This is a reconstruction of the capitol building in Williamsburg Virginia. They dug and found the foudation and then rebuilt what it looked like from a couple of pictures. They were in the process of resconstructing another building across the street from this one. We went to Colonial Williamsburg on Thursday. If you have not been there it is a reconstruction of what the town of Williamsburg would have looked like before the revolutionary war. some of the houses have more of the original building materials, but the big houses like the capitol and the governors palace were destroyed in the war. They have people that dresss up like the people of the time and give the information. The things that Jeff and I thought were the coolest was when we went into different houses that would make stuff and they would actually be making tools, cabinets, jewelry, etc like they made them back then. Another thing that we took from this day is that everyone, both rich and poor, had to have the knowledge to survive by themselves if needed. Everyone knew how to make baskets, but the difference comes in that the rich would buy the imported ones from England just for the stature.
On Tuesday and Wednesday we went to Busch Gardens. In this park they have five large roller coasters. The picture above is a picture of our favorite the griffon. It takes you up a steep incline to 205 feet and then it lets you hange (the picture is showing the hanging) then it drops you down 90 degrees where you reach the speed of 71 mph. It then takes you through twists and turns and you do one more drop. It was the best. Jeff and I sat in all three sections and we found that they are all fun, but the front is the best with the hanging over the egde. All of the other were fun and we enjoyed ourselves a lot. Also at Busch Gardens they house Clydesdale horses. They say that they are the budweiser clydesdales, but we weren't really sure. There was a budweiser factory down the road though.
This is the largest ship of one of the reconstructed ships that the settlers from Jamestown came in one. The journey was 144 days and we both were glad that we had better means of transportation these days.
This is a reconstruction Native American hut from the powatan tribe. This tribe was close to the Jamestown settlement and helped the settlers learn a little of the land. These first couple of pictures were taken from the Jamestown settlement that was constructed around 50 years ago for the celebration of the 350th year since Jamestown.(though the only thing still standing from that celebration is one brick statue. Everything was rebuilt) Sadly it is not constructed on the same site as Jamestown, but up the river a little ways. The historical site of Jamestown is contolled by the national park service and there is still an archeaological dig going on there. There is also a museum were you can most of the things that have been found there. We did not spend a lot of time at historical Jamestown, because it was cold, windy and we were by the river so that made is even more colder. Also close to historical Jamestown they found the ruins of a glasshouse and then the park service made their own (with modern supplies). We actually got to see a worker blow glass and shape it to make a decorative pear. I bought one to remember the experience they had a couple of different colors of glass. I gought the green one because that is the natural color of glass. If you want it to be clear you actually have to add a couple of things to it. Also, because you have to have the fire extremely hot the people back then were only able to blow glass four days a month. There because they use natural gas they can blow glass every day.
The first historical site we went to was Yorktown. The site were the English surrendered to us at the end of the Revolutionary war. You can view the battlefield. Which the picture above is when we were on the battlefield with one of the english cannons. You can see replicas of the cannons that there used. We learned a lot about how the war was fought. After that we took the short walk to Yorktown itself, which was weird because there were actually people still living there. One house was a historical house then across the street was someones actual residence. We felt a little like we were intruding. The one house to see there is called the Nelson house. The house actually still has a little damage from the Revolutionary War. The sad part is that you could not tell by yourself which ones that were because they had put in some fake stuff as well.Well if you got though all of that congratulations. Jeff and I had a really fun time. We loved going to see more about our history. We did take a day and a half and go up to Pennsylvania to see Jeff's brother who will be starting his residency in June at the Abington hospital. It was nice to see them since we haven't in four or five years. The best thing about this trip is it got both of us jazzed to learn more about the revolutionary war.
