The Evacuation of Norfolk, VA

I am in Norfolk, Virginia. I seem to have arrived here a little early as the ship I came to visit has not arrived yet. And so, in preference to being a hotel mole I stepped out to see the sights with my camera charged and my eagerness one step ahead of me. But first I did a little research........

Yahoo Travel said,
After being burned by the British in 1775, and suffering naval bombardments during the Civil War, Norfolk never regained much character, and despite recent efforts to redevelop its waterfront, the modern city is little more than a supply depot for the vast naval shipyards.

Not to be outdone I stepped outside into the 3 degrees (37 degrees Fahrenheit) heavily laden wind to make my own mind up!


Absolutely nobody around. 11am and nothing, not even a tramp to blot the emptiness. Has the city been evacuated, have the good citizens left and forgotten to tell me? Nope, this is just another American City where people don't walk!


The first signs of life - a bird!



USS Wisconsin (BB-64)Built 1941 and weighing in at a displacement of 43000 tonnes (no marines on board which would add a few tonnes more).

And then I wandered in to this equally empty memorial park, a tribute to those sailors who had died in the war. Like this one, a letter reprinted onto a steel plaque of a guy who wrote a letter to his love on July 14 1861 and then died seven days later.



It all seems so wrong - for private letter to be displayed so openly in a park. Yet as I moved on it came to me that it did not really matter - who was there to read them except I?

On my way back to the hotel I started to see some people walking (loitering) around. Some were obviously students at the Tidewater Community College where the doors were larger than normal to accommodate the larger than normal posteriors of a few students wobbling around. Others, notably all black, loitered. Some looked half-doped, others were obviously pissed. Many said "hello" to me or muttered unintelligibly, many wore hoods and had trouser seats that interfered with the knees, most kept hands in pockets and spat occasionally onto the pavement (boardwalk) and others just crossed roads and then re-crossed them in an aimless amble that would always take them back to where they started.

Tomorrow I will go to the shopping mall and leave the touristic sights to the seagulls!