What's This!?

 October 10, 2016

Today is a very special day. Today we get to accomplish one of Jason's childhood dreams--to see Jamestown, Virginia! I'm so thankful he loves history and adventures. If it weren't for him, I probably wouldn't have done half the things we've experienced in our six years of marriage. I remember him mentioning he wanted to go to Colonial Williamsburg, and my first thought was "What the hell are we going to do there?" Then he started talking about it's history and everything we could do. I'm so thankful for Jason-- he's opened up my world in more ways than one.

We started the morning with a hearty breakfast-- good for the appetite, not necessarily good for the heart. We went to Daily Donut. Below are pictures:

My cheese omelet, biscuit, and side of fresh fruit.

Jason's Green Eggs and Hamlet (spinach, ham, cheese, and avocado slices). It also came with grits and a biscuit. 

Afterward, we purchase one of their donuts on the way out. We got a Vanilla Cake donut--delicious! We ate that in the car on the way to our next stop: Jamestown!

 In no time we were there! We headed toward the building by walking through a long row of state flags. Once inside, we purchased two tickets for Jamestown and Yorktown. It was a museum filled with artifacts from the colonial time period. We quickly went through the exhibit--we were mostly interested to see where the colonist actually lived. Once outside we found this:

We're still not sure what this brick tower is.... it did give us a good laugh, however. There was a couple that kept going in and out of the frame of our picture. Eventually they realized it and pretended as though they desperately wanted to be in our pictures. It was pretty funny.

On the way to the shoreline, there was a Native American Exhibit. They had huts built in the same way Native Americans were living in this time period, along with the tools and animal skins they would most likely have. Below are pictures:

In the picture below, we thought this looked a lot like Cassandra from Dr. Who... she's not doing so well. 

Jason and I thought the Native American set up was actually pretty awesome. It looked cozy and somewhat comfortable for that time period.

Once finishing this section, we made our way to where the colonials would have lived. Below are pictures of what the town would have most likely looked like:

In the picture below you can see a man with a Musket. He did a demonstration for us about how to fire the gun. It was very, very loud! We were pretty impressed.

It was at this point when Jason realized something was wrong. Jason said there was supposed to be ruins from a church during the colonial period still standing. We looked but weren't able to find it. Then I remembered that there were supposed to be ruins from the glasshouse, which we also couldn't find. Something was wrong but we weren't sure what. We decided to explore some more in case we missed something.

We headed to the marina where they had replicas of the ships from this time period. We were allowed to walk on them and explore what it would have looked like for the colonists:

After finishing this section, we realized there was nowhere else to go. We walked around the property but found ourselves in the gift shop toward the exit. Disappointingly, we browsed the shop. As we discussed how contrived the replicas and exhibit was, we overheard a nearby man speaking to his wife about Jamestown as well. He said he spoke with an employee about his confusion with the exhibit--I guess he was as disappointed as we were. Then we heard him say, "She said there was a difference between Historical Jamestown and Jamestown Settlement." Once hearing that, Jason and I bolted out the door and began googling. This was simply the museum and not the historical site!

We dashed toward our car and headed literally around the corner to the actual settlement. We got hoodwinked! We paid all that money when we needed to be going down the road (where we were asked to pay more money). Oh well--at least we didn't go back to Georgia and discover it later!

Jason walked to the counter and said, "Two tickets for.... this," as he waved toward the settlement. The man laughed and directed us to a booth to purchase tickets. We got our tickets, received a map, and grabbed a diet Dr. Pepper and some animal crackers before making our way to the settlement.

It was a short, beautiful walk. The weather couldn't have been more lovely. The air was cool, crisp and the sun was shinning.

The first thing we saw once at the settlement was this:

The pictures above are of a monument built in 1907. It was huge!

Then, we saw a Pocahontas statue. Below is a picture of me with her:

Not too far away was a statue of Captain John Smith:

In the picture below you can see him, along with the ruins from the earliest Anglican church. 

Here is another picture of the church. The part on the right was the oldest part of the church; the part on the left was added later.

The entrance to the oldest part of the church:

A list of the colonial governors:

Here is the coolest part: this is a picture of the original foundation to the church from the settlement. It is the only remaining part of the original structure. 

I honestly can't remember what all these things said, but they were cool:

Before leaving the church, Jason obtained a vial of dirt for our historical dirt collection. This may sound weird, but it's awesome.

Once outside of the church, we saw the church graveyard. 

In the picture below you can see the well that the archaeologists are working to uncover. They were actually at the site today digging. We were able to meet one of them as he uncovered an old (but not that old, mind you) nail. 

Here he is:

The shore line:

 We kept these pictures because we thought they were funny. It was cold but very very bright.

Memorial of some sort... we forget what.

Us, without the sun in our eyes. 

This is where some of the fort's homes were.

A well. The water in Jamestown was a major contributing factor to the downfall of the colony. Let's just say it was definitely not safe to drink. 

This part of the town is unique. They uncovered the ruins of old buildings from the settlement, but they reburied them in order to preserve them. The bricks you see are simply replicas of what they uncovered, in the spot they uncovered it.

This is a tavern: 

Houses: 

Ruins of an old mansion from a more recent time period. 

This was just pretty:

Us:

More homes:

 
This little guy is an inch worm. We found him on a bench, trying to get across that crack in the wood. He never made it, so we put a stick across for him to travel to the other side. Once there, he panicked and wasn't able to figure out how to even get down. Jason then helped him on a stick and we placed him on the ground. How weird it must have been for that little creature!

 After exploring the area and purchasing gifts from the gift shop, we visited the glasshouse ruins. Below are pictures:

Working furnace:

Kiln: 

We saw a woman blowing glass while there. Pretty awesome!

After seeing her make an ornament, we browsed the gift shop. We also purchased a Christmas ornament for us!

Here are pictures of the walk to and from the glass house. It was just beautiful!

We left right as they were closing. We began to get hungry and settled on "Food For Thought" for dinner. It was a unique restaurant with Benjamin Franklin as their mascot. He had a sly look about him and was winking. It was pretty funny. We were seated quickly and ordered. Below are pictures:

Jason with his flight of beer:

My roasted vegetable soup:

Jason's Thai One On:

Side note: all day yesterday and today we found ourselves saying "What's this?!" There is so much to do and see here! We kept thinking about the Nightmare Before Christmas movie, when Jack is discovering Christmas. He has that song where he sings "What's this!?" over and over again. That's precisely how we felt today. So many amazing things to see.

After dinner, we headed back to relax and blog. On to some rest and another day!