To follow our historic Williamsburg tour we spent a day exploring the Jamestown living museum and Yorktown the next day, completing our visit of the historic triangle. Like these other sites, Jamestown has a nice indoor museum with numerous artifacts that chronicle the experiences of the Native American and early settlers in the region. Minnie’s favorite artifacts include coinage of the times while Bilbo enjoys seeing the handmade furniture and weapons used for warfare and hunting. There was a large group of students touring this day with a very loud tour guide which annoyed us quite a bit. We rushed through the museum a bit more than we would normally and worked our way out of the “living museum” which included a replica of the Jamestown settlement and dock complete with 3 fully functioning ships that copy the design of those used to cross the Atlantic from England.
Jamestown was the first successful English colony after the failure of the Roanoke settlement in North Carolina, often called the Lost Colony, as the fate of those settlers is a complete mystery. Fortunately for those in the the Jamestown settlement, these people faired a bit better after some rough winters and difficult relations with neighboring American Indians. Actors share stories of settlers eating horses, pets, and even human corpses because of dwindling food supplies in the winter, yuck! We had fun watching a man fire a matchlock rifle. The Shrimp Meister asked if the colonist would be able to hunt deer. “No, the deer would smell the smoking fuse (used for firing)”, and SM responded, “welp, you starve” We didn’t enjoy our dining experience, just imagine bad school cafeteria food priced 3x’s what you’d normally pay. The history is worth the visit, though! Just pack a lunch.
We must give a big shout out to the nice park ranger that gave Casey a free National Parks pass which enabled us to enter the Jamestown and Yorktown sites for free! We stopped by the actual Jamestown Settlement Park where we learn it wasn’t John Smith who married Pocahontas (curse you Disney!) it was John Rolfe. Check Wikipedia for her full story as it is very interesting.
Check it out :) . Here we saw where the real settlement would have been. The archeological museum which is still active in research and excavating on the site was one of our favorites so far. It had some really neat exhibits with skeletons and description of who they were and what they did, what they may have looked like from computer reconstruction, and how they died.
After a lot of walking and a crappy lunch, dinner refueled us! We had some Uno’s Pizza at the Williamsburg restaurant. The Vance family’s all time favorite pizza is the Uno’s chicken fajita pizza. Just so you know, this item is not on the menu. You can be as cool as us by asking for it, making the waiter go to the kitchen to inquire if they have the recipe, and then acting completely unsurprised when he tells you that they can make it. You’ll feel like a movie star. Once the pizza was in our bellies, we enjoyed more free giveaways as Bilbo and SM worked their charms to secure free desert for the whole family. If you are ever in Williamsburg, you should stop there! The food was good, as Uno’s always is, and the manager was out visiting with patrons and giving away free food.
The next morning we got up bright and early, or early for a vacation morning, and headed to the Yorktown Victory Center. This museum told the story of the Revolutionary War—the source of conflict, the early revolts, the battles fought, and the people involved—all leading up to the victorious Yorktown Battle. In case you aren’t familiar with this battle, it was General Washington’s epic defeat of General Cornwallis which won America’s independence! The artifacts included British and American uniforms, weaponry, and day-to-day artifacts. The copy of the Declaration of Independence that was sent to Boston was on display as well as letters from the soldiers involved in the war. Both RB’s favorite artifacts were the set of pistols belonging to General Lafayette.
Just like in Jamestown, the Victory Center had an outdoor living museum. There were a couple of men in their American uniforms teaching us how to shoot a cannon. They brought down members of the crowd to act as members of the cannon team (I don’t know the appropriate war term for it) and guess who got to be the commander! The Conductor did, and the Shrimp Meister got to “shoot” the cannon. Really, he just took an imaginary flame up to the cannon and the actor shouted “BOOM”! After everyone was cleared away from the area, the did a real shooting of the cannon and it was loud! The rest of the outdoor museum was set up like a war camp. There were soldiers’ tents, a general’s tent, and some officers’ tents; as well as the doctor’s tent. Here an actor told us about war-time medicine practices during the Revolutionary War. Let’s just say it involved a lot of sawing, hacking, and pulling…and no pain medicine yet folks!
The final stop before hitting the beaches was the actual site of the Yorktown Battlefield. It was just a big open field with an American flag, a French flag, a British flag, and some trenches. Still, as you gazed across at the star spangled banner, you felt pride and gratitude. There we were, right where independence had finally been realized, where the world as we knew it was changed. Not only did this was bring about the freedom of our nation, but it inspired other nations to break their chains. It was pretty moving stuff!
After walking around the visitor center and seeing cannons that had been used there, we jumped into the car for the driving tour. Yep! It’s that big of an area! Remember, three armies were camped in the woods around this field. Here’s an interesting fact that we learned. Even though the French and Americans were fighting as one under the leadership of General Washington, they were headquartered separately to respect the authority of their general. Washington’s headquarters were located in the middle of the two armies so that he had constant access to each. On the driving tour, we saw where each army had been camped (remember, just open field and woods now), where Washington’s headquarters had been located, and where Cornwallis’s troops surrendered. You know, Cornwallis didn’t show up for the surrendering of his army. He said he was too sick to make the march. No matter, though. Right after his defeat, Lord North and King Charles III decided that it wasn’t worth the fight anymore and America was handed over to its citizens! YAY!
This concluded our trip around Virginia’s “Historic Triangle”. All feeling patriotic, we headed to VA Beach to relax and meet up with an old friend. That’s what we’ll tell you about next time! Until then, God bless America!
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