Williamsburg Part 1

We arrived in Williamsburg on Friday for our 7 night $250 vacation. On Saturday morning we sat through the 2 hour time share sales pitch to get an $80 voucher for dinner at Opus 9 and 2 movie tickets. We could have just gotten a $75 gift card for anywhere, but decided this would be a good opportunity to go to the type of restaurant we normally can't afford, and considered the movie tickets as sort of a bonus.

Good choice! The steaks were great! In fact, everything about the place is superb, including the service. Of course, the prices reflect it. So for just two of us, with an appetizer, two steak dinners and no desert, we still paid out $40 besides the $80 voucher and a 10% off coupon. I was generous with the tip, even for me, but still!

We spent two hours after we got back to the resort trying to find a church to go to on the internet, but had no luck. Should have researched this sooner.

Sunday afternoon turned out to be so beautiful and so warm for this time of year that we drove over to Norfolk where the nearest beach is, and just walked up and down the beach. It wasn't a clean beach, and I've never cared much for the Atlantic coast anyway. But we ignored that part and just enjoyed the warmth. We'll be back in Ohio soon enough.

Monday was Jamestown day. There are two parts to a Jamestown visit, which require separate admission prices. First, you go to Jamestown Settlement, which is about a mile from the actual site of the original Jamestown. There is a rather large museum there which goes into a lot of detail about the period from 1607-1700. In fact, there is a separate section for each decade. It's a typical musuem, with artifacts, models, re-creations, and movies about various aspects of the colony. Outside the museum, there are authentic re-creations of the original fort and of the Powhatan village, as well as of some of the ships that brought settlers over. All re-creations are based on solid evidence from the time as to what different things looked like, and in most cases where they couldn't be sure, they just don't include it.

The second part of a Jamestown visit is to drive about a mile to the national park that includes the site of the original Jamestown. There's a smaller Welcome Center there, and you walk from there down to the archaelogical dig site where the original fort stood. Up until 1994, it was thought that the site of the original fort had eroded into the James River, but that year archaeologists discovered otherwise. It turns out that only the site of one corner of the triangular fort was underwater. Ever since then they've been digging it up a litle at a time, removing whatever artifacts they find, then back fill it and then mark the places where original walls stood. As time goes on, they get more and more of a feel for the sizes and locations of everything in the fort.

All in all, I think the visits were well worth the price.

Almost forgot. Included with the visit to the Jamestown site is a short drive to a glass blowing shop where you can watch them make glass things. You can also buy them if your name is Rockefeller. The modern plant is about 100 feet from where the original plant stood in the 1600s. It's considered to be the first industrial enterprise in America.