Williamsburg

Last Saturday was day two of our adventure with Nana and the day we went to Williamsburg.  While I have pretty much only glowing reviews of Jamestown, we had a mixed experience at Williamsburg.  Some of it was fun, but admission cost 3x that of Jamestown and it was definitely not 3x as fun.  While I would be happy to go to Jamestown again soonish (like in a year or so), I think we'll wait a bit on Williamsburg.  There was a lot of history to learn and wonderful people working there who were very talkative and knowledgeable, but far fewer hands-on activities.  I thought that by going on a Saturday that everything would be open and going on, but it turns out the kid oriented hands-on activities run every day of the week except Saturdays and Tuesdays.  Boo.

It was still fun though and at the end of the day, we left happy (and hot and sweaty, but happy).

We started the morning with the storming of the governor's palace.  Mom and I envisioned torches and banging and yelling.  Turns out there was walking and arguing and diffusion of tensions.  A little disappointing, yes.  However, the events that precipitated the storming (the governor moving all the gun powder out of town in the middle of the night) was an example of how the fears of the British (would there be more uprisings after Boston?) fueled the fears of the colonists (are the British trampling our rights?) which fueled the fears of the British (are the people of Williamsburg really going to attack me and my family in the governor's palace?) and so on and so forth.

After we "stormed" the palace, we got in line to take a tour of the palace.  We were told by our guide (very much in character) that we were only going to get a tour because the governor's family had fled the night before and there was no knowing when they would return.  Inside we got to check out all the weapons.  Guns and swords on the walls.  Very impressive, but apparently none of the servants were trained to use them and the gun powder was kept on the other side of town so they were more for show.

There were many interesting rooms and things to see, so of course I am posting a picture of the predecessor of the modern toilet.

After a tour of the palace, Mom and I headed over to the kitchens to take a look at what was for dinner.  It didn't look too bad except for the fact that it was made a couple of days ago.  We were warned not to partake and if that warning wasn't enough, the number of flies enjoying the spread would have convinced us to move on.

We also visited the gardens where the boys discovered that wooden buckets are heavy even when empty.

On my Mom's side of the family, we are descendants of loyalists.  Here are Michael and Ben showing their pride.

I took the boys over to the weaver's where they all immediately got bored.  I thought it was interesting to see how they turned wool into thread and dyed it, but apparently the boys could care less.

The church where there are still services held today.  In that respect, Williamsburg leads a strange double life.  While many of the buildings are part of Colonial Williamsburg's historical park, some of the homes on the same street and in between exhibit stops are private homes where people still live today.  I don't envy them their location that regard.

Next stop, shoemaker.  Men's shoes only.  Ben was fascinated by this process for a much longer period of time than the rest of us could handle the non-air conditioned enclosed space.

Michael was just confused about the shoe molds.

At this point we took a break and just hung out on the green.  Although the day was not extremely hot by Virginia summer standards, it was still hot and muggy.  Our outdoor activities this time of year tend to be those in the shade or water, so none of us were used to standing and walking around in the sun for that long.  This turned out to be a great choice though, as a little while longer we were in a perfect position to watch the fife and drum bands come marching by.

 Regardless, we were running out of steam.  Taking a look at the map, we decided that the military encampment and armory were our best bets to keep the boys interested, but that we should just do those two and head on out.  Luckily, we found the stocks on our way to the encampment and locked up everyone who had been naughty.  Sadly, I forgot to pack rotten vegetables to throw at them.

We also saw the leader of all of the fife and drum corps on our way to the encampment and he was kind enough to let us take a picture with him.

The military encampment turned out to be a great choice.  There were four stations and two of those involved weapons - for the win!  We started out learning about soldiers' rations.  Sounds like they got plenty to eat while at camp, but the meat this soldier showed us was enough to make me reconsider vegetarianism (but not for long really, this baby LOVES meat).

Station two involved yet another musket demonstration.  Jason sacrificed his hearing to get this shot.

Station three involved being trained by a sergeant who continually called this ragtag group "Awkward Company".  He had them form two (somewhat) straight lines and then had all the shorter people come in the front.  This cut down on the chances of them being shot by someone behind them, but also significantly increased their chances of being shot by someone opposite of them.  Doesn't pay to be short, apparently.

This sergeant relished his roll and did a great job of yelling and belittling his troops (nothing horribly rude and never the littlest ones).

But Ben did not really appreciate being yelled at and was far too young to catch on to how funny it really was, so we extracted him and he was very content to watch the proceedings safely out of the line of sight of the sergeant.

Sadly, I put the camera away before he trained the "soldiers" on how to bayonet each other (from a safe distance), but I did get them ready to shoot the enemy.

The last station was two teenagers teaching us about the fife and drum and how they were used for communication in and out of battle.  Then we checked out the sleeping arrangements for the troops.  This tent housed six men.  It would appear that it also might not pay to be very tall either.

Lastly, we headed over to the armory where, much to the disappointment of three boys, there were no weapons.  It was all good though.  One air conditioned bus ride back to the visitor's center later and we were at the car and headed home.  We really had a fantastic weekend and hopefully the boys have some great memories.