing in space?" when told all the long distance lines are down. This quote, mixed with the visual effect of how the cloud in a freshly poured nitro brew dissipates and falls to the bottom of the glass, almost looking like snowing in space, was where it came from.

For dinner, we went to another Sugar Shack. This one wasn't just a Sugar Shack doughnut shop and cafe, though--it was also a Luther Burger, which provided a small burger menu of its namesake. Earlier that day, Alyssa had coincidentally seen a vegan she followed on Instagram mention their vegan special, and knew we needed to try it. Stuffed between two glazed doughnuts, it was a Beyond patty, melted Daiya cheddar, tempeh bacon, and all the fixings. It was massive and coma-inducing in how delicious and calorically dense it was. We each got a side of waffle fries with ours, one buffalo and one Dragon's Breath, each perfectly flavored using only a rub, with a side dip of cucumber dill aioli. I also had to try their last salted caramel doughnut, which was perfect and tasted exactly like the caramel I remembered dipping apples into as a kid. While there, we talked a lot with the manager, a young woman coincidentally named Virginia, who was very kind to us and kept using her spare moments to come over and chat about the business, the area, the stupid college kids, and veganism. Earlier, I had apologized to her for so many people being rude to her. We had witnessed several people come in and talk down to her and I just wanted to express my sympathy. We were impressed to overhear her tell a person ordering vegan doughnuts that the sprinkles contained confectioners glaze. She told us Sugar Shack had made their dough vegan two years before they announced it to the public, and people started complaining and saying they'd "ruined" their product afterwards, unaware they had been eating and loving it vegan for two years already. It was such a funny anecdote for how petty non-vegans could be. She also showed us pictures of an abandoned asylum we already planned on exploring in Staunton. She gave us free cinnamon sugar doughnuts on our way out.

After that, we drove around town trying to find a movie theater we could sneak into. It was something I hadn't done nearly enough as a kid or an adult, and with how bad mainstream films were and how expensive tickets had become over the years I really wanted to start doing it in the rare moments I wanted to go see something bigger. We spent some time casing the Regal, but it was too locked down. The fancy local theater on Main Street was too small. While walking to that one, we watched a black woman get arrested for reasons we couldn't figure out but somehow required the assistance of six cop cars. An older local man stopped and without warning chatted with us a bit about the town. The college kids were everywhere and the girls were all dressed like they were going to a high-class private party or something even though they were more likely headed to a bar.

Thankfully, the third theater we went to didn't even have someone ripping tickets and was just right. It was an Alamo Drafthouse, which had a restaurant-bar connected right to it. When we walked in, one employee working the front was there, so we at first acted like we were about to enter the bar from the inside door. Then, just as he turned his back to us, we swiftly walked past him and down the hall of theaters. We relaxed in reclining theater seats and were served water. The movie was called Good Boys, which we knew would be bad but was actually way worse than we ever could have anticipated. I was so glad we didn't pay for it.

The Freedom of Speech Wall.

What was once a beautiful garden with outdoor seating behind an old bookstore.

Soda and a very non-vegan but fucking gigantic Gummy Bear.

The infamously problematic Lewis and Clark (and Sacagawea) statue.

This chalk graffiti we kept seeing referencing local dead girl Molly Meghan Miller led to us listening to an entire podcast about her mysterious death.