Day 10 - Back to Where it all Began

Today we went to Jamestown Settlement. This is where it all began. Well, kinda, sorta. The Jamestown Settlement was actually a re-creation of the original Jamestown which was an archeological site located a couple of miles away. We met the Talley's again before the place opened so we had to wait a little while. Once again, we had to purchase tickets and this time the first thing we did was look at a little exhibit that told a little about the powhatan indians, the tribe who called the Jamestown area home when the first settlers arrived. We then saw a short movie about the arrival of the settlers and a little background on what we would be seeing later on. The next thing was a much bigger exhibit and a guide took us around and introduced and told us about the 3 people groups that were involved in the first several years of the time period, including the Powhatans, the Europeans and the slaves brought from Africa. This was very interesting for me and honestly, I learned a bunch. I don't remember ever hearning about this in school. Maybe I slept, or just didn't listen. I don't know. I just really got a lot out of this particular little tour.

After the tour, we then went outside and looked at 3 particular areas; the powhatan village, the Jamestown Fort and 3 sailing ships that played a major role in the settlement. The indian village was interesting in that it showed us how the indians lived in the area. We learned at the fort area how the settlers dealt with the indians and how they survived the best they could. Then we got to board the ships that brought people across the ocean and learned how difficult a trip it was. We learned about the whole reason the settlers came to America in the first place and how little tiny things that happened could have completely changed the way ournation might look today or the amazing fact that it was settled at all. If you ever don't appreciate our freedom and how lucky we are to live here, you need to see this place. After only a couple of hours, I felt like I had caught up on hundreds of years of history and I was really glad I went.

It was now time for lunch and we let the Talley's go on to the Jamestown archeological site and we went back to the campground. The girls swam a little bit and Catherine washed a few clothes. I was able to squeeze in a little nap and for the first time, I was on "vacation". For supper, I cooked hamburgers on the grill and once again, we headed in to the Colonial Williamsburg area to attend a handbell/organ concert at one of the oldest churches in America. The Bruton Parish Church was established in the late 1600's and it was fun going to the concert. After that, we walked around a little and Craig and I tried to take a couple of "night" pictures of some of the buildings. It was a full day and fun one at that. It was time to say goodbye to the Talley's because we would be parting ways the next morning.

Day 9 - History in the Making

Today was our first day at Williamsburg. The campground was located about 8 miles away from the Colonial Williamsburg area. There are not too many campgrounds in the area, much like Washington. After a quick breakfast at the camper, we loaded up and headed for the visitor's center. We met some long time friends of ours who were also visiting the area at the same time. We knew that the Talley's were going to be there at the same time as us, but when they planned their trip, they didn't know we were going to be there. It just worked out that way. It was fun meeting them there and before long, we had our tickets and were on our way into the town. The area of Colonial Williamsburg is not a closed in park. You can get to it from many different locations, but you needed a ticket to enter all the buildings that make up the colony. Several of the buildings were original, dating back to the 1600's. Everyone working there was in colonial costume and it helped to take us back in time. It was really neat learning about all the history that took place even before Washington D.C. We saw actors portraying George and Martha Washington and others who played an important role in our nation's infancy.

After looking around a while, we ate lunch at a little place just outside of the colonial area. Then we went back to experience some more. At about 5 o'clock, we went to the Talley's hotel which was next to the visitor's center. There was a pizza place nearby and we ordered a couple of pizza's and had supper. We relaxed for a bit, but before long, it was time to go back into the colony and participate in what was called a tavern ghost walk. This was basically a night tour that took us to several buildings while being told ghost stories that were apparently true accounts that had happened to people throughout the years.  There was a storm off in the distance and we could see lightning. This helped create a spooky atmosphere that made it more fun. After the tour, it was about 10:00 and we were tired. We left the colony and headed back for the campground and hit the pillow with heavy heads.

Day 8 - Time to Leave Our Nation's Capital

Well, it was time to go and even when we didn't get to see everything that was on our list, we knew that we were to experience more wonderful things about our nation's history.

We left about 9:00 and headed south toward Williamsburg. Catherine's family has relatives located in Bowling Green, VA. This just happened to be on our way. We called them to let them know that we were on our way and they told us a much better route to take instead of the interstate. It really was great! The scenery was beautiful and the traffic was really not bad at all. We arrived at their house a little after noon, and they had lunch waiting for us. What a treat! Boyd and Leslie Moore are really nice people. Boyd is Catherine's dad's first cousin. We had a really wonderful visit with them and their really cute dog, Mei-Mei (pronounced may may). She is a really cute shitzu with a lot of personality. They even had some things that kept Amy and Erin interested the whole time we were there. After a while, it was time to go, but we wanted to show them our little camper. When I opened the door, I noticed that sometime on the way, one of our cabinet doors had come open and broken apart. It was lying there on the floor in pieces. I took it off the hinges, and Boyd was able to put it back together for us. We also noticed that something was wrong with our lights. They wouldn't work. A little investigating revealed a blown fuse right at the battery connection. I didn't have any replacements, so we would have to find a parts store. We got back on the road and continued on to our destination.

We finally made it to Williamsburg and our home for the next three nights. The campground was really pretty nice and much cheaper than Cherry Hill in Washington. The pads were concrete and we were able to just pull through the site and hook up. And it had lots of shade trees to keep us cool. Of course, after seeing the pool, the girls wanted to swim. Since it was too late to go look at any historical sites, we ate dinner and the girls headed for the pool. After swimming, we pretty much hit the hay for the night.

Just a side note

I've finally started posting a few pictures. If you are interested, go back through all the posts and look at a few of our fun times.

Day 7 - Probably My Favorite So Far

Today was Saturday and since it was the weekend, we decided to drive around to a few sites. We had a yummy breakfast of sausage and eggs and then got in the truck and headed toward the National Cathedral. This was something that had really not crossed my mind until late in the planning stages. After reading about it,

I knew we had to go. It's the 6th largest cathedral in the world and you can see it from miles around. As we got closer, I knew that the pictures that I had seen on the internet did not do it justice. It was really a wonder to behold. It didn't open until 10 and we got there about 9:30 so we sat outside and just looked at it. There were lots of things to see. The building is incredibly detailed with lots of

gargoyles and grotesques. grotesques' are basically faces that decorate various parts of the building and they are all different. The purpose of gargoyles is to decorate a water spout so when it rains, the water comes out of the mouths.

Anyway, the time had come to go in. It was absolutely stunning. The stained glass windows were huge and each one had pictures that mostly symbolized some happening in American History. The cathedral was not that old. In fact, it was finished during the 1980's. We spent a couple of hours looking around and like most attractions in Washington, there was really too much to look at and it was time to depart for our next site.

Our next destination was the Air and Space Museum at Dulles International Airport.  This was a fairly new part of the Smithsonian family and it was housed in a huge aircraft hanger. The good thing about this is that it was able to host full size aircraft. The museum is kind of far away from the city plus you have to pay a toll, and parking is $15. When we got there, we found a little shade tree and had a quick picnic lunch.  After that we went into the hanger and immediately knew that we would not be disappointed. There were indeed full size aircraft including the SR-71 Blackhawk, the Enola Gay, the Concord and the space

shuttle, Enterprise. It also had many, many planes from different time periods and the smaller ones were hung from the ceiling as if they were flying. There was an elevated walkway around the hanger so you could get nose to nose with the planes. It was awesome! I could have stayed there all day, but again, we had other fish to fry and needed to head back to the campground for a quick break and then it was back to D.C. for an evening tour. We had burgers for dinner and went to catch the train. It was Saturday and we realized that the trains don't run as much, so we were a little slow in getting to our meeting place. We ended up having to jog from the station to where our tour was supposed to start. This tour was a walking tour and it was all about Lincoln's assassination. We ended up being about 10 minutes late, but didn't miss too much. We started at Andrew Jackson's statue in front of the White House and the tour guide led us to several locations having to do with the events leading up to Abraham Lincoln's death. The guide was really great! He gave us so much information and I had no idea of the thought and planning that John Wilkes Booth had put into his ultimate goal. The tour ended about 2 hours later in front of Ford's Theater. I was really glad we did it and we all learned so much.

After the tour, we found an ice cream place called FroZenYo. It was a frozen yogurt place that lets you serve yourself a large selection of yogurt and then they charge you based on the weight of your serving. It was really good! We then headed back to the mall area, saw a few monuments lit up at night, ooohed and ahhed and then found the closest train center. After a long day we fell into bed to get as much sleep as we could before we began the next leg of our journey.

Day 6 - Smithsonian

We didn't get up too early, but we did want to make it in pretty quickly to see as much of the museums as we could. We made it to the mall area about 9:00 and realized that the museums didn't open until 10:00. We were able to walk through a few garden areas that displayed different plants and ecosystems. D.C. is such that you can be just walking along and come upon some sort of exhibit. We went ahead and went to the entrance of the Natural History Museum and had a seat out front. Various vendors were just arriving and setting up their trailers for a full day of capitalism. It was fun watching them open and set up everything getting ready for the crowds. The museum finally opened and we went inside. We walked around and

saw many things and without going into great detail, I will just say that it was too big to see it all. After about 2 hours, we were getting pretty hungry and at first I was thinking about finding a sandwich shop somewhere before going on to the next destination, but decided that it would be easier and more fun to just get a hot dog from the street vendor that we had watched set up. So that's what we did. For a hot dog, they were pretty good, but anything would have tasted good by that time.

After we ate, it was time to take in the American History Museum. Once again, the place was huge and full of amazing things. We got to see the flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the Star Spangled Banner, the Hope diamond and Abraham Lincoln's top hat. At about 3 o'clock we were pretty tired and decided to head back to the campground for some relaxation. That ended up being really nice because we were able to walk around the campground and take some time to rest because our time at D.C. was not over yet.

Day 5 - Where Decisions are Made

Today was the day for our big capital tour. We were really looking forward to it because we had reserved our tour through our congressman, Ralph Hall. The tour didn't start until 1:50 p.m., so we decided to take our time in the morning, and not hurry too much getting there. There is a Metro bus stop at the campground so it is convenient to get places. We hopped on the bus about 10:30 and rode to the nearest rail station. The bus made several other stops on the way so we were glad we went when we did. It wasn't the fastest trip to the station. We rode the Metro train into D.C. again. By this time, we are getting pretty good at maneuvering our way around. We rode the train to the nearest metro station to the capital. One of the capital office buildings has a food court type place in the basement so we ate lunch there. It was really busy with people everywhere. It didn't seem organized at all but everyone seemed to know where they were going. We finally got something to eat and sat down and had lunch. It was interesting watching all the people.

It was time to go meet our tour guide. We had to go to Ralph Hall's office on the 4th floor of the Rayburn office building. There was a tunnel leading from the building we ate in to where we need to go. In fact, there are tunnels that lead everywhere down there. A person can get to and from the capital from about 10 different buildings without ever seeing daylight. Congressmen and Senators even have their own subway that transports them to and from.

We met our guide. He was an intern for Hall's office and he had been there since May. He was pretty nice and started us on our way. There was one other family on the tour with us and they were from Allen, TX so it was nice to see some others from home. It seemed like it took forever to get to the capital because of security and various lines that we had to stand in. We got to the CVC or Capital Visitor Center and there were people everywhere. We started with a video and then went to various rooms including the old Supreme Court chambers,  Rotunda and the current house gallery. They were all pretty cool and very thought provoking. The tour lasted a while and by the time we got back to the office, it was almost 4:00 p.m.

The last thing we did was look at the view from Hall's office. The intern said that it was the best view in the building and it was amazing. Ralph Hall has been in Washington so long that he has been able to work his way up to the best office.

After the tour, we went to the Air and Space Museum located on the mall. We were pretty tired and we didn't make it all the way through it. We did get to see some pretty neat exhibits and some very famous aircraft. For some reason, it hit us all and we were really tired. We decided to go back to camp and rest up a little. The girls wanted to go swimming so they did and Catherine washed a few loads of clothes. I made a trip to Target and got a few supplies. It was a good night for resting, for tomorrow would be another busy day.