Williamsburg & Thanksgiving

We just finished up 2 weeks at the Williamsburg Thousand Trails resort.  Although like any RV 'resort' all the RVs were piled on top of each other, the park was heavily wooded and implied a sense of privacy despite the closeness.  It was a great place to stay while we explored the area.

The staff at the park were friendly and we met some nice neighbors - including another Fleetwood owner who told us where we could find replacement switch plates for our lights on eBay.  

While we were in Williamsburg we visited the Yorktown Battlefield and Historic Jamestowne - free and almost free with our America the Beautiful pass.

We caught a ranger tour at the battlefield and learned a lot of neat stuff from the ranger.  It is absolutely amazing how many small things had to go right for Washington to defeat Cornwallis there...including a last minute retreat Cornwallis attempted that was foiled by a sudden tropical storm that sank many of his rowboats.  After the ranger tour we took the driving tour of the battlefield and were impressed at how expansive the camps were - without a car to go between them, it would have taken some serious effort to communicate between the American and French camps.

Sample cannons from the mostly cannon-driven fight.

Earthworks

Ranger tour

Redoubt

We self-guided at Jamestowne and didn't learn nearly as much there.  Still we enjoyed learning the history and viewing the recreated remains of the settlement.  It is interesting that most of the remains are subterranean now, and what you actually see is a recreation, so that the original structures remain protected underground.  The site is still an active archeological dig - they were working on the area around the church while we were there.

John Smith monument

Our final - and rainy day - activity was a tour and tasting at a meadery.  The reserve tasting at the Silver Hand Meadery included an overview of honey and mead making, a honey tasting, and a mead tasting.  Turns out I don't really like mead!  The different honeys they had were VERY tasty though.  The meads were quite creative and ranged from slightly sweet to slightly savory (we tried one that tasted a bit like rosemary!) - but none were sweet enough for my taste.  Still, overall lots of fun, our host was quite friendly & informative.

They showed us a sample wheel of potential honey flavors...zoom in close on that one and you'll be disgusted!  Fortunately we didn't try anything in the 'Animal' category.

We had a chance to have dinner with our college friend Heather and her son while we were in the area - it was great to catch up!

Once we were done in Williamsburg we headed to Springfield, VA to spend Thanksgiving week with my sister and her family.  My parents and aunt and uncle came to town as well.  It was a busy and fun week!

We didn't have a single problem with our refrigerator during this stop - hooray!  High hopes that that was indeed just some sort of freezing weather fluke.

We had a few more issues with the one furnace though.  It would try to start, blow the fan for a second, then quit.  Aaron took it apart and cleaned all the components and that kept it happy for a while, but it seemed a little flakey the last night, so we'll continue to keep an eye on that.  Pretty soon though we won't need it - we're finally heading south!  Next stop: Raleigh!