2010 Family Vacation: Part 2
OK....Family Vacation: Part 2. Williamsburg, VA, which is, of course known for historical recreation of Williamsburg circa 1770.
And DearSon in this faux felt tricorn hat made in China kind of sums up the whole historical Williamsburg experience... rather contrived but fun.
I'm more than willing to entertain submissions for captions of this shot. My submission is "OK. Now who has the chamber pot?". Actually they are supposed to be an angry mob upset that the King's representative in Virginia, the Governor, took the black powder from the town's magazine. As you wander through town there are vignettes with costumed actors depicting various conversations that could have taken place relating to political events of the time. Actually given the heat and the milling crowds (Why is it when you get to a certain threshold of numbers, people mill?) , the actors did a marvelous job. DH and I visited when we were first married, yes a long ago, and to the historical society's credit, they now confront the fact that Virginia was a slave owning state and a great many of the residents of Williamsburg heard the talk of liberty but knew that it did not apply to them.
And, of course, if there is fiber to be found, I'll find it. This woman was doing a great job of explaining spinning and the fibers that would have been available to the colonists. One that figured as a near miracle fiber to them, that they would have been agog that we can't grow here today is hemp. Just barely visible behind her left shoulder is a great wheel. I had never seen anyone use a great wheel (or walking wheel) so it was quite interesting to see her spinning cotton on it.
Full scale recreation of the Governor's Palace. The was original finished in 1722 but like so many early buildings burned to the ground in 1781. (Not that all early buildings burned to the ground in 1781 in particular...just that many of them burned. Darned English language and its tendency to encourage misplaced modifiers.)
Behind the Governor's Palace was this...
A human sized maze! Way too much fun! Yes that's me DD#1, DD#2 and DearSon there in the middle.
And here is a watering jar that we played with for probably way too long. (It was hot. We kept our pleasures simple.) It waters from the bottom rather than dumping water out the top. Clever!
And what do kids do with a full sized bronze statue that is too hot to actually touch.
Bunny ears and a little help with his latest manuscript. Hope TJ would understand. I understand he had lots of kids so hopefully he would. (That's Thomas Jefferson to those of us not in the know.)
Are you still there? Have I hit the maximum limit of vacation pictures for a blog? Well, there will be a part 3 for Baltimore.
And DearSon in this faux felt tricorn hat made in China kind of sums up the whole historical Williamsburg experience... rather contrived but fun.
I'm more than willing to entertain submissions for captions of this shot. My submission is "OK. Now who has the chamber pot?". Actually they are supposed to be an angry mob upset that the King's representative in Virginia, the Governor, took the black powder from the town's magazine. As you wander through town there are vignettes with costumed actors depicting various conversations that could have taken place relating to political events of the time. Actually given the heat and the milling crowds (Why is it when you get to a certain threshold of numbers, people mill?) , the actors did a marvelous job. DH and I visited when we were first married, yes a long ago, and to the historical society's credit, they now confront the fact that Virginia was a slave owning state and a great many of the residents of Williamsburg heard the talk of liberty but knew that it did not apply to them.
And, of course, if there is fiber to be found, I'll find it. This woman was doing a great job of explaining spinning and the fibers that would have been available to the colonists. One that figured as a near miracle fiber to them, that they would have been agog that we can't grow here today is hemp. Just barely visible behind her left shoulder is a great wheel. I had never seen anyone use a great wheel (or walking wheel) so it was quite interesting to see her spinning cotton on it.
Full scale recreation of the Governor's Palace. The was original finished in 1722 but like so many early buildings burned to the ground in 1781. (Not that all early buildings burned to the ground in 1781 in particular...just that many of them burned. Darned English language and its tendency to encourage misplaced modifiers.)
Behind the Governor's Palace was this...
A human sized maze! Way too much fun! Yes that's me DD#1, DD#2 and DearSon there in the middle.
And here is a watering jar that we played with for probably way too long. (It was hot. We kept our pleasures simple.) It waters from the bottom rather than dumping water out the top. Clever!
And what do kids do with a full sized bronze statue that is too hot to actually touch.
Bunny ears and a little help with his latest manuscript. Hope TJ would understand. I understand he had lots of kids so hopefully he would. (That's Thomas Jefferson to those of us not in the know.)
Are you still there? Have I hit the maximum limit of vacation pictures for a blog? Well, there will be a part 3 for Baltimore.
Yes, I too think TJ had lots of children. Let's see. Daughters Martha and Mary each lived about thirty years. There was one stillborn son. A baby Jane who managed about thirteen months. And two Lucy Elizabeths who made it less than five years a piece (which makes me wonder if, at that point in the marriage, would one just be getting tired of thinking up new names for spawn which, odds are, are just passing through; maybe it was like naming goldfish--after a while, why bother, you're probably going to flush them in a week; maybe they should have gone Borg and named them Five of Six and Six of Six). So, maybe TJ [i]didn't[/i] have a lot of kids. Why was it that we thought he did? Hm...Oh, yes--there was that small phalanx of suspiciously light-skinned children shot out by his stable of slaves. Today, he could have his own reality show--"TJ, the Slaves, Plus Seventy-Eight." Which would be charming, I'm sure. Plus, we just don't get to use the word "octaroon" enough these days. That and "pinko." Yes, it's about time we bring those back.
On a completely different note, have you ever spun hemp? What's it like? Easier, harder, trickier, pricklier? Jefferson's fortune came from hemp--think of how many large-thumbed gloves you could knit!
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