Washington DC - Monuments, Memorials

I believe there are more monuments and memorials in the city of Washington DC than in any other city in the nation. We tried to visit as many as we could. In fact, while Nancy was visiting, we not only visited the memorials in the daytime, but we took a grayline tour that showed us Washington by night with all the lighted memorials and monuments. One of the most recognized memorials is that of Iwo Jima which depicts the moment when the Marines raised the flag over Mount Suribachi during World War II.

The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial is one very dear to our hearts as our son's partner was killed in the line of duty and we wanted to visit the memorial and make a shading of his name which is engraved on one of the "Pathways of Remembrance". The memorial was dedicated in 1991 by President George W. Bush. It honors all of America's federal, state and local law enforcers. Inscribed on the Memorial's blue-gray marble walls are the names of more than 17,500 officers who have been killed in the line of duty, dating back to the first known death in 1792. The Memorial sits on three acres of federal park land called Judiciary Square. Bordering the Memorial's beautifully landscaped park are two tree-lined "pathways of remembrance," where the names of the fallen officers are engraved There is a reflecting pool going down the center. Each of the pathways entrances are adorned with a powerful statuary grouping of an adult lion protecting its cubs. These statues symbolize the protective role of our law officers and convey the strength, courage, and valor that are the hallmarks of those who serve in law enforcement. An inscription on the Memorial Wall explains the uplifting spirit that is felt by every visitor: "In valor, there is hope".

One of the memorials we visited at night was the FDR memorial. George decided to place himself at the end of the bronze statues waiting in the food line. (Sounds like the right place for him to be since he likes food so well.)

The World War II memorial was also one that was very touching and close to our hearts. It honors the 16 million who served in uniform, of whom over 400,000 gave their lives. It also honors the many millions who supported the war effort on the home front and celebrates the American spirit, national unity, and victory. It recognizes the price paid by families. The Memorial was dedicated on May 29, 2004, funded mostly by private donations. Placing the memorial between the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial reflects the importance of World War II in preserving and internationalizing democratic ideal won under George Washington and defended under Abraham Lincoln. The World War II Memorial reminds future generations that we must sometimes sacrifice for causes greater than ourselves.

The Korean War Memorial is a triangle of 19 stainless steel statues which depicts a squad on patrol and evokes the experience of American ground troops in Korea. On the south side is a polished black granite wall. It's polished surface mirrors the statues, intermingling the reflected images with the faces etched into the granite. At night when the soldiers are lit up, you see the reflection very vividly and instead of 19 soldiers, you see a total of 38 which represents the 38th parallel which was the new boundary estabished by the negotiated settlement in 1953. There are four words on the wall which we all need to remember "Freedom is Not Free!"

Next to the Korean War Memorial is the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial. In 1980, Congress authorized a site in Constitution Gardens near the Lincoln Memorial for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The walls are polished black granite and point to the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. The 58,245 names are inscribed in chonological order of the date of casualty. The names begin at the vertex of the walls below the date of the first casualty and continue to the end of the east wall. They resume at the tip of the west wall, ending at the vertex above the date of the last death. The walls are 246 feet long with the height of the wall at the vertex being 10 feet. Family members and friends leave mementos and tokens of remembrance at the memorial such as the boots shown below. Nancy was able to locate the name of a POW that she knew.

There were certainly more memorials such as the Thomas Jefferson which was influenced by circular colonaded buildings in Rome. President Franklin Roosevelt dedicated the memorial on April 13, 1943 on the 200th anniversary of Jefferson's birth. I'm told the memorial is especially beautiful in the spring when the Japanese cherry trees are blooming. There's also the Washington Monument, mentioned in another blog as well as the Lincoln Memorial. the building is constructed primarily of Colorado Yule marble and Indiana limestone. The 36 coloumns around the memorial represent the states in the Union at the time of Lincoln's death. The sitting statue of Lincoln inside in 19 feet tall and 19 feet wide and made from 28 marble blocks. Murals depicting principles evident in Lincoln's life are on the north and south walls above inscriptions of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and his Second Inaugural Address. No matter how often we went to visit these memorials and monuments, we always saw something new and felt as if we were personally sharing every moment of our present, with those of the past.

There is still more to come on Washington DC. Our two weeks there only brushed the tip of the iceberg. So much to see and do that it literally wears you out. But we are so thankful that we've had the opportunity to see and experience all these wonderful sites. Hope you are enjoying the trip as well.

Washington DC - Arlington/U.S. Capitol

One of the things we did while Nancy was here was to take the train to Arlington and then take the tram tour around the cemetery. You cannot drive in there so you either take the tour or walk and since it was in the 90's, we decided the tour sounded like the best bet.

Arlington is the best known of more than one hundred national cemeteries in the United States. It has over 290,000 servicemen and their family members from every war that has involved the nation. Many famous veterans are buried here such as Audie Murphy, John J. Pershing and George C. Marshall, just to name a few.

In 1864, Mrs. Lee was unable to comply with a wartime practice requiring property owners in areas occupied by U.S. troops to personally pay their taxes. The Federal Government confiscated Arlington House and its surrounding property, setting aside 200 acres as Arlington National Cemetery. By war's end, 16,000 graves filled the spaces close to the house. Heir to the property, Custis Lee sued the government for disputing his claim to ownership. After the Supreme Court ruled in Lee's favor, Congress paid him $150,000 for title to the land. Lee's home still stands as a sentinel, overlooking the cemetery.
Just east of the amphitheater, you can attend the timeless rituals of honor at the Tomb of the Unknowns. A World War I soldier was entombed here in 1921. Also entombed is a serviceman from World War II and Korea. Here a sentinel of the Third U.S. Infantry maintains the vigil around the clock. The sentinel paces 21 steps down the mat before the tomb, pauses 21 seconds, and returns. The changing of the guard takes place every half hour in the summer. This is one of the most moving memories I will ever have. Every move of the sentinels was extremely precise, even in the 90 degree weather.

Of course, no visit is complete without a visit to the Eternal Flame at the Kenndy gravesites. Here are buried John F. Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy Onasis, their son Patrick and a baby girl who died during birth.Down the path and around the corner is a small white cross that marks the grave of Robert F. Kennedy, the President's brother, Attorney General, and Senator.
Another neat place we toured while Nancy was with us was the U.S. Capitol Building. Shirley had gotten some tickets from their representative for a tour for all of us so we headed back downtown to learn a little about the capitol. The tour lasted over three hours. We saw the old Supreme Court Chamber which was used from 1810-1860. Here the court heard landmark cases that established its authority to interpret the Constitution. Note the large clock in the picture. It was ordered by Chief Justice Taney in 1837 and at that time he had the clock set five minutes fast so there could be no excuse for a justice's tardiness, a practice which is still followed today.
The rotunda where the President's lie in state, was magnificent. It is 96 feet in diameter and 180 feet in height and connects the House and Senate. The statues in the rotunda are primarily of presidents. During the War of 1812, the British burned down the capitol which was rebuilt in later with a copper dome and extended wings.We also toured the room where the President gives his "State of the Union" address. It appeared much smaller than it does on TV, but it was still an awe-inspiring experience to sit in the mezzanine and picture the President there in front of you.

There's still more to come with additional visits to museums, memorials, and the zoo. So come back to visit whenever you can and learn more about our wonderful capitol visit.

Washington DC - 4th of July

We were so happy to have Nancy arrive on Tuesday night to spend a few days with us. The Park we are staying at is actually located in Maryland but somehow they have made provisions with the Metro bus line to have us tourists picked up at regular intervals during the day and dropped off at the train station. This was great news for us since we didn't really want to face driving that big truck in downtown Washington DC. Overall, we were very impressed with the transit system in this city. The trains are fast, clean and on-time. Some of the tracks are above ground and some are below ground, but it is an easy way to get around the city and we used it for the entire 14 days we were here.
We decided that since we were in Washington DC over the 4th of July, that we all needed to go down to the National Mall for the fireworks. We headed out early that morning as Nancy only had four days with us and we wanted to try to see as much as possible.

George took a picture of Nancy and me as soon as we hit downtown. From there we wandered over to a couple of the Smithsonian Museums. They were expecting between 300,000 and 500,000 people for the fireworks so it was extremely crowded, but we got to see quite a bit at the Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian Castle, and the Museum of Air & Space. There will be more about these museums in a later blog.
Of course, we can't talk about the 4th of July without mentioning the White House, so I wanted to include it in this blog, also.

About 7:00 p.m. our feet were screaming and we decided to stake out our spot on the lawn of the National Mall. We had brought a blanket and picked a spot about half way between the capitol building and the Washington Monument, which was where the fireworks would be set off.

While waiting for dark, Nancy disappeared and returned with each of us a Stawberry Shortcake dessert, which we thoroughly enjoyed while waiting for the fireworks. Once they started, we were dazzled for about 25 minutes as they shot beautiful fireworks all around the Washington Monument. Once it was over, we headed for the metro train as fast as our little feet would carry us, thinking that it would take hours for 300,000 + people to get out of downtown! To our surprise, we got right on the train, and once we found the right bus depot, we were home in about 1 1/2 hours. Seems out of the four of us who were at the orientation, none of us heard them say that special busses would be waiting at a different terminal than we normally come in to, but we all finally found the right place, got on the bus, and made it back to the park.

Unfortunately, the pictures didn't do the fireworks justice, but I did add one just to give you a little flavor. Wish you could have been enjoying these in person with us! Stay tuned for more adventures and misadventures in Washington DC.

Washington DC - Mount Vernon

We finally made it to Washington DC. This is going to be a really busy next two weeks as we have lots that we want to see and we are expecting a visit from our friend, Nancy. I have had a very hard time trying to upload the pictures to the Blog, even though we supposedly have WiFi here at the Cherry Hill RV Park. There are over 300 sites here and the park is almost full so I guess with everyone trying to use the WiFi, it is sporadic at best, so I will post as soon as I can get the pictures uploaded.

We decided on our first day here, to take an all-day Grayline bus tour of the city which included Washington Embassy Row, Arlington National Cemetery, Mount Vernon , Georgetown, and the Lincoln, Vietnam, Korean, and Iwo Jima Monuments. During the first week here, we have gone back to many of these points numerous times, so each of them will have their own posts, but the first one is going to encompass our visit to Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington, located about 16 miles outside Washington DC.

Mount Vernon was the home of George and Martha Washington from the time of their marriage in 1759 to the time of his death in 1799. Despite long absences for military and public service, Washington diligently expanded his plantation from 2,000 to 8,000 acres and the mansion from six rooms to twenty-one. Washington's home has what is called a "Bowling Green" in the foreground of the mansion which reflects Washington's admiration for formal English landscapes and also opened up a broader vista to the west. The grass was regularly cut with scythes and smoothed with a roller to keep the surface firm and even. The outside of the mansion is wood, made to look like stone. Long pine boards are grooved and beveled to create the appearance of masonry. The boards were then varnished and painted and fine sand was thrown on the wet paint. This process was called rustication and George Washington used this technique when he expanded the mansion in 1757-59.

We learned many new things about George Washington while we were visiting Mount Vernon. First of all, he was very aware of the importance of controlling sanitation. His "necessary" (an outdoor privy) encouraged the centralized collection of waste. Human waste was deposited in large wooden drawers below the seats. The drawers were removed and the waste was then recycled as a fertilizer in the gardens. (Probably more than you wanted to know on that subject!)

Secondly, he was a conservationist. A working plantation made great demands on the surrounding forests - wood was continuously in demand for fires used in cooking, heating and cleaning and lumber was also required to construct buildings, fences, barrels, tools, and countless other 18th century necessities. Still Washington demanded that fallen timber be used as much as possible and he worked diligently to protect habitats for a large deer population as well as other endangered animals.

While we remember him as a great military and political leader, he was first and foremost a visionary farmer. By the mid 1760's, Washington had switched his main cash crop from tobacco to wheat. He knew that wheat did not deplete the soil as quickly as tobacco and because the British did not regulate the sale of wheat as closely as tobacco, he had more markets to sell wheat in. He introduced a seven year crop rotation plan and experimented with soil enhancers to increase the productivity of his fields. He experimented with over 60 crops and selected the best six- wheat, corn, potatoes, buckwheat, oats, and grasses. He also built a 16 sided treading barn. Long frustrated by the inefficiency of threshing grain outside, Washington designed this circular barn so that wheat could be tread indoors by horses and mules walking in a circular path. From the treading floor on the second level, the loose grain fell between slatted floorboards to the level below, where it was gathered, cleaned, and sent to the gristmill to be ground into flour. Washington's design was the only one of its kind.
George and Martha had as many guests as 65 to 70 a week stopping by their plantation. Some spent the night and some simply stopped by to discuss the news of the world with Washington. He was said to have received three newspapers and each time someone stopped by, he would ask them to read aloud a particular story out of the paper and give Washington his viewpoint on the story. In this way, he not only got his newspapers read to him, but he also learned the feelings of the guests on particular subjects. George never had any children of his own, but raised Martha's two young children from a previous marriage - John Parke Custis and Martha Parke Custis. In 1781 when John Parke Custis died, George and Martha raised the two young grandchildren as their own.

George and Martha Washington, along with twenty other family members were originally interred in the old vault at Mount Vernon; however in accordance with his will, a new tomb was erected . The Washingtons were moved to the new tomb in 1831.
The Mount Vernon tour included a walk thru the house, set up just as it would have been during Washington's tenure there and more than a dozen outbuildings which functioned as a kitchen, slave quarters, smokehouse, wash house, etc. It also includes 25 galleries and theaters at the Donald W. Reynolds Museum and Education Center which includes more than 500 orginal artifacts that represent Washington's remarkable life. George especially enjoyed the long back porch that looked out to the Potomac River.We saw many other things on the tour and the next blog will be that of Arlington Cemetery where we saw the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and the Kennedy gravesites. Hope you know a little bit more about our first President, George Washington now and that you'll join us on the rest of the Washington tour. Til then, stay happy!

The British Are Coming!!!!!

We're headed into Colonial Williamsburg to see those things we missed on our first day's visit and also to be a part of the excitement of having the British march into town to seize the colony. There was a long procession of British Commanders on their horses, British Infantry and the Scottish mercenaries marching into Williamsburg. Much yelling was being done by both sides and the Britsh had no qualms in arresting anyone who did not see eye to eye with them or who was not willing to pledge their allegiance to the King!



General Cornwallis rode up to the capitol building and ordered that the American flag be removed and the Britsh flag fly over the capitol. Once this was accomplished, the British commenced occupation of the town.

After the seige had taken place, we decided to walk down to the Governor's Palace and take the tour thru that building. I've placed a picture of the palace on the original Williamsburg blog so I won't repeat it on this one. The Governor's Palace was the residence of seven royal governors and the first two elected governors of Virginia, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson. We are viewing the inside and outside as if Lord Dunmore, the last British governor of the Virginia colony lived there. He liked very lavish things and the Ballroom had a specially built heating stove while the dining hall off the ballroom was always furnished with gold plates, goblets and silverware. The dining when there is a Ball, is interesting in that it is made up entirely of sweets and drinks. Once the guests have eaten and drank, they return to the ballroom for more dancing. Most of the Balls did not end until 7:00 or 8:00 a.m. the next day.

The grounds encompassed ten acres of formal English gardens which included mazes, ponds, and flowers of all types.
After visiting the Palace, we decided to drop by the George Wythe (pronounced "with") house. Mr. Wythe was a pofessor of law and teacher of Thomas Jefferson. Wythe was first among Virginia's signers of the Declaration of Independence. Washington used the house as his headquarters in 1781 before the siege of Yorktown. In addition to the house, the grounds contain four major outbuildings and a garden plan which reflects a plantation layout. Furnishings in the home are a bit lower standard than in the palace, no gold plates, but still very beautiful and reminescent of a well-to-do eighteenth century Virginia household.

Though we were running out of time, we wanted to stop by the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum and the Dewitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, both accessed through the underground of the old Public Hospital. The Old Public Hospital was opened in 1773 and was North America's first institution devoted solely to the care and treatment of the mentally ill. The Folk Art Museum is also the first museum in the United States devoted to American folk art. It includes selections from Mrs. Rockefeller's original collection, paintings, sculpture, furniture, and weather vanes, just to mention a few of the items. (By the way, in case I forgot to mention this somewhere in my posts on Williamsburg, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. was the person responsible for funding Colonial Williamsburg. ) The Dewitt museum is home to an extensive collection of American and British antiques, including furniture, metals, ceramics, glass, paintings, firearms, and clothing dating from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Both of these museums were just opened in February of this year. We could have spent an entire day here, but since we still had more to see in Colonial Williamsburg, we walked back the few blocks to the main part of town and stopped at the Bruton Parish Church.

Many prominent men of the Revolution attended Bruton Parish Church, including Thomas Jefferson, George Washington (Jan is standing in his pew box in the picture below), Richard Henry Lee, George Wythe, Patrick Henry and George Mason. An Episcopal church, Bruton has been in use since 1715 and still serves an active congregation. This original building still houses the old bell, made in the same year and by the same person as the "Liberty Bell". It still rings and is clear as can be. Imagine, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson heard this same bell ringing just as we did!You will notice that the sides of the pews are quite high. This was done so that the entire family could sit in the pew box in a circle and bring warm coals to sit on the floor to keep their feet warm during the winter months. They closed the doors on the pews to keep the drafts out.

By the time we walked back to the visitor's center, we felt like we had made a pretty good dent in Colonial Williamsburg. We saw most of the things we wanted, however we could have still spent at least one more day to see everything. They have a different schedule every day of things that are going on in the main part of the town, in addition to just going thru the buildings. Sometimes, they have Patrick Henry giving a speech, or a slave telling you about their lives, or George Washington delivering an address to the townspeople. You could definitely fill up a week with no problem. However, since we are headed to Washington DC, we figure we'll get to see even more interesting things and learn more about the history of this wonderful country of ours. We hope you'll continue to tag along with us for the Washington DC leg of our trip. Since McKenzie couldn't go on any of these excursions, we did want to mention her in the post by letting you know that she has her own store in Colonial Williamsburg.

Stay healthy and be kind to one another. We miss all of you and wish you could be here with us, but at least hope that you can experience some of the fun we are having thru this blog.
"Life is Good!!!!"

Norfolk and Virginia Beach

It is definitely too hot to try to go somewhere and spend the entire day outside. So, George had found a place he wanted to visit in Norfolk. George and Shirley are camped about 20 miles from us and decided to go along on the trip. We drove over to Rowena's which is a small shop that makes all kinds of scrumptuous pound cakes, jams, and sauces and has a wonderful little tea shop. Rowena's began in 1983 when friends and family urged Rowena Fullinwider to sell her jams and cakes which were already favorite gifts and charity bake sale items. Today, Rowena's is a million-dollar business that ships its foods nationwide and overseas. The tour begins in the retail store. All four of us went crazy, taste testing the different cakes and sauces. I had called yesterday to see if they would give us a tour of the facility. We had found them in the book George got for Christmas last year titled "Made in America". It has been very useful and we have found many companies that offer tours of their facility that we wouldn't have known about if it wasn't for the book.

George taste-testing the jams

Rowena has two extra large mixers which originally belonged to the sailing vessel, U.S.S. United States and you could make a meal licking one of their huge beaters. They are especially proud of the two enormous six-shelved rotating ovens that can cook 25 large cakes or 240 small loaf cakes in an hour. After the cakes are cooked, they are hand wrapped, labeled and put into the freezer. Rowena also bakes for certain restaurants and people by contract (Paula Deen is one of those who contract her to bake pound cakes for her restaurant).

We've got our hats on and are ready for the tour!

The tea room was very charming and serves teas, sandwiches, fruits, and of course Rowena's cakes and jams with her specialty being carrot jam. It was so good, that Shirley and I both bought a jar to take home. While we were there, Rowena came in and introduced herself and we had a nice talk with her and her husband, whom we called Mr. Rowena, but I believe his first name was Bill. As we left the shop, Daphne took a picture of all four of us in front with the mermaid and "Mr. Rowena".

After leaving Norfolk, we drove over to Virginia Beach. Once again, it is very crowded and there are very few spaces to park unless you want to pay $10 - $20. We walked down to the Atlantic Ocean, took a few pictures, picked up some sand for my shell collection from all the different beaches we have visited, and headed back home. The homes were definitely much nicer than any of the other coastal places we had visited, though. It was definitely too hot for us and we enjoyed stopping off at George and Shirley's motorhome and having a nice cold drink before we came home.

Tomorrow is going to be our last day of sightseeing in the Williamsburg area as we want to take Saturday to rest up a bit and get all those household chores done. Join us on our last day in Colonial Williamsburg and see what we find. We've been alerted that the Britsh are coming to take over the colony, so it should be exciting! Hugs to all of you!!!

Historical Triangle - Jamestown

Memorial Church at old Ft. in Jamestown

Today we are heading out to Jamestown, with our first stop being at historical Jamestown where three major themes of American History had their beginnings -English colonization, growth of representative government, and questions concerning African Americans, slavery and American Indians.

George & John Smith

This story began in December, 1606, when ships carrying 104 men and boys left London, a voyage that took five months, and anchored in the James River to establish the colony of Virginia, with Jamestown as its capital under a charter granted by James I to the Virginia Company of London. For the Virginia Company, this was a business venture to exploit Virginia's natural resources. Virginia at this time, encompassed an area that today stretches from Maine to North Carolina.

The colonists described Virginia an excellent place to live, rich in gold and copper, wood, sassafras, and pearls. All the things the Virginia Company hoped to market. The Powhatan Indians welcomed them and trade was immediately set up between thse colonists and the Powhatans. A triangle fort was built to protect them from Indian attack as well as possible attacks from the Spanish.

In 1608, Pocahontas, daughter of the chief of the Powhatans, made regular and frequent visits to Jamestown. Captain John Smith believed she saved his life several times during the colony's first years.

Statue of Pocahontas (the one on the left)

During the winter of 1609, the Powhatans became disenchanted with the colonists and felt they were infringing on too much of their land. They waged a war and the colonists were afraid to come outside the fort to hunt for food for fear of being murdered by the Indians. They began starving and at the time that Lord de la War arrived with supplies and new settlers in 1610, only 90 of the colonists have survived.

In 1613, Captain Argall kidnapped Pocahontas and brought her to Jamestown. While a hostage, she received lessons in Christianity, converted and was baptized. Her marriage to John Rolf in 1614 helped to establish peaceful relations once again with the Powhatans. In 1614, John Rolf began cultivating tobacco plants and became very successful. Pocahontas, Rolfe and their infant son, Thomas, visited England in 1616. The Virginia Company felt that this would show the English nobility how successful the colony had been in helping to spread Christianity to the Indians. Pocahontas died on March 21, 1617 and was buried in Gravesend, England.

In 1619, three very important things happened. Elected burgesses met in the church at Jamestown - the beginning of representative government in the western hemisphere. Secondly, Africans arrived and are traded to the colonists, and thirdly, 90 unmarried women arrive and though men outnumbered women by three to one, in time family life took root.

We took the walking tour of the historic town site which included Old Town and New Town. In the Old Town section was the remains of the fort, the 17th century church tower and Memorial Church. Currently, digging is still going on for artifacts and the sections of log walls stand above archaeological remains of the original palisades. The walls enclosed about one acre in a triangular shaped fortification. There is also an Archaearium where you can see artifacts that tell the story of James Fort. In New Town, brick replicas mark the excavated foundations of the expanded settlement.

Archaeology site at original fort

Having spent all morning here, we decided to travel about a mile down the road to the glass house where artisans demonstrate the craft of 17th century glassblowing. Glassblowing was one of Virginia's first industries, started in 1608 by German and Polish craftsmen. Unfortunately, it was never much of a success due to illness and accidents.

Since 2007 is the 400 year anniversary of the beginning of Jamestown, the glassblowers were making glass bottles to commemorate the event. Glass consists of 60% sand, 15% potash, 15% soda ash, and 10% lime. The natural color of most glass is green because most sand contains iron oxide or rust in it naturally. To change the color, a small amount of metal must be added, e.g. , manganese makes clear, carbon makes brown, tin makes white, cobalt makes blue, silver makes yellow and copper or gold makes red glass. Today the glassblowers use natural gas to melt the sand mixture at 2350 degrees in 7 hours. In 1608, hardwoods were used and it took about two weeks to achieve a hot enough heat to melt the sand mixture.

Our final leg of this journey was to visit Jamestown Settlement which is a living history museum offering a wide range of activities, demonstrations and tours. They had a wonderful 30 minute movie about the colony's first two decades. They also had a fantastic museum, which we didn't get a chance to go thru due to running out of time. Definitely a place to come back too sometime. In addition to this, there was a full scale recreation of the James Fort as they assumed it would have looked, complete with wattle-and-daub houses with thatched roofs. Wattle-and-daub is many thin sticks with mud heavily caked between them.

We saw a Powhatan Indian Village with reed huts and got a glimpse into the daily life of the Powhatans. Yes, we did learn something - how to tan a hide. First you stretch it out in the sun and tediously scrape all the fur off with a clam shell. Once that is done, you use the brains from the animal and mix it with bear grease and let the hide ferment to make it soft and pliable. Finally it is hung in the hut and allowed to cure from the smoke pit, which will then give it the wonderful tan color that we are used to seeing. (Wal-mart seems a lot easier.)

Finally, there were replicas of the three ships, Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery that brought the colonists to Jamestown.

By 4:00 p.m, we were definitely dragging and had more information than we ever thought we could retain so we headed for home. Hope you enjoyed our trip thru history. One final thought, though Jamestown never became the "great city" John Smith envisioned in 1608, this small colonial settlement did enable England to establish a permanent presence in North America and plant a culture that would shape a nation!

Watch for the next blog, we are off to Norfolk and Virginia Beach - George has found a place that bakes pound cakes and we are planning on taking a tour! Sounds pretty yummy!