This is a test post, but since I am writing this as I mop up the aftermath of my family vacation, I may have an excuse to tell you where I am. I am writing from a fairly anonymous airport hotel in Richmond, Virginia as I am waiting to fly home to my family after returning a rental car that we needed after our van`s engine died. Of course Richmond has a great deal of history, but I did not plan to be here for long.
Our original vacation plans were somewhat related to interests I have in history. I enjoy visiting the sites of early European colonization of North America and a few days ago we visited Manteo on Roanoke Island, North Carolina and saw the U.S. National Historic Site Fort Raleigh there. It is also a site of a U.S. Civil War battle and the island became a settlement for freed slaves until 1867.
We camped at Cape Henlopen, Delaware the site of Fort Miles, a World War Two defensive fortress and later a listening post to detect submarines from the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War. On the way there we dropped into the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. That was an interesting if somber place to see the evolution of penal practices in the United States as well as the prison`s original innovative but psychologically damaging design.
This blog will be much more concerned with digital history in future posts, but I hope I have conveyed a few of the things I am curious about.