Here is the second, somewhat belated part of my photo series from the 4th of July as I trekked through south central Virginia down to Lake Rawlings and back. Check out Part 1 here to bring yourself up to speed.
*******
It was hot, very hot at Lake Rawlings as I packed up my dive gear and headed back to the front office of this really wonderful SCUBA and camping park. The lake had cooled me off, but it still felt like the 90s as I peeled out of my gear and began breaking down everything.
And so began a long, slow drive of shoot and stop, meaning either stopping in the middle of the road, feasible mainly on sparse and isolated VA 40, or just pulling over to the side and getting out. I only had my little Kodak, but that was OK; it is good enough for sunny day shots of landscapes and such.
Returning to Norfolk this way is the scenic route, as opposed to just hightailing it over to Highway 58, and it took me through an idyllic America I don't think some of us realize still exists, a step back in time to images and icons of yesteryear that we still hold dear, and actually wish to hold onto before the plastic-fantastic mendacity of our artless and soulless pseudo-culture swallows them too, like an oil spill devouring a treasured coastline.
Here then is Part 2 of "On the Fourth of July in South Central Virginia":
Right near the conjunction of Route 1, which is named Boydton Plank Rd along this stretch, and Old Stage Rd in what I think was Brunswick, I found this big 4th of July retail fireworks tent right next to a large gas station.
Right off Route 1
I had made it onto VA 40 by now, the most rustic of the highways I drove along en route back to Norfolk.
Tobacco
A swamp below a bridge overpass
Corn crops abound along VA 40. Not so much tobacco.
A large plant on the outskirts of Waverly, still on VA 40.
A memorial in Waverly
End of the line, this time.
1
1
1
