7 June 2011

We’re in Williamsburg. Today was Colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown. It would have probably been fun without the kids, but wasn’t very great as it was.

At Colonial Williamsburg, they have it set up that you can’t really see anything or go into any buildings without sitting through their tours, which are long and (for kids and even for me, at times) boring.  That irritated me because the park itself wasn’t busy at all, but they would force you to get into a group of 30 or so people anyway, which made it feel crowded unnecessarily. And, since I’m so short, when we’re being shuffled along in groups my nose is always in somebody’s armpit and I can’t see a darn thing. You zip past interesting stuff you can’t stop to really look at because there are 25 people behind you waiting for you to move along. And lots of standing in boring rooms listening to history lectures about stuff that happened in the rooms you had to rush through. I hated that way of seeing things, and the kids really hated it.

Just a couple months ago in London, we toured Charles Dickens house and it was really cool. You walk through on your own (you can go on a guided tour if you want, but it’s not required) so you can spend as much or as little time as you want in each room. You can also go back to rooms you’ve had a chance to think about and want to see again. They have written histories all over the place, so you can also read as much or as little as you want. It was awesome, not crowded, we were allowed to linger and read at our own pace, and really get a feeling for what it would have been like to live there. Nobody wrecked anything there, and I can’t see why a place like Colonial Williamsburg couldn’t be operated in a similar fashion. It would be way more user-friendly.

Seeing the trades people doing things was the only real fun part. We saw a lady making baskets, an ironmonger, a silversmith and, over at Jamestown, a glass blower. I expected it to be more kid-friendly than it was.

Jamestown was quite a bit better, as you can just walk around and look at stuff at your own pace and read the placards they have posted if you’re interested in what you are seeing. But it’s also mostly ruins, so you have to really use your imagination (and already have a good grasp of the history) to see it as anything but piles of bricks. If you aren’t interested in reading placards, you can chase the 300 wild geese who have moved in and taken over. Guess what the kids decided to do.

The kids didn’t have a very good time today, and therefore neither did Adam and I. Tomorrow we’re going to Busch Gardens — a theme park — that Adam didn’t want to go to, but we want to salvage what’s left of our trip. We’re learning all over again that historical sites are largely wasted on kids. Today had shades of “trip from hell” written all over it.

We leave VA on Thursday and are driving to Charlotte, NC, which is about halfway between Williamsburg and Acworth. We’ll find something fun to do in Charlotte Thursday afternoon, and then drive the rest of the way home Friday morning. Then we have two weeks at home before we leave for Trinidad.

On to the photos:

Colonial Williamsburg, VA. They have shops selling items made using the old techniques. The kids were interested in the games and toys children played with back in the day.

Isabella in the stocks. 

Isabella and Josie demonstrating how this form of protection was too easily thwarted.

Holden’s critique: “This doesn’t look like a good fence. Anybody could just climb through it. And it wouldn’t keep a dog in, either.”

Jamestown, VA. They spelled it Jamestowne back in 1607, when it was the first English settlement. Most of the first settlers died from starvation.

Here is an archeological dig. They discovered another part of the church grounds. The students and professor digging it up were nice enough to take a little break and answer Josie’s millions of questions.

The place is now overrun by geese. There is a guy whose job it is to chase the geese back into the river. The geese see him coming and jump in the water, then immediately get back out as soon as the guy has passed by. The geese are winning this battle.

The temp gauge on our car said it was 103 F that day. It was TOO HOT.

 

A partially reconstructed building so people can get a better idea of what they would have looked like.

Holden resting for a bit in a patch of shade. He’s sitting on the foundation of some row houses built in the 1660s. Each house was 20 feet deep and 40 feet long … and these were just about the best houses in the settlement.

8 June 2011

Hotel swimming pool.

Two kids ready to take on the worst the Roller Coaster gods can throw at them.. only to find out (still…) that they’re too short to ride.  Isabella qualified for every ride in the park and, consistent with her personality, showed no fear and a willingness to take on yet even scarier rides if she could find them.

Very appropriate caption for Josie, and definitely the reason she’d ever get thrown in the stocks.

Kestrel Hawk

Feeding nectar to the lorikeets.

Here is what Adam wrote about this coaster, which I’m putting here because I was too chicken to ride it myself: “This ride, The Griffon, was the most impressive coaster I’ve been on in my life. Isabella and I got seats in the front, which I regretted immediately. It sports the world’s fastest dive … after bringing you up to the 205′ top, the cars go just past the brink of the drop and then stop for about 3 seconds, forcing you to hang on your belly looking straight down at a 90 degree free fall. This ride brings out a cacophony of exclamations from all of the riders that would make a sailor blush.”

The highlight of Josie’s day was finding this Pokemon stuffed toy. We wouldn’t let her pick it up in case someone came back for it, but it was still there over an hour later so qualified as officially lost (according to the unofficial Mayse rulebook). Score.

A “freefall” ride in the kiddie section of the park. Josie immediately regretted getting on this one, and unfortunately for her, the park was nearly empty so the ride lady gave them an extra long turn. Two kids thrilled; one kid ready to cry.

Kids with bald eagle. They have a whole bunch of rescue eagles at the park. One of them is from Alaska and is missing a wing from a horrible mite infection (and is therefore named Itchy); this one pictured is named Liberty and was rescued from an oil spill. His wings and lungs were damaged, so he can’t fly well and now lives here. They have probably around 20 rescued bald eagles.

 

9 June 2011

On the final morning in Virginia, we visited the Yorktown battlefield … site of the final significant skirmish that ended the “War of the American Rebellion.”

Yorktown: Pretty much acres and acres of open fields with occasional man made hill positions. You need to add a lot of imagination to make it work.

Baby deer out on his/her own. No mama in sight.

The famed “Redoubt 10”. Alexander Hamilton led 400 men to get up to the top of a small knob no more than 20 feet tall and about 40 yards in diameter. Of course, there were plenty of British and Germans on the top of the hill firing down as quickly as they could.

Buddhist monks now storming one of the British positions.

There were more French than Colonists fighting at Yorktown. There were more Hessians than British fighting at Yorktown. In fact, the Germans refer to this as “The German Battle,” since German/Hessian troops were involved, fighting in the French, Colonist and British brigades.

Only 244 men died there across all 3 sides. This is about 1/200th of the total seen at Gettysburg or 1/1850th of the invasion of Normandy.