35th Wedding Anniversary Road Trip 2014: Monday-Tuesday April 7-8 Into Williamsburg, VA

65513 155 miles Rain and 61*

We traveled US Rt 17 N towards Williamsburg, Virginia. Long pants and socks on for the first time in 3 weeks since the weather is wet and cooler. "Food Lion" grocery stores; flat farming countryside; pine groves; tulip trees and forsythia in blossom; brick homes and a truck load of caged chickens. US 17 turned from 4 lanes to 2 lanes with a road wash out detour added through rural byways. We drove through Ahoskie with the motto "Only one in the country" since no other town has that name. Over the Virginia line, we read a sign that said " Radar Detectors at Illegal", not that we had one, just thought we hadn't seen that sign before. Whaleyville had a Methodist Church built in 1884. In Suffolk, there were Greek style homes. I read that Suffolk was the home of "Mr Peanut" and Planters Peanuts, however, we later read that Wilkes Barre was the home of Mr Peanut. Still not sure why both cities claim Mr Peanut. We skirted Norfolk and drove into one of the tunnels under Chesapeake Bay. (-135' under water). We booked our room for 2 days and in the pouring rain, got the Williamsburg shuttle from the Information Center. We spent 3 hours in the afternoon in the museum learning Colonial history. There were musical instruments (pianos, clarinet, drum), furniture, painters' works, pewter, pottery and china. We had a snack which gave the rain a chance to let up. Once outside, we were in time to catch the Fife and Drum Corp marching in the street. We walked Merchant Square before going back to our hotel.

On Tuesday, we were up early and back to Williamsburg for the day. What an amazing place! The period costumed townspeople engaged the tourists in trying to determine who stole the gun power from the magazine. After the townspeople and the tourists stormed the palace, we went to an outdoor stage presentation of Colonial comedy. The actors answered period questions before the performance.

We learned that in 1775:

-you could worship whoever you wanted but you had to pay tithe to the Church of England. You had to attend church at least once a month or be fined and you were unwelcome if you were Catholic since the Spanish Catholic enemies were close by in Florida;

-the leading cause of death was being young. If a child lived to be 8 or 9, then chances were good that child would live to adulthood but families could expect a 40% death rate of children.

-men lived longer than women who had a hard life birthing children, doing chores and keeping the family going.

-people kept themselves clean and dry to avoid illness. They brushed teeth, used lavender to hide odor and bathed in moonshine which killed germs.

-women wore makeup.

-there wasn't a bank

-the town of Williamsburg smelled of animal feces and urine since the roads were used by horses. Even today, the horse droppings weren't cleaned until late at night.

We did building tours, listened to music, had conversations with townspeople and watched artisans make furniture, books, piano keys and clothing. At one point, a young girl asked me about my jacket (I was wearing my University of Maine at Farmington one), Turns out, she lived near Farmington and her mother was a teacher at Cape Cod Hill School in New Sharon. Farmington is Sonny's home town and UMF is my college alma mater. The next morning, we met the same family in the elevator of our hotel! In one of the shops I visited, I met a woman whose daughter now lives on Queen Ann hill in Seattle. Small world.

We spent over 9 hours on our feet at Williamsburg so we were some glad to get back to the hotel to sit down though we still had laundry that couldn't wait another day without consequences.

Truckload of chickens. Hadn't seen one of these in years

No Safeway or Hannafords here

Pouring rain as we drive towards the Chesapeake Bay

Starting over the bridge.....

and into the tunnel.

Getting closer...

And we made it here! I am glad to find that the area
surrounding Williamsburg isn't all commercially
developed. The park road system is wooded and without
traffic this time of year.

View from the bus into town

We're the only ones on the bus.

In the museum, we saw these bricks that were made by
the settlers. It was apparent that the local
dogs and deer were snooping around the brick yard
before the clay was quite dry. About 40 bricks have been
found with footprints in them

Musician's instruments even included a horse jaw that could be used
to keep rhythm.

Violin/fiddle collection

This clarinet is unusual because the reed was placed on
top of the mouthpiece instead of below. The next picture
gives some background. Especially interesting to us is that
Mr Bartlett lived in Maine.

Steve Harley painted this picture of Mt Hood in Oregon. His work
often had stick trees in the foreground.

Steve Harley

The museum had a collection of silver
and pewter. This is a wine fountain. Hard
to see but there is a little person in the middle
who spouts out the wine into your glass.

I had not been familiar with spinets
that were of this 3 sided style.

Very small pump organ that had
amazing sound.

Deserted street in Williamsburg

Loved the fife and drum corps

Slave cabin though this one seemed more fancy than the ones I've read
about.

The townspeople were in the crowd asking about the missing
ammunition. Here, this gal is asking Sonny what he might
know about it.

The townspeople are on the village green getting ready to
storm the palace in the distance.

The slaves thought they would be freed if they fought with the Crown. Here,
they are reading the fine print to learn that freedom has strings attached.