Days 33-35: A little history & a little time with friends.

It’s been a while since we updated this here blog, so there is going to a bit of rapid fire catching up. I’ll admit this blogging gig is more work than it seemed – mostly because of poor internet connections and running out of space on my laptop for images. It occasionally takes me an hour or two just to get the photos managed. Also, the last few weeks have been busy, busy, busy, and we have been tired, tired, tired.

We dropped back down out of the smokey mountains, right back into the boiler…….. literally. We spent 2 days with our friends Steve and Lynann in Williamsburg, VA. Colonial Williamsburg proved to be a mild letdown. Maybe our expectations were too high. There was very little activity around town. We did do a very good tour of the historical home of one of the founders Peyton Randolph, and the tour of the palace was nice. The tour guide guide at the Peyton Randolph house in particular did a wonderful job of contrasting the historical importance of the fight for freedom with the dichotomy of his slave ownership. This context and honesty has been somewhat whitewashed in many of our tours through the south. We went back at night with Steve and Lynann sans kids to find that the taverns were very quiet for a Saturday night. No traditional Games or music as they are known for. It turns out that Colonial Williamsburg has been losing money for some time, and there have been significant budget cuts. Steve said our night out was nothing like it has been in the past.

We still had a good time and would go again, but we found Jamestown, which we had visited the day before far more interesting. The Jamestown Historical Society volunteers that were at some of the sites were an amazing wealth of knowledge, and seeing the active archaeological exploration was very interesting. It was also a much smaller, and more cohesive park that was easier to navigate.

Our time with friends was not a let down. Lucy made friends with what might be the only dog we have found that we think rivals her in cuteness, and we spent some much needed time by the pool and catching up. Claire loved playing with Luke and Chris. We look forward to seeing them when they visit Colorado again next month

Next we headed over to Richmond,VA to spend Sat night with another set of friends, Kurt and Mary. They live on a golf course and we tagged along to a party put on by one of his neighbors. What a Party! They had a huge spread of food, and drinks, and then set off hands down the best home display of fireworks any of us have ever seen over the pond behind their house. Apparently they were all bought out the back door of a Chinese restaurant ;-). Sadly, we were having so much fun we forgot to take photos.