The Zentrum BMW Visitors Center

Date of Visit: July 14, 2017

As we were almost to where we had decided to stop for the night on the way to Atlanta, I pointed out the BMW Visitor Center sign as we went past the exit. Mik actually expressed interest in visiting and at first we were going to do it on the way home, but it is only open on weekdays. Thus, we decided we could backtrack to it and move visiting the Martin Luther King, Jr. NHS to Saturday.

There isn’t a whole lot to see at the BMW Zentrum, but we still found it a worthwhile detour, especially since it is free. Mik really enjoyed seeing the old BMWs, but he also liked checking out the current models.

Destination Info:
BMW Zentrum
1400 SC-101
Greer, SC 29651

Guilford Courthouse National Military Park

Date of Visit: July 13, 2017

We spent most of our visit to the Guilford Courthouse National Military Park in the Visitor Center. Mom saw the movie, but Mik again wasn’t interested. Instead, we enjoyed the exhibit area.

We found the exhibit to be a good size in that it has a lot of information about the site and events along with artifacts while still being not that large of an exhibit overall.

One of the most interesting parts of the exhibit was the wall of windows that look outside to where they have put up some silhouette soldiers kind of as if the battle was going on.

We also walked some of the trails near the visitor center. The trails seem to be mostly paved paths and we certainly would’ve done a lot more of it including the other stops on the driving tour if it hadn’t been so hot and humid.

Monument Row behind the visitor center was the main part of the trail we checked out.

Mik also liked when we went into the woods behind the parking lot while waiting for Mom to finish checking out at the store. The trail didn’t have anything specific to see as far as we went (first sign, which really wasn’t far at all), but we liked that it did have information signs to read like when we did the Henry Hill Loop Trail at Manassas.

Destination Info:
Guilford Courthouse National Military Park
2332 New Garden Road
Greensboro, NC 27410

Booker T. Washington National Monument

Date of Visit: July 13, 2017

When we were taking pictures outside the visitor center, they were starting the movie. Mik wasn’t really interested, but Mom and Dad went in and saw it. We saw the end of it when we went in and found it was being done in the bookstore instead of their normal theater because that area was under construction.

After the movie, we did part of the trail down to the plantation. The trail down to the reconstructed slave cabin is paved without much of a grade.

The cabin is not accessible to go into, but you can see most of from the doorway.

The smokehouse is nearby and the grass isn’t hard to go through to go look into it (visitors aren’t allowed inside). Past here you can go down to the tobacco barn, but it was hot and humid and Mik wasn’t interested in a grassy/wooded area trail excursion.

We did, however, go down the part of the trail that is paved for the horse barn and chicken and duck lot area. This part of the trail does have quite a steep hill and really there isn’t much to see except Mik did enjoy seeing the turkey in the chicken and duck lot.

Overall our visit to Booker T. Washington National Monument was somewhat of a disappointment. Partly it’s just hard to really enjoy outdoor sites with the humidity. It was also hard to enjoy the trail when there were no signs even just labeling what building we were looking at. The main thing, though, was that the visitor center was under construction and the exhibit area wasn’t available.

Destination Info:
Booker T. Washington National Monument
12130 Booker T Washington Hwy
Hardy, VA 24101

Manassas National Battlefield Park: Stone Bridge Trail

Date of Visit: June 18, 2017

The Stone Bridge Trail is one of the accessible trails (or at least partly accessible) at Manassas National Battlefield Park. It is also one of the stops on the driving tour, so it has a parking lot next to it.

The Stone Bridge Trail is a rather short trail that is mostly a paved path that goes up to the Stone Bridge. The trail is only considered accessible up to the bridge.

Right before the bridge there is a bump to go over and the bridge is not technically accessible due to the slope, but it's not that difficult to go across the bridge. The trails on the other side of the bridge are where it really is no longer accessible partly due to it being a stepped trail down. While not much of a trail, Mik still found it interesting to be able to check out the bridge.

Destination Info:
Manassas National Battlefield Park
Manassas, VA

Manassas National Battlefield Park: Henry Hill Loop Trail

Date of Visit: June 18, 2017

The park actually does have some wheelchair accessible trails, but we ended up not getting around to checking them out except Stone Bridge Trail because we wore Mik out doing the Henry Hill Loop Trail. I am glad we ventured out on this trail first, though, as it was an interesting overview of the battle and while not technically accessible it was quite doable (amazing what a difference the new wheelchair makes as it would've been hard to impossible with his last chair except maybe with the freewheel).

The Henry Hill Loop Trail focuses on the history of the Battle of First Manassas (Bull Run), which mostly took place around the hill. The trail is mostly through low grass, although some parts are more dirt and gravel and there are definitely uneven pothole parts.

The first main stop on the trail is the Henry House, which was destroyed during the battle and rebuilt after the war. There is an exhibit with a movie and history on the house inside, but it is a huge step to get inside that has a big rock as a step making it not really doable to get inside with Mik. If it has just been regular two or three steps, we might've taken Mik inside because once inside it seems you can easily roll through and he would've found it interesting.

Even not being able to go inside the house this part of the trail has several things to see as there is a family cemetery where the only civilian casualty of the battle is buried and an 1865 monument.

Most of the bad parts are past the Henry House as you loop over to the Southern line cannons. You could probably easily skip the worst parts of the loop, which included a steep hill down and right back up, and still get a feel for the whole trail if you went to the Henry House, back to the Visitor Center, and then over to the Jackson statue and Southern line instead of following the whole loop trail.

Following the loop we went past some of the Southern line marked with cannons and over to the Jackson statue that commemorates where he got the Stonewall nickname.

Destination Info:
Manassas National Battlefield Park
Manassas, VA

Manassas National Battlefield Park: Henry Hill Visitor Center

Date of Visit: June 18, 2017

For Father's Day, I wanted to do an outing with Dad and we were originally going to go without Mik to Shenandoah National Park since I've been wanting to do Ranger Dan photos there. When I was looking at the map to see if there were any other National Park units nearby to also do I was reminded that Manassas National Battlefield was close to us. It was also somewhere Mik was interested in visiting as long as it was accessible, which we found after a quick look at the Manassas National Battlefield Park website led us to their accessibility page that has good details on what areas of the park have wheelchair accessible parts.

As usual for a National Park, we started our visit at the Visitor Center. We were impressed with the parking layout here as it laid out so that the middle walkway up to the visitor center has handicap parking on both sides in every row. Thus, you have the opportunity to avoid taking a spot close to the building when all you need is the extra room for loading/unloading.

The visitor center is accessible via a ramp to the side of the entrance and the double doors have a button to open them automatically.

There is also a ramp from the back entrance to go out to the Henry Hill Loop Trail or just view the area from the patio if you don't want to trek out on the grassy trail. There is also a ramp on the back side accessed from around the front that leads down to the basement level where the bathrooms are located.

The visitor center has a small museum, a gift shop, and a theater. We didn't end up seeing the movie because it is shown on the hour and both before and after doing the Henry Hill Loop Trail we would've had to wait 20 to 30 minutes for it to start (and Mik wasn't sure about watching a 45 minute movie).

Destination Info:
Manassas National Battlefield Park
Manassas, VA

AMC Shirlington - Reserved Seat Recliner Theater

Date of Visit: May 28, 2017

In looking at showtimes to go see the new Pirates movie I found that a lot of the showings were reserved seat, which is kind of annoying to me, but now I get that these are recliner theaters that they seem to have put into a lot of the AMCs in our area. We just got tickets at the theater, but it is nice that you can do it online easily for accessible and companion if you want, which I suppose is actually a good thing because there have been one or two times that we've gone to the movies and there were no wheelchair spots left.

The only real problem with the recliner theater is that they do not end up having cupholders for the wheelchair seat. In the regular theater this has never been a problem because the seats always have them on both sides so there's enough for the person in the seat and the wheelchair next to it. The recliners only have them on the aisles and the middle armrest doesn't have one. I guess it doesn't because that armrest can be put up, but I don't see why they couldn't have made them with a cupholder like middle seat armrests in cars.

Overall we all really enjoyed the recliner theater. Mik definitely wants to do it again, but now that we know what the theater looks like we would probably actually take the seats on the sides in the back row that are not marked as accessible, but we could easily roll next to and transfer Mik to a recliner. That way he not only gets the whole experience, but more importantly a cupholder.

Destination Info:
AMC Shirlington 7
2772 S Randolph St
Arlington, VA 22206