Carry me back to old Virginny

Jul 16, 2024 12:46

For his 14th birthday trip, Daniel requested a camping tour of Virginia. Daniel was born in Virginia Beach, though he doesn’t remember his first two years there. (I do.) Anyway, you have to have a theme to unify your trip, especially in a State like Virginia, which has so much going on. So we were going to do mostly Colonial/Revolutionary sites. The beach was a plus.

This being a very busy season for tourism, I had booked us in advance into our campgrounds. This being July in Virginia, I threw a couple of light fleece sleeping bag liners in the Acadia. We wound up using them instead of our sleeping bags for the whole trip.

In terms of other gear, I took our new large tent and the deluxe camp cots Deanne and I took on our vacation out west in May. Normally, Daniel and I use a backpacking tent, but we would be camping on gravel in two of our campsites; plus, camping at the beach means you’re always tracking sand into your tent, and I didn’t want to be rolling over in grit for three nights. We took no cooler, just backpacking chow for when we weren’t eating out.

Sunday, July 7

Daniel and family came down to dinner: spaghetti and meatballs, three-bean salad, no-churn fresh peach and Amaretto ice cream. We enjoyed some time together, and then everybody else returned to Richmond. Daniel spent the night with us.

Monday, July 8

Next morning, we were out the door just after 6:00 for a long day’s drive. Nothing to see. We talked, listened to music, watched the miles go by. I dropped down US 150 to New Albany, picked up I-64 at Louisville and then across the Kentucky Bluegrass, on into West Virginia, then over the mountains to Douthat State Park in Virginia. We ate at the camp deli and settled in. The weather was hot and sultry. I slept on top of my fleece liner until the wee hours.



Tired roadie
somewhere on I-64 through KY or WV



Teaching Daniel Speed
Douthat SP, VA

Tuesday, July 9

We got packed up and out the door in good order and were at the Monticello Visitor Center by 8:15 a.m. They open at 8:30. First in line, yay! I hadn’t ordered tickets in advance. We had two options. There was a first-floor-only tour that was $42 for adults and half-off for kids; it left in half an hour. But then, there was the whole shebang/three floors tour for $99 apiece, which left in fifteen minutes. I didn’t fancy hanging around with nothing to do or so for half and hour, so I swallowed hard and bought the big ticket tour for us.



Look me in the eye and say that
Monticello

The tour was very thorough and I saw parts of the house I hadn’t seen before. The tour guide was very knowledgeable, though she had a couple of verbal tics that put me off. For one thing, she never said, “Jefferson,” or “the President” or “Mr. Jefferson.” Every single time she referred to Thomas Jefferson it was by full name: it was “Thomas Jefferson” this, “Thomas Jefferson” that. The other thing I noticed was the use of “enslaved persons” instead of “slaves” in her speech. This is the new term in use these days. I suppose it emphasizes the personhood of the African-Americans at the plantation at the time over the chattel status they were reduced to, but it seems needlessly complicated to me. Eh. Of course, all tour guides at places like this tend to articulate in a kind of sanctimonious breathlessness as if they were in a sacred space, even when they’re giving you the downlow on the less creditable aspects of the Founders’ lives and society.



Lots of cool stuff
Monticello

We wandered around a bit, visited Jefferson’s grave. We walked back to the Visitor Center, which was only a third of a mile, but in the heat and humidity a bit of a chore.

After our tour of Monticello, we proceeded over to Michie Tavern for lunch. It was a colonial buffet with many period selections. The fried chicken was incredible. Daniel took a big scoop of what he thought were pinto beans. He told me they tasted off; I replied that they weren’t pinto beans, but black-eyed peas. It was pretty pricey -- $65 for the two of us, tip included - which I mention because Daniel was looking at everything through the lens of how his fellow Scouts would like it. Planning a trip like ours for a whole group of youth would take some fund-raising, lemme tell ya. Stlll, you want to build in experiences like this.

And then it was heigh-ho, away we went down the intersnake. I had wanted to visit the crater at Petersburg that Ambrose Burnside blew in the Confederate defenses in 1864, which was such a fiasco. Petersburg is south of Richmond and not on the main way between Monticello and Virginia Beach, but I figured we could make it work. That said, we had a bit of a hassle even finding the park. But eventually, there we were. I’m sure the crater has filled in a good deal since it was blown up, killing hundreds of defenders. Still, it’s a substantial hole in the ground. A curious footnote in our Civil War history.



Confederate earthworks
Petersburg, VA



The Crater
Petersburg, VA

After that, we hopped onto US 460, which is a very nice road from Petersburg to Portsmouth. We drove through a quiet rural landscape. Loblolly pines everywhere, small towns. We picked up the end of I-64 at Portsmouth, and came into the Norfolk-Virginia Beach metroplex from the southwest (through part of the Great Dismal Swamp), avoiding the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel. On past Witchduck Road and Mt. Trashmore we went, then driving along the strip in Virginia Beach all the way to Cape Henry and First Landing State Park.



Ready for occupancy
First Landing SP, VA

First Landing is a lovely park where they let you set up your tent on the actual ground. Campsites are roomy and there are live oaks everywhere. Live oaks grow close to the ground in sprawling, twisted limbs just begging to be climbed. Daniel’s Scout troop wants to go to Virginia next year, and Brian is in charge of knocking together itinerary options. He charged Daniel with reporting on campgrounds and attractions with an eye to what his buddies would appreciate. Daniel thought they would definitely like First Landing. We would stay three nights, basing ourselves on the beach and moving out to visit some of the many local attractions.



Live oaks are just made for climbing
First Landing SP

Wednesday, July 10

We took our time getting up and going the next day, but we were still on the road by 7:00 a.m. We’re both early risers, which is a plus on a major trip. My experience with Venturers has been that a well-trained crew can be up and fed, cleaned up and packed for the day’s activities, in about an hour and half from when I first get up and start the coffee. Daniel and I never took more than that time, and when we had need for haste could do it in an hour. We crossed the HRBT in good order and proceeded up the peninsula to Jamestown. Once again, we were 15 minutes early.

There are several Jamestowns. There is the original site, maintained by a private foundation, which has all the really cool stuff. There is a National Park administered site right next to it, which has a few archeological remains and a nice Visitor Center. Then there is a living history recreation site for tourists nearby, which we skipped. As we toured the Visitor Center, I noticed an error on a placard. Right near the entrance was a sign explaining that the capital of the colony was moved from Jamestown to Middle Plantation, which was renamed Williamsburg in honor of the king, which the sign referred to as William II. Well, I’m sorry, but William II died in an alleged hunting accident in 1100; the guy who led the Glorious Revolution in 1688-9 was William of Orange, who became William III. King Billy is Williamsburg’s namesake.

The sea breeze was cooling the air and giving us a taste of moisture as we walked Jamestown. The rebuilt brick church was lovely. The palisade helped define the original three-sided fort. We eventually wound up in the archaeology center, which had lots of cool artifacts. Jamestown was founded by 104 men and boys in 1607. Two-thirds of them died in the first couple of years, but England kept sending more men (and eventually, women), and the colony hung on. It only became profitable (barely) when the English learned how to grow tobacco from the Indians.



The Church
Jamestown

The interpretive materials, including the film at the Visitor Center, emphasized that the Jamestown story involves three peoples from three different continents. The Native Americans have always been a big part of the Jamestown story, but we do a better job of seeing the past through their eyes than we did when I was a youth. How the Native Americans and Europeans (English) saw each other and dealt with each other is a major theme in our history. In recent years, the introduction of Africans into that double society has received much more attention. I appreciated that the materials we read and watched showed the complicated story of the Africans. Not all were enslaved; some were (or became) free, and some were considered indentured, which was a legal status of many whites brought to America. The regularizing of slavery, which involved making it perpetual and heritable, was a project that was worked out in stages as the English developed their colony.

There was a glassworks at Jamestown in colonial days, and it has been reconstructed. People are making and blowing glass there. Daniel was utterly fascinated. I didn’t buy any glass souvenirs. Besides being pricey, I was worried about getting them home unbroken; after all, we weren’t halfway through with this trip yet.



Glassworks
Jamestown

After Jamestown, we drove back down to the coast to the Mariners Museum, which was Daniel’s favorite tour of the whole trip. (And it only cost a buck apiece, let me point out.) The prize of the Mariners Museum is the Monitor’s turret and artifacts, raised from the seabed off Cape Hatteras some years ago. The slow process of removing the encrusted material from the iron mass continues, and you can see the large hunks of Monitor in their tanks. You can also walk the deck of a life-sized Monitor mockup outdoors. There are also many displays, and lots of interactive panels. Daniel designed his own ironclad - a new feature since I last toured this place before he was born.

The Mariners Museum has a lot more stuff than the Monitor. It has a lot of beautiful wooden ships’ figureheads, an amazing collection of ship models, and other displays. In a separate building it has a collection of small craft from around the world and across many years, which was really cool.

We returned to First Landing and got ready for the beach. Daniel got to swim in the ocean. The tide was low, and you could walk out to a sandbar. It was fun.



Beach Bum
First Landing SP

Thursday, July 11

The next day, we slept in just a little bit. No point in getting to Williamsburg and having to wait to do all the doin’s. We were still there right when it opened. Colonial Williamsburg was pretty pricey, but I was getting used to that. Also, its Visitor Center was humongous. You could make it a destination itself, which I find annoying. Wander around, spend your money, say you were there - but did you really see the important stuff? Grump, grump.



Governor’s Palace
Williamsburg

Colonial Williamsburg is a historic district where they have been restoring/rebuilding the old town as it was when it was the capital of Colonial/Revolutionary Virginia. This work has been going on since the 1930s. We toured the Governor’s Palace. We took part in a morning court session at the Courthouse, where Daniel got to be one of the Justices of the Peace. We toured the Statehouse, which I think very impressive. We toured Raleigh Tavern, where the Burgesses adjourned to to debate independence after the colonial Governor dissolved the House of Burgesses.



Order in the court!
Williamsburg

We had lunch at Shields Tavern. They offer a Groaning Table, which referred to the enormous quantities of food on offer. There are no choices, just a single menu, but you can ask for seconds. All served in period ambience. We began with bread and herb butter, which I could have made my entire lunch. Then there was a very tasty salad, followed by fried chicken and beef Rouladen with mashed potatoes and some vegetables. We finished up with strawberries and cream. It was delicious; it was also very pricey: I dropped a hundred bucks on that lunch, for just two people.

It was threatening rain as we drove into Yorktown. The Visitor Center wasn’t much, but then Yorktown is kind of a backwater. We didn’t have time to tour the town, but we drove around the battlefield, saw where the surrender was received, and went to see the victory monument. We returned to camp to discover that there had been a pretty good rain there. We had to sop up some water in the bottom of our tent because I hadn’t zipped the windows completely, and the ground and picnic table were too wet to do supper. We ate a cold supper sitting in the Acadia, and then went to bed early.



Victory Monument
Yorktown

Friday, July 12

We were up betimes the next day and packed up our soggy stuff. We were on the road just before six. The rain began to patter down as we approached the HRBT. Once on the peninsula and heading up toward Richmond, the heavens opened and we drove through some of the heaviest rain I have ever driven in. It was the remains of TS Beryl coming ashore. The heavy rain combined with the spray kicked up by all the traffic made me think of it as Satan’s Car Wash. This continued until past Richmond. Traffic was down to 40 mph at times.

After the weather cleared, we toodled on up past Washington, where even in mid-morning, the traffic was very heavy on the Beltway. I asked Daniel if he knew why there were all these cars here. When he said he didn’t know, I replied, “Government.” Washington’s only industry is government, and all these cars were full of people who either worked for the government or worked for people who did business with the government or wanted something from government.

We stopped in Frederick, Maryland - Fredneck, in some people’s parlance - for lunch at a local diner. I noticed they had scrapple on the menu. I ordered a side of it in addition to our other stuff, because neither of us had ever tasted it before; I mean, I knew what it was, but it’s kind of a local thing. Both of us had the same opinion. It wasn’t bad, but it was kind of weird. Meaty, but kind of leathery, and seasoned strangely. Nutmeg? Allspice? It was earthy. We didn’t finish it.

We drove through the mountains to Rocky Gap State Park. Once again, we were early. The campground didn’t open until 3:00 p.m. We had over an hour to kill. We drove to a shelter overlooking the lake and played cards to pass the time. I noticed that the Rocky Gap UMC was now the Prosperity Methodist Church, so they had disaffiliated; I don’t know if they have joined the GMC. (This church sits on the road between the park HQ and campgrounds.)



Lake Habeeb
Rocky Gap SP, MD

Once we were allowed in to find our campsite, I set up a clothesline so we could dry our soggy stuff. We got ourselves settled in. We built a fire and spent some time poking it. In my experience, you don’t need to do anything to keep boys entertained if there is a fire to mess with. The night was reasonably cool when we headed for bed and I got in my fleece liner at once. I had slept on top of it all three nights at First Landing.



Stirring the Fire
Rocky Gap SP

Saturday, July 13

I had originally planned to stay only one night at Rocky Gap, but since it was a weekend, I was required to reserve two nights. I’m glad we did. We needed to rest up a bit before the drive home. So we had a day of just rest - no agenda, no touring - before the drive home.

We went swimming in the lake, we played cards, we ate ice cream. We talked about big, important things. Oh, we talk about all kinds of things on our trips, but once in a while we have a more significant talk. The evening before we talked about the call to follow Christ. I told Daniel much of my story - of my own decision to follow Christ, and of my call to ministry - that I don’t tell to just anybody. On this morning, we got into an explicit talk about hygiene, which then led into lighter topics related to male grooming and dress.

The day passed enjoyably, and we hit the bed early. The long drive home was still to come.

Sunday, July 14

Once again, we were up early and on the road by six. We stopped in La Vale, MD, for breakfast at McDonald’s. We drove over to Morgantown, up into Pennsylvania, past Wheeling, and then it was Ohio for the rest of the way home. We got to their house at Richmond about 1:00 p.m. We chatted with Brian, who was on call for work while we waited for Anna and James to return from a troop campout. It took them a couple of hours to arrive, just ahead of more rain. By then, I was rested enough to continue on to Bloomington by myself. I made good time and was home and dry before 6:30 p.m., after a trip of over 1900 miles.

We haven’t discussed where to go next year for Daniel’s birthday, though summers are getting busier as the boys grow up. I said we might have to take his trip before his birthday - late May, perhaps - or at the end of summer - August? But we’ll see. James’s birthday is in January, and he wants to go dig for diamonds in Arkansas, which I figure we’ll do in February. Eventually, of course, either the boys will get so busy as they enter young adulthood that they won’t have the time for special trips with Grandbear, or Grandbear will reach a stage at which he can no longer keep up with the demands of such trips. But for now, it is my privilege and joy to give them these kinds of experiences rather than just stuff for their birthdays. Not that they don’t get plenty of stuff as we tour about: Daniel came home loaded with various souvenirs, books, even a tricorne hat.

And now, we are home. Got to get rested up for the next adventure, whatever it is.
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