I was driving around Richmond, Virginia, by myself for a couple of days over the long weekend, finishing some corporate photo shoots I was hired for, and found the landscape eerily similar to the rural Oklahoma and Arkansas I grew up in. The highways seemed to move a bit slower than up here closer to DC, and the smaller roads were dotted with shabby 'antique' malls and Sonic Drive-In eateries.

Between a couple of shoots I drove around a town called Hopewell. Once you get beyond the small down town area, and past the industrial park with half-a-dozen large factories producing thick smoke, you come across a small peninsula sticking out into the water where the James and Appomattox Rivers meet.

The land is all green there, a national park now. A couple of war era buildings still stand.

Reading the historical markers I learned that this land played a key role in the Civil War, during the battles of Richmond and Petersburg.

The lush green field was lined with tents for the wounded, and the choppy water with the occasional speed boat and jet ski was then lined with war ships and hospital boats.

Abraham Lincoln once stayed here for three weeks during the war, in the house which is still standing at the top of the hill overlooking the water.

Once I was back home in Fairfax we went into the city Monday night for dinner and walked around for a while.

We walked past Ford's Theater and the boarding house across the street where Lincoln died after being shot by John Wilkes Booth.

And Lincoln's Waffle Shop right beside the boarding house.