Today was lovely, if not quite what I expected. Janelle had a half-day of training, so she decided to come with me to Williamsburg to see the sights. We opted to simply meander around, avoiding the $37.50 admission fee to get a closer look at the craftsmen and women and shops. Walking down the street was amazing. The houses had been renovated, of course, but were very well kept to maintain the revolutionary period looks. There were people in period dress milling around, doing their day-to-day chores. We passed by several inns & taverns, a saddlery (which we couldn't enter since we didn't have passes), and lots of shoppes selling handmade crafts, soaps, lotions, flowers, you name it. Some draught horses were pulling a carriage up and down the lane, and we passed by the Governor's Mansion, and one other striking bit of architecture, which name escapes me. After we walked down the main street, we came up another and walked around downtown Williamsburg's shops. I bought some bottles of sparkling cider, but otherwise made it out unburdened with souvenirs. This was a bit of a frugal vacation for me, aside from the gas to get here and there, I managed to succeed in being good, for once!

Well, today was a bit of a disaster. I had planned to visit the Jamestown Settlement, which is a living history museum, something like Connor Prairie in Indiana. I had also planned to visit the actual Jamestown site, where an ongoing archeological dig is located, unearthing what bits of the revered past remain. My friend Janelle, who is in Navy Training (coincidentally, also in Williamsburg!), had the day off, so she opted to go with me. Bring on the clowns.

Her boyfriend, who lives in VA but is out on deployment, had left his Jeep for her to use, but she wasn't allowed to drive it. So, she called his parents, and asked them to come get it and curb the temptation to break the rules. They said they would come get it.. either Sunday morning or afternoon. Well, that cut it down a bit. By 10 o'clock, we were on the road to Jamestown, which isn't all that far from Williamsburg. We made it to the Settlement ("museum", remember?), got past the line and into the museum, and immediately turned around to go back outside to the cafe, so Janelle could eat. Roughly 45 minutes later, we re-entered the "museum", and watched the introductory movie. During the movie, her phone rang.. Yep, you guessed it, her boyfriend's parents. They were almost to Janelle's hotel. So, we turned around again and left to head back to Williamsburg, by this time it's a little after 1 o'clock.

We get to her hotel, and his parents want to take her out for coffee. Okay, fine. They did drive 4 hours to come and get his Jeep. I opted to wait in the lobby of her hotel and try to do some homework while they had their chat, which failed dismally, because I couldn't log onto my class website. Very annoying, that. Around 2:30 Janelle gets back, and we head out to Jamestown again. We have just enough time to swing through the Native American Village, tour the big boat, and take a pass through the fort when it was time for the "museum" to close. We never did make it to the actual settlement. A bit of a disappointment, but in all honesty, there probably wouldn't have been much there for me to see.. it just would have been neat to go there.

To be completely fair, there was nothing to stop me going any of the other days, I just never made it back there. What time we did get to explore the living history museum was fun, I do wish we'd had some more time to see the actual exhibits, and the indoor stuff as well. Ah well, that's life sometimes. :)

When I first decided to come to Williamsburg, I started reading about the Civil War. I bought a couple good books on the subject, and made a decent inroads into the first one. Then I found out that Williamsburg is far better known for its importance in the Revolutionary War! Well, I was mildly annoyed, but I didn't read up on the Revolutionary War like I wanted to. I just decided to go with it, and learn what I could while I was here. I'm not certain what made me decide to visit the Yorktown Battlefield on my first day here.. but I'm glad I did. I feel like I learned a bit, though of course, if I'd read up, it would have made a lot
more sense, I'm sure. Nonetheless, it was very.. inspiring to be at the site of such an important battle. A quick history, as I understood it: Cornwallis (the British officer.. can't remember his exact title, which would no doubt throw His Grace into an apoplectic fit) was stationed in Charleston, but decided to go against orders and take this little place called Yorktown, because of it's strategic placement (deepwater harbor, for one thing). The French officer la Fayette (Yes, remember, the French were our allies in the Revolutionary War!) finds
him here, and hastens to tell Gen. Washington of the fact. Washington is tied up in New York in a bit of a standoff with another British Officer (Insert name here, I've forgotten already). Washington manages a fantastic bit of fakery, and sends his entire army to march the 450 miles from New York to Yorktown to take on Cornwallis, while a regiment or two of soldiers too old or wounded march around from place to place to make it look like his camp is still inhabited!
Long story shorter.. Cornwallis gets a bit nervous and pulls his defenses in from the outer trenches of the town, freeing them up for our army to take them over in one night of sheer guts and ingenuity. Cornwallis' escape is cut off by a freak storm that night taking out most of his fleet of boats that were supposed to take him & his army across the river and into safety, so he is forced to surrender. Cornwallis was apparently a very proud man, an aristocrat, no less. He
was very disgruntled at being outsmarted by a bunch of rednecks and Frenchies.. especially a VERY young la Fayette, who had just turned 21. Cornwallis refused to surrender without the full honors of war, meaning the ability to fly your flag as you leave, and being given a song to play, among others. Those were apparently the two most important. Those honors were
denied, on the basis that HE had refused similar honors to (Insert title here) Lincoln, and had sentenced all Lincoln's surrendered soldiers to labor on British ships, where most of them died a horrible death of overwork, disease, or starvation, or any combination of the 3. So proud Cornwallis gave his sword to his assistant O'hara to surrender, and claimed to be ill. When it was O'hara's turn to approach the leaders, he attempted to surrender the sword to French officer Roshambeau. (Remember, the British didn't see our army as soldiers, persay. We didn't have the fancy uniforms, etc.. all we were, were Rebels. Not worthy of note.) Roshambeau, on the other hand, interrupted his surrender, and deferred him to Gen. Washington. Reluctantly, O'hara sidestepped to Washington, and began again his surrender speech. Washington interrupted as well, asking "Where is Cornwallis?" O'hara explained his superior's unfortunate
illness, and Washington declared he couldn't be bothered to accept a sword in surrender from an assistant, deferring him again to (Insert title here) Lincoln. So the man who surrendered to Cornwallis and was denied his honors of war, was the one who accepted Cornwallis' sword in surrender. I have to say, that was my favorite bit. It made me feel very proud of Washington, that he had a good sense of justice and honor.
Anyway, after seeing and hearing all this, I set out to explore the battlefield on my own. The trenches were all still there, most of them having been reinforced again in the Civil War. The field was grassy and warm, with the sun beating down, but in my mind it was muddy and drizzling; the trenches and mounded earth fresh and surrounded by weary and worn American soldiers who were fighting, bleeding and dying in them. Along the route I came upon a walled-in garden, with a gate that asked me to enter with respect and silence. Upon entry, I immediately noticed an almost sickly-sweet smell. In my head, I attribute it to a scent of decay, even though I know that after 150 years there would be no smell, or indeed much remains at all. For I found myself in a Civil War Cemetary, wandering among the headstones, and was sad to see how
many of the stones were marked as Unknown American Soldiers, often 2 to 4 to a grave. I understand the expediency and necessity of this, but even with so many to a grave, the headstones were numbered to over 1200. And this only one battle site! Some of the named graves even had flowers freshly placed, likely from distant descendants. There were woody shrubs and trees growing throughout the graveyard, and some of them had started overtaking some of the graves: Even in those instances, the groundskeepers wouldn't let the
graves be completely forgotten. In cases where the shrub had overgrown the headstone, a little inlet was cut into the shrubbery, to allow the headstone to be viewed in its own little shady grotto. All in all, it was a good day to be an American (tourist). It was fairly interesting to learn that the French King who sent us all that help during the Revolutionary War, Louis XVI, was later beheaded, along with his wife, for bankrupting the French government by sending us the much needed reinforcements to defeat the British.
Later in this trip, I'll visit Colonial Williamsburg, and Jamestown. I'm also considering taking a side-trip to Washington, DC.. though since it's only me, I'll probably wind up deferring that for another trip. Seeing the places where our ancestors fought so hard to make us a country based on equality and freedom.. it almost seems antithetical to visit the place where they are fighting so hard to bring it all crashing down around our ears.

I'm not sure I could bear it.