Saturday August 11th 2018

I woke to the sound of rain on the roof this morning. It was very cloudy with a little rain during the morning. In the afternoon the sun broke through for an hour or so only to be replaced by thunderstorms and more rain. It has rained off and on all evening. Flash floods warnings are out for the counties south of here.

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After four straight days of touring, my plan for today was to do chores around the RV. The gloomy weather turned that plan into a real do nothing kind of day. In this case nothing was reading, watching TV and a walk around the campground during the dry part of the day. I had a hard time finding anything to take pictures of to add to this blog entry. The park has very few flowers and the wildlife seem to be hiding from the weather.

The campground really filled up this weekend. It was about half full most of the week. The downside is that the campgrounds internet connection really slowed down. Most of the time when that happens I switch to my cellular data internet connection. Here that isn’t an option. The Verizon cell services is pretty bad. The best reported coverage I’ve seen according to the “bars” meter is two bars. Most of the time I’m only seeing one bar. I’ve had a couple of calls go to voice mail that never even rang the phone.

The bad internet connection made publishing my blog entry last night difficult. Getting the pictures uploaded and linked into the text took several attempts. I actually had the blog entry ready early, but didn’t get it published until the contention for the internet access slowed down late in the evening. Conditions seem a little better tonight, but I won’t be sure until I get ready to publish.

The weather forecast for tomorrow is similar to today. Today’s chores become tomorrow’s chores, and I also have the day before travel chores to do. Hopefully, the gloomy weather doesn’t neutralize my energy tomorrow.

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Friday August 10th 2018

After three straight days of touring I planned to take today off from touring. The weather forecast for the weekend changed my mind. The tropical rain pattern we experienced a couple of weeks ago is returning. Heavy rain is forecast for both Saturday and Sunday. I went to Yorktown to visit the American Revolution Museum and the Yorktown battlefield.

The American Revolution Museum at Yorktown is run by the same Commonwealth of Virginia agency as the Jamestown Settlement I visited yesterday. In my opinion this museum is much better than its sister museum in Jamestown. Some of that is because it is only a year old and uses technology better. It covers the period leading up to the Revolution all the way to the adoption of the Constitution in 1789.

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My museum visit started with the overview movie. In used an innovative approach to story telling that kept your attention, but ended with a message that keeping the freedoms earned in the revolution is a continuous fight. Other areas of the museum used shorter video to emphasis particular points or explain battles. The most creative video was used in a multi sensory presentation on the siege and battle at Yorktown. The semi circle theater had vibrating seats and artificial smoke to put you in the middle of the battle.

Another nice thing about the exhibits in the museum were the extensive number of actual artifacts. There were uniforms, muskets, swords, hand guns and cannon on display. Many of the cannon were in a temporary exhibit on the artillery of the revolutionary war.

Continental Army Camp reenactment.

Outside the museum there was a reenactment of a colonial bivouac with the obligatory musket firing example. I’ve seen a musket fired at Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown Settlement and at the American Revolution Museum. Behind the bivouac was a recreation of a revolutionary war era farm that provided an opportunity to present another aspect of life during the war. It struck me as a nice exhibit looking for a purpose.

Cannon at the National Park Service Yorktown Battlefield Visitors Center

From the American Revolution Museum I drove over the Yorktown Battlefield run by the National Parks Service as part of the Colonial National Historical Park. I watched the movie and toured the little museum on the Yorktown battle. It provided a little more information on the Yorktown area events. I started visiting the outside locations and driving the auto tour around the battlefield, but the weather got in the way. A mid afternoon rainstorm cut my visit short. I returned north to my RV site mostly along the National Park Service Colonial Parkway. The road wanders along the side of the York River and through dense forests as it winds inland.

Thursday August 9th 2018

It was a few degrees cooler and just as humid today compared with yesterday. The result was a marginally more comfortable day for touring the Jamestown area. Ninety degrees and humid is still hot.

Sculpture at the entrance to the Jamestown Settlement.

Jamestown is located about ten miles from Williamsburg. There are two attractions there associated with the first permanent English settlement in the New World. The Jamestown Settlement is a museum and recreation of Fort James run by a non-profit associated with the Commonwealth of Virginia. The actual historic site of the settlement complete with archaeological dig is in the Colonial National Historical Park run by the National Park Service. I toured both today.

Powhantan Native American Village recreation. The women in native costume had blond and red hair. I don’t think that was an accurate choice.

The three replica ships were tied up beside a pier in the James river. They represent the large Susan Constant which carried 54 passengers and 17 crew, the tiny Discovery designed to explore the area rivers and the midsized Godspeed which carried 39 passengers and 13 crew.

Midsized ship the Godspeed

One of the better sleeping quarters on the Susan Constant.

One of the cannon on the Susan Constant.

The Jamestown Settlement museum has a twenty four minute movie that sets the historical perspective for the rest of the museum and recreated fort very well. It focuses on the Jamestown Settlement as the intersection of three cultures; the European primarily the British, the Powhatan Native Americans and the African people brought here against their will. The settlement was established primarily to make money for the Virginia company in England. It was not a government sponsored endeavor, but rather a government authorized by charter undertaking of an investment group. A secondary goal was to spread the British version of Christianity to the natives.

Outside of the church in the recreated Fort James

Inside of the church in the recreated Fort James.

Cannon for the defense of the fort against the Spanish.

While I liked the movie, I wasn’t very impressed with the museum. It didn’t add much to the knowledge obtained from the movie. There weren’t many real artifacts. Most of the museum was made up of dioramas and placards. The attempts at interaction were older low technology approaches that didn’t seem to aid in providing knowledge. On the other hand the recreations outside were very good. They had a replica of a Powhatan village, replicas of the three ships that brought the first settlers to Jamestown and a recreation of Fort James.

I don’t think these are representative of food available to the first settlers. They may have been around during the later years of the settlement. They were quite a surprise.

The ferry across the James River departs from the road beside the Jamestown Settlement. It is also out of place.

The actual site of the original Jamestown colony is on an island about a mile from the Jamestown Settlement museum. The choice of the location was dictated by the need to defend the settlement from invaders. They were primarily worried about the Spanish not the Native Americans. There was not any fresh water on the island. Water had to be brought from the mainland which was connected to the island at low tide.

One of the archaeological digs at the Jamestown site.

At the Jamestown site in the Colonial National Historical Park, there have been many archaeological digs during the last century or more. Each discovery provides additional understanding of the settlers. New discoveries are being made all the time. Recently another set of remains were found under the site of the old church. They are currently searching one of the plantation houses outside the fort walls for evidence of the African residents of the settlement. A big push is on to find more information for the four hundredth anniversary of the arrival of the first Africans in 2019.

Overall I spent four and a half hours at the two Jamestown attractions. I could have spent more time at the actual site, but the hot humid day was getting to me. The archaeologists were stopping for the day, so I took that as a reason to end my day as well.

Blossom of the Day.

Wednesday August 8th 2018

Today I returned to Colonial Williamsburg to tour in the hot August sun. The heat index today was over 100. Thankfully the buildings are air conditioned.

St. George Tucker House

Peyton Randolph House

Watching the trades at work was big on the agenda today. I started with a visit to the wheelwrights shop. They had wheels of all sizes in various levels of completion. Next up was visit to the brickyard to get a demonstration on how bricks were made. They were only preparing the mud, filling the molds and setting the bricks to sun dry. Firing the bricks will be done in colder weather. Near the brickyard is the cabinet shop. They were making chairs, desks and a harpsichord at this time, but there were examples of tables, chests and other furniture they have created in the cabinet shop all with period tools.

Colonial Lawn mower getting a drink in the shade.

In an other area of the colonial town I visited the silversmith and engraver. They provided more of a period lecture on the value of silver in the colonies, but they had some nice examples of the work in display cases. The blacksmith across the street was busy making axe heads and other tools of the era. It was a very popular exhibit. I was looking over the heads of many other people, so I didn’t stay long. All of these exhibits except the cabinet shop were exposed to the outside temperatures to get out of the heat I needed to tour other buildings.

Time to fetch the water.

I visited the R. Charlton Coffeehouse to interact with the people of the past and get a lesson on the history of the area around 1766. An “Irish serving girl” told her story about life in Williamsburg. One of my fellow visitors really got into it and started to interact with her as if he was a citizen of the era from Philadelphia. Let’s just say his wife wasn’t pleased. We were also entertained by the news of the day about the near lynching of the royal official commissioned to enforce the stamp act. There is an element of historical fiction to all of Colonial Williamsburg. You know there is true history being presented, but you’re not sure how much of the story is embellishment.

Capitol Building.

Another view of the Capitol building.

After the coffee house visit, I took a tour of the Colonial Capitol. Williamsburg was the capitol of the Virginia colony for about eighty years. The capitol was moved to Williamsburg in 1700 after the building in Jamestown burned and was relocated to Richmond around 1780. As part of the tour we got to site in the House of Burgesses where Patrick Henry made his famous speech against the Stamp Act. The Capitol building also contains the General Court. While setting in the court we got a history lesson on the origin of some of our rights as citizens. The lessons were presented in the form of a story about a cook that killed a tavern owners slave. It was another case of real history that was probably well embellished.

House of Burgessess.

I lasted about four and a half hours of touring. There is still more to see, but I returned to the visitors center when I passed near a shuttle bus stop with a bus approaching. I will probably go back at least once more while I’m here. Tomorrow, I plan to go to Jamestown.

Blossom of the day.

Tuesday August 7th 2018

After breakfast this morning I transitioned into tourist mode and set out for Colonial Williamsburg. All of the directions to the Visitors Center were from Interstate 64. I decided to stay on surface roads to see more of the area. Boy did I see more of the area. The directional signs were very intermittent from the direction I was approaching the area. I made several wrong turns, but finally found the Colonial Williamsburg visitors center and parking lot. It is a modern facility set in the woods a third of a mile from the town area.

Colonial Williamsburg Governor’s Palace

At the visitors center I converted the voucher I printed out from my online ticket purchase into a ticket badge good for seven days at Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown. There is also an overview movie and a big gift shop in the visitors center. There are shuttle buses to the town area or you can walk along the third of a mile path. I chose the walk through the woods to the colonial town. It passed by an exhibit of the Great Hope Plantation with a colonial era windmill before arriving at the colonial town near the Governor’s Palace.

The interior of the main floor greeting areas of the Governor’s Palace was decorated in weapons.

The Palace tour was very interesting. The building is a replica of the original building that burnt 1781 after the capital was moved to Richmond. It is configured today as it was in the time of the last royal governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore. He fled with his family in 1775 as revolutionary sentiments built in the colony. The main floor greeting areas of the residence are decorated with muskets and swords to project the power of the governor over the people doing business with him.

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Throughout the colonial town the guides and staff are in period dress. They stay in character just enough to keep it interesting. If you ask a question about something they will tell you how “we” use it, but they don’t speak in a fake old English dialect. On the other hand they are part of the twenty first century. There were two people working in the Cooperage building barrels, buckets and such. I don’t think the woman artisan would have been a cooper in colonial times. I also saw one guide taking a visitors picture without pretending it was newfangled witchcraft.

Bird house for keeping a ready supply of fresh meat for the dinner table.

It was very hot today. The temperature was in the mid 90s with high humidity. The buildings like the Governor’s Palace are air conditioned, but there is a lot of outdoor walking between buildings. I had my hat, sunscreen and water, but it was still uncomfortable. I spent about four hours wandering around about a quarter of the colonial town. I’ve studied the map a little to get the layout of the exhibits and will return tomorrow to see more. It is forecast to be even warmer tomorrow.

Blossom of the day.

Monday August 6th 2018

It was a hot and humid day. The temperature peaked in the low 90s. These were all the wrong ingredients for a travel day. Getting packed up for travel was bad, but setting up this afternoon was worst. By the time I was finished setting up at my new location I was dripping wet with sweat.

Site A49 at the Williamsburg KOA. I pulled well forward on the site to get the towed car off the road and align with the utilities. The result was the utility pole is kind of close.

I got on the road at 10:45 about fifteen minutes before checkout time. The first order of business was filling the gas tank. The gas gauge was pointing in the area of a quarter tank of gas. The gauge wasn’t lying. I put sixty gallons in the tank, which is right around three quarters of a tank. Unfortunately it was a quick stop. I didn’t have to wait behind anyone, so I didn’t stretch my travel time very much. Check in time at my destination was 1PM. I needed to stretch the hour and fifteen minutes travel time into two and a quarter hours. In the end I stopped at a very nice Rest Area and Visitor Information site just north of Williamsburg for an hour.

I’m at the Williamsburg KOA for the next week. It is showing signs of the last couple of weeks of rainy weather. The roads and gravel parts of the sites are fine, but the grass areas are very soggy. Walking on the grass causes water to come to the surface. About six this evening, mother nature added to the mess. A thunderstorm developed over the area and dumped heavy rain for close to an hour. There wasn’t much wind in this immediate area, but the power went out for about two hours. I didn’t see any lightening, but the sound of thunder was very loud. The campground is located in a low area surrounded by hills that served to concentrate the noise from the storm. The hills also block good cell phone service, so I couldn’t check the weather radar on my phone during the power outage. Once the power returned I could use the campgrounds Wifi.

I picked up a handful of brochures at the Visitors center on the highway. There is even more to do in this area than I knew. Tomorrow I’ll get started with some tourist activities.

Sunday August 5th 2018

Today was a slow day, so be warned that this blog entry doesn’t have a lot of meat. The day began sunny and humid. Around four the sky darkened, the wind blew and a little rain fell on the roof. There was a severe thunderstorm warning in the area, but it didn’t pass over this location. The sun was back out before night arrived.

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Most of my day was spent watching TV. The NASCAR race from Watkins Glen New York was a fun race to watch. Chase Elliot got his first win holding off the competition from Martin Truex Jr. over the last few laps on the road course. NASCAR needs a new young star. This evening the TV watching continues with the Yankees vs. Red Sox baseball game. I just need to tune out the pro Yankee broadcast crew.

In the late morning I went out for groceries. The store is located one exit north on Interstate 95. The congestion on the highway kept the speed down to between 20 and 40 miles per hour. The volume of cars on the road was the cause. There wasn’t any accident or construction in the area. The return trip was similarly slow. I saw similar slow downs in this area at the rush hour during the week. I guess the traffic planners will have to start looking at expanding the three lanes in each direction to four or more.

The grocery shopping was only marginally successful. There seemed to be many empty spaces on the shelves and the meat displays were particularly bad even by Walmart standards. I’ll have to find a mainline grocery store after I move tomorrow to get some to replenish my stocks. I cooked some chicken thighs from the freezer for dinner today.

I only have sixty miles to travel tomorrow, so I don’t plan to leave here until the 11am checkout time. The outside prep for travel tasks that I usually do the day before travel still need to be completed. The potential thunderstorm arrived just as I was getting ready to go out and work on them. Once I hit the road I’ll need to fill the gas tank. The best place is a few miles in the wrong direction, so I may use that as a way of taking longer to get to my destination which has a check-in time of 1PM.

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Saturday August 4th 2018

It was a sunny day with average humidity for August in Virginia. The weather forecasters say the rainy pattern has broken. The next few days are advertised to by sunny with a chance of afternoon thunderstorms. The area really needs a chance to dry out. Areas west of Richmond have been experiencing low area flooding for the last few days and a dam in the Lynchburg area is in danger of giving way.

Flower Blossoms of the day

I stirred the planning pot today. When I move on from here on Monday, I intended to head west for the Shenandoah Valley then north into Pennsylvania. With all the rain, Pennsylvania has a number of areas with flooding issues. I decided to delay my turn west into the Shenandoah valley for a week. Instead I’ll move east on Monday to Williamsburg VA. I need a colonial history lesson at Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown.

Being able to make this kind of a change in plans is the good thing about not making reservations well in advance. The down side of waiting to make reservations is not being able to get the locations you want. I’m experiencing some of that going forward. I’m having a hard time finding reservations for the weekends in August as I move north. Sunday night through Thursday night are not a problem. Chances are I’m going to be in some expensive less desirable places on the third and forth weekends of the month. After Williamsburg my next reservation longer than a week is over Labor day weekend in northern New York.

Today was mostly a day of rest. Other than a brief run to the convenience store near the highway for a loaf of bread, I spent the day watching TV and wandering around the RV park. The sports on TV were entertaining as was the activity in the full RV park. Tomorrow I’ll do some real grocery shopping.

Friday August 3rd 2018

I woke up to rain this morning. Light rain fell off and on all day, but I wasn’t going to let it keep me inside today. Around mid morning I drove about fifteen miles to the Cold Harbor battlefield site.

Cannon on display at the Cold Harbor battlefield.

The area around Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, has many Civil War battlefields. They are not all from the same campaigns. There are battlefields from the 1862 peninsular campaigns, the 1864 campaigns and the final battles in 1865. The Cold Harbor area saw action in both 62 and 64. The battlefield I visited was from the Overland Campaign in the spring of 1864. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia fought Grant’s expanded Army of the Potomac in a series of battles starting south of the Rapidan in the Wilderness, followed by Spotsylvania, eventually reaching Cold Harbor. This campaign was unlike previous years when the armys withdrew for long periods of time to recover and rebuild between battles. Grant continued to pressure Lee by continuing south around his flanks toward Richmond. The Union needed victories to get Lincoln re-elected in the fall of 1864. All of the battles were pretty much draws from a strategic perspective. The Confederate positions held, but the Union was able continue to put pressure on Richmond.

One of the trenches dug and used by the soldiers in the Cold Harbor battle. It has been filled by vegetation over the years.

At Cold Harbor and most of the battles in the campaign the Confederate troops were intrenched in elaborate breastworks. Unlike earlier in the war when battles were fought out in the open, these battles were from trench line to trench line. The casualties were very high during the whole month and a half campaign. At the Cold Harbor battlefield park, I walked a mile long trail in the rain. It crossed a field and proceeded up and down across streams and trenches now filled with trees. The park area is at the center of the seven miles of battle lines established during the battle. Similar trenches existed for the troops up and down the long line of battle.

It was raining while I was at the battlefield. I was more than a little damp by the time I completed the walking loop around the battlefield, but it was worth it. Learning about the trench warfare in the Civil War was interesting. I thought the concept of dug in opposing lines of troops didn’t materialize until World War I.

Flo

Thursday August 2nd 2018

I let the weather control my activities again today. When you combine a confusing, but dire sounding weather forecast with a few early morning clouds you can easily convince yourself that the day is best suited for hibernation. This evening I’m kicking myself for my lack of motivation. It was not that bad a day. The sun was out for most of the morning raising the temperature into the mid eighties with lots of humidity. Shortly afternoon a thunderstorm moved through the area. It has rained lightly ever since. Tomorrow is forecast to follow the same pattern. Hopefully I’ll handle it better.

The clouds were both pretty and threatening.

The big event for the day was a visit to the Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World store on the other side of the Interstate. It was a sight seeing trip not a shopping trip. They decorate the stores with the outdoor life of the area. Everyone I’ve been in has had large aquariums with native fish and many stuffed animals representative of the region. This Bass Pro Shop was a little smaller than some of the others I’ve been in. It only had one aquarium with some bass and one very big catfish. Most of the decor was made up of stuffed animals including a large bear posed on its hind legs. It was a big attraction with the kids in the store.

Being only one hundred miles from the Atlantic Ocean and even less from the Chesapeake Bay this Bass Pro shop had a mixed focus. The boats and fishing gear for sale were split between fresh and salt water. The Bass Pro Shops I went to in the Midwest were focused on lake and river fishing. Along those lines they were pushing fancy bass fishing boats. Here the boats were more diverse including pontoon boats. To me, the boats for sale are just another part of the shops decorations. I’m not in the market.