Travel days always present its own challenges, including who’s going to drive and what kind of wifi signal strength I am going to experience. On Day 7, we woke up early, skipped our usual walk and exercise in order to hit the road by 7am, and we made our way from Charlottesville to Williamsburg before 9am ET. This allowed me to do the majority of the driving before my work day began. I’m so blessed to have a wife who is willing to try new things, like driving a 32′ Class C RV while pulling our Honda Odyssey, making our total length around 55′. She is so adventurous and courageous, and it makes our life a lot of fun!
Williamsburg is the original capital of the Virginia colony, and it’s located right in between the original 1607 Jamestown settlement and the historic Yorktown battlefield of the American Revolutionary War. After finally grabbing some breakfast in the parking lot while I worked, we took an early lunch break by taking a quick tour of the archaeological work being done at the original site of Jamestown, a fortified city founded by Captain John Smith, who led a group of original settlers from England to establish the settlement and begin working with the local native Americans on trade. Not long ito the experiment, the original settlement burned down and most of the area would eventually become overgrown and/or eroded into the James River over time, and they moved the settlement to New Town, an area a quarter-of-a-mile to the East of the original location and further off the river. The archaeological efforts have been able to reveal where posts of original buildings once stood, artifacts from the early settlers like dishes & tools, and many other fascinating features of the colony. What really stood out was how beautiful the view was, and I tried to imagine the settlers enjoying being by a great resource like the James River.
The settlement included the original protestant church where Pocahontas and John Rolfe were married in 1614, bringing a peace treaty between Virginia and the Powhatan Indian tribe. And the church also held the gravesite of the first significant members of the colony to pass away, including the first pastor and the Captain of one of the ships that carried early settlers to the colony from England.
After our short stay at Jamestown, we ate lunch in the RV and headed over to Yorktown, where Tammy & the girls were able to see the battlefield where the Continental Army, led by young Alexander Hamilton, would defeat the British and accept General Cornwallis’ surrender. During their brief tour of the landmark, I made a few sales calls, answered emails and worked on some projects. Unfortunately, much of Yorktown was closed due to COVID, but they did get to see the battlefield and the beautiful view of the bay where the drama unfolded roughly 240 years ago! It’s hard to imagine this being the setting of an intense battle in the American Revolutionary War.
We left Yorktown towards the end of the afternoon, and I finished up work while Tammy drove us up to Pohick Bay Regional Park just outside of Lorton, Virginia, roughly 30 minutes souths of Washington D.C., where we would set-up camp for the next 10 days. However, when we arrived, the camping site they had for us was so tilted we were unable to level the RV, which means we wouldn’t be able to open our slideouts. I spent an hour in the office with one of the employees trying to figure out where to put us since the campground was scheduled to be full over the weekend. Without many options, we jumped into a vacant campsite for the night and figured we would deal with the situation in the morning when the camp manager returned to work.
It was a long day, but well worth the effort to see two historical locations in the beginning of what would eventually become the United States of America.
I decided to add a new feature to the blog, and that is a map of our trip as we go along. As you can see, we started in St. Louis, and we’ve made five stops so far. When the trip is all said and done, we will make 22 stops. Can anyone guess some of the other 17 stops we have left?
#bexcellentoday 