After another late night swimming session, because y'all know that swimming is the most important thing you can do when you stay in a hotel-like location, we woke up bright and early to throw together a delectable breakfast.
Children don't move fast. Ever. And they especially do not move fast when you need to eat your delectable breakfast, clean the condo and check out, all before 10 am.
But, all hands were on deck and we got the vehicles packed and the keys turned in with only about 3 minutes to spare and I'm happy to say that there wasn't any yelling. That's something, y'all.
We breathed a sigh of relief and made the short drive to Jamestowne.
The tour was being conducted by a knowledgeable archaeologist. While we found this quite interesting, the Littles' attention quickly shifted to dirt, sticks, sunshine and sprints of exploration. My sister and I contentedly strolled the island with Blossom3, Blossom4 and my little Sprout of a nephew.
We meandered through the church that is standing there. It struck such a chord in my imagination as the setting for worshippers so many years ago.
We took shelter in the shade, purposefully outside of toddler-sighting distance of the shoreline, chatting with each other, enjoying each other's company and the giggles of our little ones. (The sticks in the above photo represent the walls of the original fort.)
Eventually, we strolled through the archaearium, which is, in essence, a museum loaded with archaeological artifacts.
I particularly fancied this mug. The pottery in Williamsburg and Jamestowne was superb!
We felt a wee bit "judged" in the archaearium, which I thought was sad. None of our children were being bad; they were just being kids. These are the types of places that we take our children to in order to ignite a love and interest in history. If we feel like they can't be (respectful) kids in those places, how can they truly learn history?! Nothing was actually said, but we felt the hairy eye ball a few times. However, we continued to keep them quietly in line and made our way through the archaearium a second time when the Dads and the Big Blossoms were finished with their tour.
We capped off Jamestowne with a picnic lunch by the shore, looking out over the James River. It was truly picturesque.
We recharged in the air conditioned van and decided to go for history, round two at the Yorktown battlefield. The Blossoms enjoyed the movie in the visitors' center and then we set off on the driving tour of the battlefield.
The Blossoms and my favorite part was touring the Moore house.
In the snug farmhouse, Cornwallis' under officers negotiated the terms of surrender with General Washington. I'll admit, I think much less of General Cornwallis for being too proud to negotiate the terms of surrender face to face with General Washington.
The Rugged Mountain Man prefers the battlefields where he can envision the encampments, their advances, their retreats and all the maneuvers of battles long ago.
I love walking into a site and thinking about all that went on, the conversations spoken.
Oh, if walls could only talk!
The history presses down on me as I stand in those same rooms where great men once stood.
Our trip commenced with Blossom2's rainbow sighting over the James River. I'm so thankful we could get away to immerse ourselves in history together.
