Trip Summary Trip Dates: Apr 12 - Apr 18 Route Notes: CANCELLED Days: 7   Level of Support: Event Surface: Road Riders: 40 Type: Supported   Meals: Catered meals Cost: $949 Booking Status: Closed

This is the tour of choice for anyone who relishes scenic rural roads and early American history. On it, you will get up close and personal with a portion of Virginia, one of the original thirteen colonies of the United States, liberally steeped in American lore. Sites you will visit range from Appomattox Courthouse of Civil War fame to Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, perched high on a wooded hill above the delightful college town of Charlottesville. And for a region that has been settled so long—Jamestown was established four hundred years ago, in 1607—you will find the route we have mapped out for you to be surprisingly agrarian in nature.

We’ll set out on our spin through history from Pocahontas State Park, located just outside Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy during the Civil War. This park is home to the fine Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Museum, where historic photographs, artifacts, and personal effects are exhibited in an original CCC structure. You will learn firsthand about the sacrifices made by this army of dedicated young men who, for nine years during the Great Depression, built a lasting legacy of public works throughout the country. They constructed more than 40,000 bridges, planted an estimated two billion trees, created hundreds of state parks, scratched out thousands of miles of footpaths, and much more.

Continuing on, we’ll visit the town of Appomattox and the famous Appomattox Courthouse National Historical Park, which actually comprises a collection of historic and reconstructed structures on 1,700 acres of rural Virginia landscape. It was here, on Palm Sunday 1865, that Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Lieutenant General U.S. Grant, marking the end of the Southern States’ efforts to create a sovereign nation. The war’s termination led directly to the abolition of slavery, along with the provision of citizenship for blacks and the right for male African-Americans to vote.

The rolling history lesson resumes as we find our way to Charlottesville, outside of which we’ll make the climb to Thomas Jefferson’s superlative mountaintop estate, Monticello. One of the most remarkable men this country has produced, Jefferson was the author of the Declaration of Independence, the third president of the United States, the mastermind of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and the father of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He was also quite the inventor—and the possessor of a very green thumb—as you will learn while touring his home and gardens.

The town and county of Powhatan are named for the Algonquian chief who was the father of the legendary Indian princess, Pocahontas. Located a mere twenty miles from Richmond, the area went largely unscathed during the Civil War (though not unaffected, by any means). It’s written that Confederate troops passed though only one time, en route to their undoing at Appomattox Courthouse.

Closing our loop, we’ll return to Pocahontas State Park richer for the ride we’ve just taken. To paraphrase a well-known slogan, Virginia is for History Lovers.

For more detailed information, see Event logistics.