Event and weekend report: University of Atlantia

[damont]

This past weekend was the second of three consecutive weekend roadtrips for me. This time montuos was with me as we went back to southeastern Virginia where we'd first met.

Friday evening montuos and I headed off to Williamsburg, where we had arranged for timeshare space for the weekend. The trip south was uneventful. Woke up too early Saturday morning and headed south over my old commuter route: Jamestown Road, the ferry, routes 31 and 460 and 616... then turned off at Vicksville and headed for Franklin VA, the next town east of where I once worked. The roads were in decent condition, even the one that wasn't paved.

Got to the site, checked in, dropped some stuff off at the consult table, and was out moving the van to the parking lot when bronx_baroness dropped the boom on Donal. I got back inside in time for the hand-washing, hjust before his Pelican vigil started. Spent the rest of the morning alternating between retaining and talking with amykb about matters of import. I finally got to work out the Court docket with Her Majesty about 20 minutes before Court was to start. Court itself ran pretty smoothly; I fumbled a couple of times during the actual Pelican ceremony but only a small handful of people noticed. Once Donal had been duly elevated, the Pelicans were invited to remain, and sunniva_kyrre was called before the throne, where she was served with a writ of summons to Dun Carraig's middle eastern event at the end of March.

Spent much of the afternoon renewing my acquaintance with various dances, with the help of Nicolosa and patches023. Danced a fair bit with a nice young lady newcomer. Took one hour to sit in on a class about scaling recipes up for a feast. Said hello to achbarr, alina_s, Dora, Becky, giselle0002, and countless others -- didn't have nearly enough time to spend as much time with friends as I'd have liked, but I expect that at University, and especially with adding retainer and court-herald duties into the mix. Many of us went to a local Chinese buffet for dinner, so there was a bit more time to hang out with friends before we headed back to the 'Burg. Sunday we checked out and ran a few short errands before making our way homeward.

This was a wistful trip, more so than I'd anticipated. I knew that I'd be traipsing over familiar roads, and seeing many old friends, and getting to herald the court where one of my longest-known SCA friends finally got a peerage. I expected to be dealing with the feelings that all would generate. What I did not expect was to be so affected by other things... mostly things in Williamsburg that had changed. The turning of the cycle has again brought a lot of new development and construction, which portends more congestion in what is already a rather crowded space 9-10 months every year; I'm sorry that open space is being lost to it.

What did the most to sock me in the gut was driving up Richmond Road and seeing that the Governor Spottswood Motel was gone. Not just closed -- all of the buildings had been torn down. This was the place my parents stayed at most often on visits during my years at W&M (and afterwards when we still lived in the 'Burg). It was also the place we held our wedding reception.

Up through the 1980s, Richmond Road and Capitol Landing Road were home to two dozen or more independent motels. Some were affiliated with networks, but none of them were known by the name of a chain. That number has dwindled to a tiny handful, and only one of those is on Richmond Road. I guess that the sort of people who like to stay in such places no longer want to come to Williamsburg -- not enough of them to keep those motels going, anyway. I'm sorry to see them go, and the Spottswood most of all. That motel meandered back at least a quarter of a mile, and almost all of it was shaded by the big trees that had been left standing as the buildings were built. Many of the trees are still there, keeping watch over the now-vacant lot.

Comments

[stanharding.livejournal.com]

I haven't been to Williamsburg since seeing Sinfonicron's "Evita" in 1987. When I finally get down there, I'll bet I'll have a heart attack. We're overdue for a trip, though, Mr. Man has never been.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

Well, the biggest obvious changes to the campus are along Jamestown Road -- the two dorms on the Barksdale Swamp, and the new business school building going up on the old Common Glory parking lot. The other "new" buildings have been around for a while: the U Center at the end of the football field where Lodges 1-3-5 used to be, and the building across the Sunken Garden from James Blair that now houses the Comp.Sci. department.

As for the general 'Burg area itself:

Richmond Road is far more cluttered with outlet malls and traffic lights and general *stuff*, extending well beyond where it used to. There's only a short stretch of woods/brush/small houses left, about a mile from Lightfoot, just before the completed Route 199 crosses over Richmond Road en route to I-64.

And if you go out Monticello Ave through the Matoaka Woods: oy! Ironbound Road is a mess of office buildings and new housing, and Monticello extends out past that to cross under 199, and there's a massive shopping district out there. That used to be nothing but fields and such.

[montuos]

***HUGS***

Is this what had you down last night?

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

not really, except for residually -- that hit harder over the weekend.

[stefsoap.livejournal.com]

*HUGS*

Having moved around, in my gypsy-ish, vagabond way, I always get nostalgic and sad when I go back and see a college campus I attended or a place I used to live or someplace that's super-special to me. The house we used to live in in Connecticut had a pond at the bottom of the mountain with a super-secret cave that I used to "run away" to whenever my mom pissed me off. The last time I went up there I drove by there to show the boys and the whole pond and cave was gone; turned into houses. I still have the memories, but it's very bittersweet.