On Wednesday, October 23, we started our trek back to San Diego. As fate would have it, it was a beautiful day. We took the scenic route along the James River toward Richmond from Williamsburg and stopped at a couple "plantation" houses along the way. The first one was called "Sherwood Forest" and was the home of John Tyler, 10th President of the US. Unfortunately, some of John's descendants were "en residence" as the sign said, and we couldn't go inside the house. So we walked around, took some photos and headed on down the road.

Sherwood Forest

It's not a bad place, eh?

According to the flier, JT bought the place in 1842 when he was still in office and moved there permanently when he left office in 1845. He wanted to be buried here but he unfortunately died in Richmond during the Civil War, so he was buried there. Union Troops occupied Sherwood Forest at the time.

A little way down the road we stopped at "Shirley". This is the road sign for Shirley. Surely they could have made it a little more informative. We took a few photos of Shirley, a much more substantial group of structures than Sherwood Forest.

Out buildings of Shirley

Middle of Shirley, a Little Left of Shirley; More Left of Shirley (Notice the James river in the background.)

Oh yeah, if any of you actually read the informational sign above, you may have noticed the reference to several Hills who used to live here. One of whom was the mother of Robert E. Lee and all of whom are no relation to me.