Jamestowne & Yorktown, VA

Today we spent most of the day in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. We don't know much about global warming, but it seemed to us that Virginia was just as hot (maybe even hotter) in the seventeenth century! The heat was oppressive . . . luckily for those early colonists they had AC at the visitor's center!


One of the highlights of Jamestowne was the Junior Ranger scavenger hunt at the archaeology museum. The boys were each given a small picture of an artifact they then had to find in the museum. We don't know what kind of training they gave to the seemingly kind old lady at the front desk, but her sense of humor (or was it her judgment?) left a bit to be desired. After warning us that it might be a bit much for the boys to go into the "death room" with the full skeletons and whatnot, where do you think we found Alex's artifact? You guessed it . . . right beside the leering skulls. What was the artifact, you ask? Something fun for all little girls and boys . . . a brass ear picker/toot pick combo with a dainty spoon on one side and a gnarly spike on the other. Now, which end goes where? Oh well, we're sure most three year-olds figure it out just fine. On the plus side, he earned a reward (a neato Jamestown tatoo) for being a good sport.

After filling out all 327 activities in the 52 page junior ranger books (only a slight exaggeration!), we headed out of the heat and back to the visitor's center. For a minute there it seemed like our spirits were flagging, but luckily Ani found us a 90 minute ranger-led program on native culture that pepped us all right up. Evan was selected to grind corn, Alex was selected to be an Appomattox chief, and Will was lucky enough to be a beautiful growing corn stalk. Strange, but somehow Ani was not selected for a role. Fifty minutes in, Alex raised his hand and asked "when do we get to make pinch pots." Here it is:

"Are you having fun daddy?"

After a really cool (except in temperature) trip to the glassblowing house, we headed along the colonial parkway to the Yorktown Battlefield.

The highlight here was going into the Thomas Nelson house. Evan and Alex dressed up in revolutionary-era garb in the house of a signer of the Declaration of Independence!


The boys had a great time spotting the cannonballs lodged in the side of the house, which was caught in the crossfire during the siege of the city.

We topped off the day by eating in Williamsburg in an eighteenth century tavern. The boys enjoyed a well-deserved root beer. Evan dominated the family sitting next to us in some 18th century version of craps.

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