Virginia's "Historical Triangle"

We're back from our trip ... we drove down to the Williamsburg area Monday and stayed with one of my roommates from waaaaaaaaaay back when at Ricks, Christine. She and her husband Damon (who was one of our FHE brothers) are at one of the Army bases in the area and they have 3 kids. It was good to visit with them again - we saw each other last spring when Summer was born and they were up here for a temple day, but before that, we hadn't visited since we had a reunion for all of the roommates in Utah in the spring of 2000.

Tuesday: Jamestown. It's the 400th anniversary year of the first landing at Jamestown. The visitor's center has an extensive museum exhibit that Summer decided she wanted to walk through instead of staying in her stroller. She had started walking on her own about a week before that, so she got plenty of practice there. It was very cute to watch. We went through a model Indian village, a replica of the fort at Jamestown, and replicas of the ships that came from England. Then we drove over to the original area of Jamestown where there is an archeological dig on the site with another visitor's center. We didn't go through that because we got there too late. But we drove around the area - it was actually an island ... no wonder the people were dropping like flies. It's a swamp! Still a swamp! Why did they stop there, instead of going further up the river to find some DRY land? It was all right, and we may go again when our kids are a bit older so they can see it but that would be it. And we'll focus more on the original site than the replicas. We didn't realize the actual layout or we would have gone quicker through the replicas.

Wednesday: Yorktown, and the beach. Again, we went to the tourist visitor's center and didn't get a lot of time at the original locations. What the heck. At least with Yorktown, the tourist stuff is still on original land. Museum exhibit, introductory movie (which made no sense at all), a soldier's camp, and a small farm from the 1700s. No big deal. Our fun was driving around the original battlefield and seeing the seige lines - trenches and these really odd looking hills that are obviously manmade.

We drove down to Virginia Beach that afternoon with Damon and Christine and their kids to go to the beach - we went to another military base with a nice beach instead of a crowded public beach. It was on the mouth of the Chesapeake going into the Atlantic, and the currents were too bad to swim. So we just got our feet wet - Summer didn't like that too much but she has been in the ocean now. I think she doesn't like the cold water, because she loves her bath so she's not scared of water in general. We saw dolphins jumping out of the water, which was very cool. I've never seen dolphins outside of an aquarium.

Thursday and Friday: Colonial Williamsburg. We LOVED Williamsburg. Christine had gotten us the military discount on tickets (basically half price), but we think the full price would have been worth it. We went through a lot of the buildings, and watched both afternoons of outdoor "performances." On Thursday, Governor Dunmore - the last British governor - made a speech from the balcony of the Capitol to disband the House of Burgesses, then a number of conversations with townspeople (loyalists and patriots shouting at each other, among other things), and then the Virginia legislature passing resolutions supporting the Continental Congress and independence. On Friday, the afternoon started with a recitation of the Declaration of Independence, more townspeople conversations, Benedict Arnold's takeover and occupation of Williamsburg, and eventually the start of George Washington's march to Yorktown complete with a fife and drum corps. It was really cool. We didn't get to all the buildings that we wanted to, so I expect that we'll find our way back to Williamsburg sooner or later.

And last night, after the fife and drum finale, we drove back to DC. Yikes. Today, we're not doing anything except going to the grocery store. Maybe I will unpack.