Oct 30 - Jamestown

Jamestown is a historically accurate reproduction of the ships the British came over on, the fort they built, and the native American compound as it would have looked when the British arrived.

Oct 29-Yorktown

Three groups of pictures--the first five are from a reproduction of a middle-class tobacco farm of the day, circa 1781. The next five are to show how it was to be a soldier in Washington's army near the end of the Revolutionary war--notice the kitchen, laundry, and musket practice. The last group is from Yorktown, which was fired upon in the final days of the war. The cannonball was embedded in the large brick house you see there.

Oct 28 - Williamsburg

Pictures of the Governor's Mansion (at the bottom) along with the living history characters portraying the kitchen cook and blacksmith at the mansion. The pictures at the top are of the capitol building that housed the first parliament on American soil. The round structure at the left is for the British royalty, and the round side on the right is for the Commoners (Burgesses). It was the first time that I've begun to understand the British Parliamentary structure--pretty interesting to hear all about that. Other pictures are random shots around the village of Williamsburg.

Oct 26-27 Gettysburg

Sunday was our trip to Gettysburg--a memorial to a Civil War battle that covered 24 square miles. After a visit to the memorial center, a two-hour tour of the wonderful museum, along with a half-hour film, we bought the self-guided auto tour CD and drove the 24-mile route. Because it is such a vast area, it was really difficult to find meaningful pictures--guess you had to be there to have it make any sense. It was a tour of some beautiful, rolling countryside and hundreds of statues and memorials, but looking at the pictures today, I'm not even sure what they represent--other than it was a three-day battle that took the lives of over 50,000 people. Unbelievable.

Monday, we took off for Virginia, and thankfully, we made it. We had been leery of the traffic around the Washington, DC area, and it was just as bad as we had dreaded. White knuckles all the way with big rigs surrounding us on all sides and people who were obviously late for work whizzing in and out of the whole mess. What a relief to finally pull into the RV park in Williamsburg. We plan to stay here three or four days so we can see the sights here in Williamsburg and in Jamestown and Yorktown. It's pouring rain tonight, but we're expecting clearing weather tomorrow. We have dog grooming appointments for Jessie and Cody tomorrow--boy what a mess they are--lots of tangles and knots in their hair. Worse than mine was before I was able to find a groomer for myself :-0

Biggest news of the day--we paid only $2.29 for gas here in VA. Yippee!!!

Oct 25--Halloween??!!?

One thing we've noticed since we got to the mid-West is that Halloween and fall decorations are MUCH bigger than they are at home. You see pumpkins, straw bales, and cornstalks set up on every porch and driveway, and lots of imaginative Halloween decorations on the homes you pass by.

We were really surprised that the campground where we chose to stop over this weekend had only one parking place left, and that was because someone had canceled their reservation at the last minute. It's a large campground on a river--really pretty--and we had figured everyone would be done with camping by this time of the year. So we thought there wouldn't be a problem finding a place. The managers explained to us that this is the 5th Halloween weekend they're going to have during this season. They celebrate Halloween for 6 weekends in a row here! They told us that every campground in this area is doing the same thing, and we were really lucky to find a place at all.

In this particular campground, every Halloween celebration weekend, they have a huge parade, trick-or-treating, a hay ride, a haunted house, a DJ playing music over loud speakers throughout the campground, and everyone who comes for the weekend plans all year long how to deck out their motorhome or camper with lights, music, and other Halloween decorations. The people in the spot across the road from us are here for their 6th year in a row, and they wouldn't dream of missing it. They take a day off from work and drive two hours to get here for the weekend.

Parents and kids alike dress up about 5 pm on Saturday night and get into the parade for trick-or-treating, followed by a trip through the haunted house and parties at every camping spot in the park. (At home, we haven't had a trick-or-treater at our house for over 20 years!!!) Luckily, we had some warning and were able to get some candy stocked up for the big celebration. Here are some pictures of the cute kids and decorations we were able to see this afternoon/evening. It's about 9 pm now, and the DJ is still playing, but I'm headed for bed--too much excitement for me in one day!