It's a Nice Place to Walk to, But I Wouldn't Want to Live There!

It's been a while since I did one of my long lunch time walks in the city. But yesterday, I got to work early and stayed late, and decided to take a long walk at lunch on a gorgeous - although very warm - spring day. Last spring, I'd gone south - around the flood wall - and I'd gone east - up Libby Hill and past St. John's Church - so yesterday, it was time to head west. So west I went, to Hollywood Cemetery, which is also a popular spot each year for a Team in Training run. This area is big enough that I need to go back soon and show the rest of it.

With my switch to race for a cure for breast cancer this year - a 60 mile walk in September - I will be doing a ton of walking. I also need to slow my pace a bit from my normal 12.5 to 14 minutes per mile to a more leisurely 15-16 minutes per mile, so walks like yesterday's are a good way to try this out and get used to a slower pace. If I don't do this, trying to do 20 miles a day for three straight days at the faster pace will make my legs "dead" by the third day, I think. I took lots of pictures on my 4.75 mile walk, and here they are:

I started out heading down towards the James River. Here is a view looking back along Brown's Island and the Haxall Canal:

From there, it was a short walk past historic Tredegar Iron Works and the city's Civil War Center:

Then I headed under the Robert E. Lee Bridge and north on the Northside Trail, part of a longer hike last fall:

I knew, from last fall, that the Northside Trail went right past the cemetery, and I was right. But to my dismay, there was a tall fence. A narrow tree lay from the path to the fence, with about an 8-10 foot drop. I was tempted to try, but it seemed like a good way to break an ankle. After poking around for a few minutes, I found the "back door" to Hollywood Cemetery:

Here is a view of hikers heading north on the Northside Trail below me:

This beautiful structure in the cemetary almost looks like a chapel with the stained glass windows and the open view of the James River:

A locomotive hauling minerals from the mountains down to the sea passes along the track, with the Hollywood Rapids and Belle Isle in the distance:

The gravesite of Fitzhugh Lee, son of Robert E. Lee, along with family members, is adorned with a pink and a white dogwood:

The gravesite of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confererate States of America:

The mausoleum of Lewis Ginter, who gave the original money to found the spectacular Ginter Botanical Gardens:

A guardian angel watches over this tomb:

An elaborate stone tree grows skyward from this grave site:

The grave of John Tyler, President of the United States, of "Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too" fame:

The grave of James Monroe, President of the United States:

The dogwood is the state flower of Virginia, and is glorious in the spring:

During the typhus epidemic of 1862, three young children of Confederate General James Longstreet and his wife Louise perished, and lie here in eternal rest:

As much as I wanted to keep walking, I had a meeting back at work and headed out of the Cemetary, passing through the neighborhood of Oregon Hill: