Started our adventure off taking Rt 60 thru several counties Mike likes to ride his motorcycle thru. We stopped at a local old time diner! ( Across the street from the local Masonic lodge)

Arrived early so we could go to the museum. 4th of July weekend celebration so everything is amped up!

Toured museum. Small but had the most informative docent. The President’s Cottage Museum named because 5 US presidents before 1900 stayed there.

The view was fabulous!

Checked into our room- bright yellow flower wallpaper!

Interior pool looks like the Hearst Castle pool. Draper’s restaurant named after the interior designer who has so much influence here!

So. Relaxing tonight- off to old time carriage ride tomorrow and the infamous bunker tour. Plus LNF dinner and fireworks!!

More tomorrow!

Fascinating exhibit on Napoleon’s realm and life/times.

You know I love Museum Days when it’s scorching hot or about to rain … we had both.. dodged the rain !

We paired it with a short walk to a Fan District burger week place. The Metro bar was very cool with excellent beer battered onion rings.

The church of course was very important in those times. The Cardinal lived within the palace. Candlesticks and cross from chapel.

Known for his military might and palace life entertaining…

Artwork/ tapestries and luxurious furniture…

Incredible birdcage

His deathbed painting

And finally our walk thru historical Fan district homes to the Metro bar

3rd annual burger week. Such fun finding gourmet versions of the burger! We are so lucky we have had the 2x winner right here in Midlothian… Diamond Billiards is the reigning champ.

So we started off at the pool 🎱 hall. Great burger with carmelized apple and Gouda cheese! YUMMY. ( They could win again!). Tonight we went to a new place for us – Kangaroo Jacks. Mike loves all the beers on tap and tons of TVs! The burger was nothing to write home about, but great fried onion petals !!

Tomorrow we have plans to hit the VMFA for the Napoleon exhibit then walk down the street to another new place for their burger. You only have to visit 3 places to be allowed to vote. $5 burger 🍔 and we order a side to split. You can’t beat that fun! I love burger week!!

We started the morning off by hitting up a new breakfast place for us. The Diamond Billiards pool hall has a great chef. In fact they have had the winning entry in the RVA Burger week competition the last 2 years. It passed the test.

Living practically next door to the Midlothian Mines Park let’s us forget Chesterfield has wonderful parks all over. So my new Summer endeavor is going to walk the trails at our great parks. Mike and I took a jeepin adventure to find one in the eastern part of the county. We will return to the Dodd park, that’s for sure. I printed the trail map before we went.

This is on the Civil War Trails too. By the Appomattox River.

Interesting trails with paved, pea gravel and natural earth and covering the marsh area were overlooks between the floating boardwalk!

Great plant life. On the plants you can see how high the marsh water recently was with our deluge of rains causing flooding.

Rains have been saturating the earth so much here. Trees are down everywhere. Even at the park this very old tree was downed.

It was hot and humid but overall a great little jaunt. Hoping we can tour around soon to all the parks!!