July 5, 3013.
This is the start of a much awaited 7 day vacation. Yes, we have been to Virginia beach and to Jamestown, so you would think nothing is new this time. Well, for one thing, we will spend more time in Jamestown, it is summer in Jamestown (not winter like the last time), we get to go to Bush Garden Water World and more. But first, we need to settle in.
Colonial Crossings of Williamsburg
We got an exchange through Interval International for this 3rd floor unit. It actually looks very nice, historical-like, maybe. While certainly much, much smaller that Westgate in Orlando, and even lesser things to do on-site, the rooms appear better kept, appliances newer. The fitness facilities, pool and other amenities are located in the main building and I did not find any ice dispenser, which would have been nice.
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| Bldg 300 at Night |
Location-wise, it is not the most convenient when compared to Westgate. The place is surrounded on both sides by corn fields, the Pottery Camping grounds is close by and the closest grocery, Walmart is a few hundred yards away but getting there requires you to make a huge u-turn from Lightfoot Rd., Mooretown Rd. and E Rochambeau Dr.
Travelling light
After a few years of taking yearly vacations in and out of the country, there is much to be said about travelling light. The passengers are much more comfortable and you can reduce the number of vehicles needed. Plus, it is much easier on my back. So, the first order of business once you get to a new place is to scrounge for supplies needed for survival. Living of the land, so to speak. In colonial days that may have meant pillaging the land, or at the very least, hunting or some form of trading with the natives or other settlers.
Today, much of the trading activity involved the local Super Walmart where you still had to hunt for the things you needed, but at least not as physically involved or time consuming. And there is beer!
Tomorrow, we plan to explore our surroundings. Down town Williamsburg. The rest of the week will have to be played out while keeping the weather in mind, except to Monday and Tuesday, that is reserved for Virginia Beach.
July 6, 2013
The day started well enough. A quick shower and breakfast! Except the coffee maker wasn’t working. The crossings responded fast, sending over someone in just a few minutes to replace the coffee maker. Kudos to you!
A quick check of the weather forecast shows that the best days, as in least amount of rain is today and tomorrow, at a 10% chance. The rest of the week is 30% chance of rain. So today, we will still go around Williamsburg, maybe add Jamestown to the mix and visit Bush Garden tomorrow.
Historic Colonial Williamsburg
We started the day without much of an idea of where to go to see this historical city. We finally settled on driving down to the visitors center which was a little pass the College of William and Mary. We did not quit make it to the visitors center as we finally located the admission center. The only difficulty we encountered had to do with parking. It was immediately clear that there was a lot of short term, 1 hour parking. We found a parking garage but could not get in because of the roof rack our vehicle carried. A few minutes more of driving and we found a parking that charged by the hour.
Truly, you do not need to buy anything to visit the historic area of Williamsburg. You can ride the bus without an admission ticket. Buying the ticket does allow you to enter the many exhibits and museums around the area. But if you just want to stroll and look around, maybe watch a few of the outdoor reenactments, then save the price of the admission and just take a walk. As for us, we decided to take our chance and get those tickets.
Public Hospital and DeWitt Wallace Museum
We took the bus from the sales center to get a feel of the place. We rode the bus around town and got of at the public hospital. This place was a replica of the original hospital which had burned down. The hospital itself was dedicated to mental heath issues more that to the disease of the body.
Walking down to the basement takes you an area that is deceptively bigger than you would suspect. There is an interconnecting area to the Dewitt Wallace Art Exhibit that featured colonial silverware, locks display, pianos and other artifacts found in colonial Williamsburg. But the most interesting part was a 1 hour show called, “Meet a Nation Builder” that featured an actor who played George Wythe. He was very well prepared to play the part, and I have to admit, I was expecting him to trip up during the question and answer part, or, as he said, if the audience has any query. If there is any part of this visit that I would recommend, it is that you watch this show. It is held in the basement auditorium.
Governor’s Palace
The Governor’s palace is a reproduction of the original that burned down. It was the original seat of Virginia’s Governor before it was eventually moved to Richmond. The transfer to Richmond was necessitated as a defensive action against the British offensive. We all know how that turned out. The palace was built atop the original foundation and the redevelopment of the area was made possible by the involvement of Rockefeller. Careful excavation, use of authentic artifacts and record
searches ensures that the palace was as faithful to the original as possible. Similar to the show at DeWitt Wallace Museum, the Governor’s palace has a “Public Audience” feature, this time, you can listen to Patrick Henry, in the Palace Garden.
Right after that, we got to view the French General Marquis de Lafayette review the troops in a reenactment of the generals review of the troops. No tickets required.
Market Place
While there are other historical places that you could visit to make the price of admission worth it, at the end, after half a day of walking, nothing beats a cool drink and some food and shopping at the market place. There isn’t much that is walking distance of the place. At least, nothing that my weary feet would allow me to find. We had lunch at 5:00 pm at the Cheese shop where they do sell more than cheese. At this point, rather than continue on to the next museum, some of us, notably the latest, felt that the call of the Prime Outlets store was much more stronger than any of the museum could ever match.
July 7, 2013
Did I mention that there were 9 of us in the group? Oh yes, 3 adults, 1 minor and the rest are teenagers. That means that there are going to be days were we will not agree on our agenda for the day, and this is one of those. So we basically broke up into 3 groups. Those who prefer the thrills of Busch Gardens Williamsburg, Adult females enamoured by The Prime Outlets and 1 baby sitter, that was me. I addition to my primary responsibility, I also had to chauffeur people around so I did get to do a little sight seeing.
I did get to do some reading, which I have not been able to do for sometime now. Also had time to do some thinking about life, and what the future holds. A little too abstract to be discussing here, maybe in some not-to-distant future.
July 8, 2013
We are off to visit Virginia Beach and the outlying sights. The day has not started out as well as I had hoped. It is raining and scattered thunderstorms are forecast for the afternoon. And of course, it is almost 8:00 am and I am the only one who is up and ready to go. We can only hope that the weather cooperates enough so as not to make this a wash out.
We were eventually able to start our trip, a little earlier than we have been accustomed to this past couple of days. I expected to cover the whole trip in about an hour. Traffic delayed that to around 1-1/2. Still not too bad. On the way,the weather was turning nasty and we all hoped and prayed that things would get better. And it did. By about 1:30 pm, the sun was out and so was the sunscreen, SPF 50.
SpringHill Suites
We were to stay at the SpringHill Suites by Marriott which was located next to our old friend, The Hampton Inn. From the looks, SpringHill Suites looks a lot more modern, maybe newer. I certainly liked the room layout and the friendliness of the folks who helped make our stay delightful. Of course, such service also comes with a price. The daily rate was pretty steep, even for just a one day stay.
The Beach
We had planned for only a over night stay so we had to make use of as much time tanning and/or burning (depending on the case) so as soon as we could, we were all out with the crowed.
The sun was baking hot but, surprisingly, the water was almost ice cold. Was this really July? Could global warming have caused an iceberg to break loose and was now floating nearby, cooling the waters of Virginia? Who knew? I could not stay long so I was out by about 4:30 pm.
Mahi-Mah’s
We wanted dinner to be different from the usual burgers and fries, or chinese fast foods, or pizza’s, or… you know what I mean. So we decided to take a stroll at night to see what was available, with our trusty discount coupon book. We settled for seafood and choose Mahi-Mah’s.
From my point of view, the ambiance was pretty good. The restaurant is dimly lit, with the hostess station to the left of the entrance, a large fish tank to the right and the restrooms down the hallway, also to the right. we were given a 7 seat table situated next to the fireplace, next to a large picture window with a direct view of the beach. The restaurant was air conditioned, with some assistance from ceiling fans linked together by drive belts. At this time of the night, the beach was still very busy with bikers, skateboarders and promenaders.
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The seafood was bad, but definitely not as good as I expected. Not only was nearly burnt food the order of the day (everything we ordered that was supposed to be grilled), but the pasta was clearly plain and regular. Although I did mention that I did not want a burger, I gave their Angus burger a try. I dare say I could have gotten a better and cheaper one from Five Guy’s. Well, you learn.
July 9, 2013
Time’s up and it is time to depart from that nice beach front hotel. But not until we have had breakfast. The usual, continental breakfast. After that the kids wanted to walk along the boardwalk for a little more, buy stuff for themselves. I went o take a look of a small, almost forgotten museum, the “Atlantic Wildfowl Heritage Museum“, and then we were off to visit the local Red Ribbon Bakeshop for some palabok. The ideas was to visit Jamestown today, if we had enough time. But, between eating and doing grocery shopping at an oriental store, it didn’t seem to be worth it. We eventually settled to just go straight back to Williamsburg, rent a DVD (Alex Cross with Tyler Perry) and call it a night.
July 10, 2013
Yorktown
This area of Virginia is called the historic triangle because of 3 very close areas that have very significant to the founding and eventual independence of the United States. It has been said that ” Williamsburg is Jamestown continued, and Yorktown is Williamsburg vindicated” James having been an earlier capital of Virginia before being moved to Williamsburg, then finally to Richmond during the revolutionary war.
The Visitor Center
The visitor is always the first stop when you are visiting a new location. It gives you the chance to plan your day ahead. But Yorktown is not really that big a place so during the drive to the visitor center, we got lost and found that we had practically toured the whole place by the time we located the center. We had already been to the banks of the York river and had viewed the Yorktown Monument to “The Alliance and Victory”. Not to fear, there are still plenty of things to do.
The Visitors center had plenty of information of where to visit, and a paid walking tour. The theater had a show that pretty much summarized what happened during the Siege of Yorktown. Interesting knowledge for people not to well versed in American history. I do wonder though why the U.S.seems a lot closer to the British than the French, given that with out French assistance we would probably never had won?
To visit the other places in Yorktown, it would be very convenient to park your vehicle at the Visitors Center and just take the free trolley ride. We again visited areas we had earlier driven through, but got off at the Yorktown Victory Center.
Yorktown Victory Center
The Yorktown Victory Center is a still evolving center easily visited by car or, the preferable way, by trolley. It is a much more interactive place to visit than the visitors center, or what we experienced in Williamsburg. To be fair, we were given a guided tour of palaces and hospitals in Williamsburg, and we did not have enough time to visit the place in its entirety. The Victory center has a typical village farm of the time, growing tobacco. A continental army encampment with tents manned by soldiers who were more that happy to describe how they lived, cooked, received treatment (there were tools you could touch) as well as live musket and cannon fires, with no ammunition of course. And the food they cooked? well, these were real edible food that, if we stayed long enough, we could probably taste. the center also had a short 18 minute movie, a souvenir center.
July 11, 2013
Water Country USA
Water Country USA is another go to place near Williamsburg. Like Busch Garden, it is owned by the Seaworld Parks and Entertainment. It is a place that my kids, and frankly, myself have been waiting to visit since our vacation started. In particular, I was waiting to try out the wave pool, reportedly the biggest on the east coast.
Unfortunately, mother nature does not always cooperate.Before the day even started, there was already a lot of rain, so we weren’t even sure going would be worth it. You figure that it rains, you’re in the pool, you’re wet either way so what is the big deal. Well, it does matter when thunderstorms and lightning are in the forecast since rides tend to get shut down, for safety reasons.
Things did not turn out too bad, the young ones were able to go on a couple of rides like the Huba-Huba Highway and, of course, the wave pool. We also got to watch the Aquabatics. I must admit, I have seen a lot of these antics on TV, but when you watch a guy dive from 75 feet up unto a rather small looking pool, your heart jumps just a little bit. After all, it is possible for him to miss. As a hedge I suppose, he starts the dive head first but goes into the water feet first.
July 12, 2013
Jamestown
Jamestown, first capital of Virginia, is the first permanent English settlement in what was going to be the United States. It is not the first permanent settlement by a European power. If I remember correctly, that belongs to the Spaniard. One of the presenters had made an interesting point, he said that the Kings of Spain and Portugal drew a vertical line on the map and agreed, that everything to the left was to be Spain’s, and to the right would be Portugal’s. Kinda explains why Brazil is Portuguese. Unfortunately for them, they did not ask for the opinion of the King of England.
When you visit Jamestown, you have a choice of visiting the Jamestown Settlement, or Historic Jamestown. The difference? The first is under the Virginia Department of Education. It consists of replicas of the Fort, Ships and Indian villages. It is quite educational. Historic Jamestown consists of archaeological sites of the original settlement, a few demonstrations on glass blowing, but the main emphasis is on preserving and learning from the original site.
There is a lot of history in Virginia. Someone had mentioned that, in the beginning, the whole United States was Virginia. How true. Visiting this area has made me more interested in learning more about the civil, the revolution, Gettysburg. Well, at least visiting these areas. It seemed to me that, without French help, the United States might still be British. Without the revolution, France might still be ruled by the French Royal family.
There are plenty of countries around the world that has owed their inspiration to the ideals espoused by the founding fathers, we might do well to go back and try to understand what it is they truly fought and died for.