Yorktown and Jamestown

       The first actual day in Williamsburg, Virginia was very busy! In the morning I really wanted to work out because I had driven in a car the previous day for 5 hours and just felt like I needed some exercise. I convinced Paul to come with me. Eric brought Sage too. Not to work out, but to play on the playground near the fitness room. Sadly we needed a room key to get into the fitness center and Paul's parents had both the keys for some reason. So we all decided to play at the park for a little bit. We discovered that the playground area had a pretty sweet mini golf course. We got some clubs and played a quick 18 holes of mini golf before we went back to the room for breakfast.

   
        After breakfast, the plan was to visit Yorktown, which I guess is where one of the key battles to the independence of the colonies took place. Yorktown was basically like a living museum. They had several walk through exhibits, but they also had people acting out what daily life was like and what one could expect as a colonist living during those times. We arrived right in time to see the demonstration of explosives. They showed us how to load the old fashion guns, as well as load a cannon. It was crazy to see how many steps they had to take to actually get the gun loaded and ready to fire off. They told us that the soldiers could have their guns loaded and ready in 20 seconds flat. Just from watching the presentation I was impressed that they could load them that fast. They told us that the tents the soldiers slept in had to fit six men. The tents were honestly the size of a two man tent now a days! No wonder disease and infection was so common back then.

       Next we were able to see the demonstration of the Revolutionary War surgeons, which, are completely different from doctores I found out. :) The surgeon was usually not medically knowledgeable, but trained to find a bullet and pull it out. I can't even imagine having someone stick non sterilized tweezers into an open wound to pull out a bullet. The thought makes me cringe! Even worse, they didn't have anesthetics for the pain of the surgery, just to help dull the senses for recovery. *shudder* We got to see the types of uniforms the soldiers most likely wore and what a campsite would look like.
    
       We also got to walk around a common village and see how everyday life was lived. They had some colonial houses that we could walk through, and they were just so small! I can't imagine living in a house that is all one room with a small loft for storage. The colonists lived so simply it has made me wonder what things I might do to simplify my life. I got to see so many neat self sustaining skills that I hope I can learn for the future. They showed us how they dipped candles, how they cooked their food and preserved it. They showed us how they dried fruits, vegetables and herbs for storage, and they showed us what types of activities they did for entertainment.
   
        We took cute little Sage into the children's part of the museum. It wasn't anything fantastic but they had some really cute colonial kids clothes that we used to play dress up with Sage. None of the clothing fit perfectly, but that made him look all the cuter drowning in colonial clothes.

   

















We took a lunch break and got off of our feet for about an hour, then we loaded up again and headed off to Jamestown. I was actually secretly excited to visit Jamestown because in 3rd grade I did my famous person report on Pocahontas. Obviously that was a very long time ago, but I wanted to see if what I was remembering from my research was true or just facts that I was remembering from the Disney movie. When we first got to Jamestown, we walked through the indoor museum exhibit that talked about the Powhatan tribe and what America was like before the colonists came to live there.
   

  Once we finished the indoor exhibit, we went outdoors to the living museum (similar to the one at Yorktown). First we saw the Native American side of Jamestown. We were able to see what types of huts they built. They were fixed structures similar to hogans. I really enjoyed seeing what the Native American homes might have looked like on the inside. I can't imagine living in a hut with no real blankets, just animal furs. The furs might be much warmer than cheap blankets, but it would be so weird to me to cuddle up a bear head.

   
   

After the tribal museum, we got to look around some ships that were similar to the ships that the settlers of Jamestown took to the Americas, like the Mayflower. We climbed around on the upper and lower decks, and played around with the rudder. We also checked out the sleeping places (which are teeny tiny). I don't know how they could have slept comfortably squeezed in the little nook that some of the sailors had to sleep in. Paul and I walked out to the bow of the ship and pretended we were on the Titanic! It was so lame but kind of cute and funny that we just had to do it.

     















Once we finished touring the ships, we were able to walk through Jamestown and see what that would have been like for the colonists. They had some olds schol armor that we tried on. The helmets were a bit big on me, but it was fun nevertheless. We made it to the settlement in time to see the Jamestown demonstration of explosives which was pretty neat, and loud! We walked through their church type building and visited the blacksmith. Just seeing how villages worked together back then is so incredible to me. The amount of self reliance they had within their village is so impressive. I hope Paul and I can take a little bit of advice from the colonists and learn a few self sustaining skills.
 

   

         Once we finished our tour of Jamestown we went home, cooked some dinner then had the coolest New Years Eve party ever!!  Okay it really wasn't super great, but we did go swimming before it got all too exciting to handle. We played in the pool with Sage for a little while and Paul and I played water volleyball with his mom. After the pool we watched a chick flick, paused it to watch the ball drop, gave each other a new years kiss, drank some sparkling cider, turned our movie back on, finished the movie then went to bed. Yay, Happy New Years! And we did all of that before Utah was at 11:00 PM. Thank goodness we were on the East Coast and had less time to wait. I was sure pooped by the time midnight rolled around.