Day 21: Almost Home

One last stop before we started the drive to NC and our home for 8.5 years. We realized that we have been to many locations where wars began, but haven't ever been to where a war ended. 

Yorktown is 

We walked around the town to see the Yorktown Victory Monument,

and a few of the houses that are still there. Many were damaged by cannon balls, but some have been rebuilt or restored.

Visited the garden of the Nelson House, home to one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Nelson, Jr.

It was a beautiful walk.

And then we walked part of the battlefield.

 In the fall of 1781, General George Washington, with allied American and French forces, besieged General Charles Lord Cornwallis’s British army.  On October 19, Cornwallis surrendered, effectively ending the war and ensuring independence. And this is where it all happened.

Day 20: Jamestown

Monday morning, we packed up, checked out of our Airbnb, and dove back into history.

The Jamestown museum and re-creation was impressive.

In the native village, Peanut got to try scraping reeds to work them into something the native Americans would have used to make baskets.

Down at the dock, we explored the replicas of the Godspeed and Discovery ships.

They originally sailed from England in December 1606 and made it to what became Virginia about 6 months later.

It was fun exploring them,

and hard to imagine that they carried 73 people between these two boats (and another 71 on the Susan Constant which is being restored right now.)

Then, we went up to the fort.

There were a lot of people telling stories and explaining how things worked in the fort.

The chickens were just wandering through the buildings, as I'm sure they did back then, too.

We got to watch a rifle demonstration--it was LOUD.

Lots of examples of tools and equipment.

And another blacksmith. I wonder how many of these we've seen.

There were a couple of them, here.

Peanut ready for battle.

One thing that I didn't realize is that this Jamestown site isn't on the original site. When I visited 15 years ago, I thought this is where it all happened.

(Found some fall colors!)

But it turns out there is a different spot about 1.5 miles away where they have excavated the original site. They have a fort you can visit,

and a walk that goes past some of the things they have dug up.

Old ruins are scattered around.

And then we stopped by the historic glassworks and caught the sunset over the water.

It was beautiful out there.

And the glass demo was so good!

This woman, who was a few years into her learning, was so good at what she was doing. 

She made it look easy.

And then, more beautiful sunset pictures.

Such a fantastic day! 

It ended with us sleeping in a Food Lion parking lot. We decided we wanted to stay in the area because we wanted to visit Yorktown before we left, so we just needed somewhere to stay for the night. And Food Lion works well--bathroom available except between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., and we can pick up extra food, too.

A Day of Rest (Day 19)

Sunday, a day of rest, and boy did we need it. It's hard going non-stop, even if it's fun, and then add in van troubles, and we were really happy to have this weekend with a little more downtime.

We went to church in the morning, and really enjoyed the congregation that we visited--seemed like it would be a fun place to live with a lot of interesting people and a fairly large, thriving group at church.

Then we came home to do some work on the electrical system. Peanut made us brownies while Daddy-o and I pulled everything out of the van, including part of the platform for the bed, so he could get to the electrical box and replace the fried fuse (which turned out to maybe not be fried, but it had melted some plastic touching it, so seems safer to replace than not) and work out a problem with the settings. Everything started back up and we're just crossing our fingers that it is all good to go!

One last story from our Airbnb: In the house, there was a note about the forest across the street. Apparently it is a CIA training ground (The Farm, which pops up in Tom Clancy novels), When we pulled up tonight, there was a vehicle parked on the road on the other side of the fence with its lights on. Kind of creepy knowing that they are over there, doing who knows what. I guess sometimes you can see people parachuting into the woods, or hear loud gun fire. Our experience was a little less exciting, but still kind of cool.

Day 18: Colonial Williamsburg

While we wait for parts to come so we can fix the electrical system in the van, we got to visit some of the historical sites in the area. First up: Colonial Williamsburg. I've been wanting to visit since we lived in Charlotte, but we never made it happen. 

We got to hear Patrick Henry speak when we first arrived. The people playing these historical figures are incredibly knowledgeable about the history of their character and Henry told stories from his time as governor of Virginia and his involvement in the founding of our nation.

We got to meet him afterwards and ask him some questions.

After that, we toured the Governor's Mansion.

It was very ornate.

Right on the main square.

Quite the impressive display right as you enter the house. 

I love old beds.

There was live music in the Palace Ballroom.

This was one of only a few homes that were open for us to tour that day.

But we got to wander the streets which felt like a 1700s neighborhood. And there were shops to visit as well.

One of my favorite stops was in the house where they were demonstrating spinning and weaving. We learned all about when the colonies switched from buying their clothes and other products from England, which was actually cheaper, to making them in the Americas as a form of protest during the Revolutionary War. 

I love all this old equipment and love that there are still people who learn this craft and can demonstrate it for us and create beautiful things.

We found a lot of fun ornaments in the different shops. We've made ones like these orange slices!

The book binder was also a fun stop.

And the printing press.

We spent quite awhile in there, learning about how and what they would print.

It's fascinating to see the different steps.

 

And we learned all about the process to become one of the tradespeople at a place like this. It takes them decades to learn and perfect their crafts and they apprentice new students beneath them, hopefully preparing the next generation who will step in as the lead when they retire, which this printer was close to doing. 

Unfortunately, there aren't enough people learning to do the work these days and some of these skills may be lost in the future.

But it's also hard for someone to make a career out of this because there are so few places left that will employee someone who works using historical methods.

We also visited the leather breeches maker and shoemaker,

and the blacksmith.

It was almost time for everything to close, but we had time for one more short tour.

We visited the Raleigh Tavern,

where we heard stories about the guests and traditions of the time. Weirdest, which I still have a hard time believing: there was a chamber pot chair in this billiards room and our guide said that the guests would just use the chair right there in the room, no privacy, no concern over the smell, or what people might see and hear.

Found a unicorn's horn on one of the shops!

Someone found a street he liked :).

After wandering around in the more modern shop area for a little bit, we went back to our house to make dinner and get ready for our last Williamsburg adventure.

We signed up to do the ghost tour when we realized that it would get us into a couple of the other houses that weren't open during the day, like the Peyton Randolph House.

It was really fun seeing the houses by candlelight and hearing stories, which were only a little "ghosty"--not too terrifying for those of us who aren't so sure about that stuff.

We visited the courthouse and heard about a couple of the trials that took place there.

And then, we were able to visit one last house where our guide told us about taking a picture for some tourists here and a ghostly apparition showed up in the photo, even though they couldn't see anything in person. It was a fun tour and fun to see the place at night.

We finished with a little walk around another nearby street to look at decorations and then headed home for the evening.