Cold and rainy last night but we woke up to a beautiful blue sky and 40 degrees. Once again I’m in long pants, long sleeved shirt and jacket to take the dogs for their morning walk. Before fixing breakfast I ran a power cable up to the house so I could make coffee and set-up the TV. After breakfast Tina planned out our trip to Richmond while Laura and Zelon are at work. 
We drove downtown to the Edgar Allan Poe Museum (http://www.poemuseum.org/) which was pretty cool. The place is made up of four small buildings. The first is the old stone building which is actually several blocks from where Poe lived. Poe’s actual residence where he lived with his foster parents was torn down some time ago. This is the first building you enter. In a room to the side we watched a video dramatization of Poe’s, “Nevermore” which was really well done. I was able to get a picture of Tina between a painting of Poe and a huge Raven. 
From there we went to the “Model Building” which had a huge model of the town of Richmond during the period Poe lived there along with various artifacts from Poe’s childhood. Also on display was information about his parents, their deaths and then growing up in his foster parents, a wealthy Richmond family. Eventually his disagreements with his foster father drove him from the house. By the age of fourteen, Poe was writing poetry and later got a job as an editor at a publishing house. Even though he died at 40, he was a prolific writer with many books, articles and poetry published under his name.
The last two buildings housed additional materials and many daguerreotypes and paintings of Poe at different times in his life. The four buildings surround a simple serenity courtyard with flowers and fountains. We enjoyed our visit.
After leaving the museum we drove down to the riverfront and parked just past the Historic Warehouse District. Here the streets are still paved with cobbles. We walked up hill and decided to have lunch at the Sine Irish Pub and Restaurant, an old pub with dark interior but nicely maintained and well laid out around the central bar. Tina had “Grits and Shrimp” while I had a “Thai Chicken Salad” with mandarin orange, almonds and a special peanut dressing. Bothe were exceptionally good. 
We left the pub and continued up the street to the central courtyard, abreast of the old wharves next to the canal. The canal is a series of five locks with a central basin for offloading and shipping goods. The locks and canal parallel the river and bypass a series of rapids that prevented shipping from moving up and down stream. We walked along the sides of the canal on what is known as the “Canal Walk”. Unlike the San Antonio Riverwalk with its shops and restaurants, the canal area became industrialized with commercial buildings pushing right up to the canal in many places including a power plant and an Alcoa Aluminum Foil plant both of which are still in operation. 
When we finished our walk we headed back to the car and drove through part of town taking pictures of some of the buildings and restored homes. After getting home we did a few chores then joined Zelon and Laura for dinner and conversation. After dinner Cameron brought home several DQ treats for desert and I made arrangements for him to follow me to the Firestone place. To see all of our photos click on the following link:
