No ride, but an interesting day

Unfortunately I did not get to ride today. :( So sad....

But I did get in a decent walk today by going to the library. It was about 2 miles or so. I decided to shake things up and do something a little more "full-body." I planned on taking a ride after the boys went to bed, but that thrown all in arrears. Friday nights are family pizza and movie night. We make 2 pizzas from scratch, and each son helps mommy make one, but I digress.

Well, while I was walking home this afternoon, I got caught in a massive downpour. That was fun, and wet. The bottom dropped out of the sky and it rained rained rained!! The problem was that a tree limb fell in the storm, hit a power line, and knocked out the power in the neighborhood. It took about 2 hours for all to be restored... which meant that movie night was pushed back... so the boys have just gone to bed... and I am not going to start my ride at nearly 10 at night. So I am planning on getting up early to go on my ride.

Before the storm, though, I did come across something here in town that I had seen, but never really looked at. This is a German WWI 150 mm howitzer! Now, you should be asking yourselves, "what is a 1917 German cannon doing in front of town hall in a small, rural, southern Virginia town." I'm glad you asked. This was taken as one of the so-called "spoils of war." The local Sons of Confederate Veterans chapter managed to acquire this, somehow, at the end of WWI and donated it to the town as a memorial to those local citizens who served and died in the war. They also managed to get some of the projectiles for the weapon. You can see them lined up on the right-hand side of the cannon.

Maybe it's just me, but I find this fascinating! Too many people I know here just see a cannon and think that there is nothing special about that. Yet how many have actually taken the time to stop and think of either it's significance or its rarity. This is the kind of rare gem that makes traveling so much fun! There's a lot of stuff out there to be seen and experienced, but too few actually do it. Every time I slow down and look around, I love it.

You should try it too.

And in case you are interested, it appears that Norwood, Massachusetts has the same thing. Maybe they were on sale after the war.