We had some very vague plans to do something today but were unable to muster up enough energy to go anywhere. Instead, we made reservations for campgrounds for the remainder of our time in Virginia and some sites in Pennsylvania, the next state to be cursed with our presence. We also made some reservations for the 4th of July weekend in Maine since getting reservations anywhere on holiday weekends we have found to be problematic. Unfortunately, we were forced to drink more Guinness to assist us in our endeavors. It seems Guinness is very good for this kind of effort.

Started out the day with another trip to see Colonial Williamsburg since our $50 passes we bought the first day there are good through the end of the year. We initially went to the Governor’s Palace which is substantially more elegant than all the other buildings in town. It was only about 95 degrees and the humidity was only 92% so after visiting the palace we were able to find a great 17th century tavern, Chowning’s, that served very good flights of ale. After a bit of ale, we wandered around a bit more before chickening out due to tough environmental conditions. Williamsburg is pretty neat to see if you have any interest in history.
We then took another trip into the Jamestown area, including another pass down the 8 mile loop drive, before we headed across the free ferry operated by the Virginia Department of Transportation. It leaves the north side of the James River near Jamestown and drops you off on the south side of the river at a spot called Scotland.
We meandered around the south side of the river going first to Nathaniel Bacon’s Castle in a town called, surprisingly, Bacon’s Castle. The castle, formerly occupied by the arsonist Bacon, is an impressive brick, multi-story building with a number of outbuildings for farming stuff. From Bacon’s Castle we headed to a place called Chippoke Plantation which was not named for the tenants who went by the name of Powell or something. This plantation of some 1400 acres has operated continuously for some 400 years. The house is another large brick residence with abundant outbuildings, one of which housed some beautiful carriages. This was probably a very nice place to live but when we were there, we encountered some of the most aggressive biting flies we can remember. No amount of arm waving, spastic flailing or whirling could drive off these dedicated pests so after about 10 or 15 minutes we retreated to the nice air-conditioned refuge of Charlotte’s cab.
We gladly withdrew from this fly-infested hell and drove back to Scotland, crossed back to the north side of the river and headed home to drink some Guinness.

Back to exploring today. We drove Charlotte to a part of Colonial National Historical Park, specifically, Jamestown. They have a nice visitor center where they extracted $5 from each of us for Preservation Virginia. We have no idea what Preservation Virginia might be but we narrowed it down to two options: the state is collecting fees above the national park fees (which we avoided by using our National Park access pass) or Preservation Virginia is the name of the folks doing the archeological excavations in Jamestown township site. Since it rained while we were here, we did not go see whether any excavations were in progress, leaving us stumped on Preservation Virginia. Folks without the access pass get soaked for $14.
Beyond the tourist center is a very nice loop drive of 8 miles that takes you through Jamestown Island. This area was settled in 1609 or so and was burned to the ground by Nathaniel Bacon over a dispute regarding protection of settlers from those pesky Indians who pretty much got the short end of the stick after English whitey arrived. Most of the island is heavily wooded with deciduous hardwood trees with loads of animals sneaking about in the brush. We spotted 3 bald eagles in this part of the state.
From the park we drove up State Highway 5 which is also labeled the Colonial Parkway until we reached Shirley Plantation. On this drive we spotted a pretty big turtle hanging out in the middle of a gravel road and a big ground hog in addition to loads of birds. The flora near the roads here is gorgeous and seeing a bunch of animals only makes it better.
On the way back to the Invader we stopped in a town called West Point (not the one with a military academy) to engage in some mundane shopping for RV 12 volt light bulbs. During our trip back to the Invader from the light bulb store, we encountered a restaurant called Captain George’s which offered regular menu items or an enormous seafood buffet for $32. We both selected the buffet which ultimately left us almost painfully overstuffed on 3 kinds of fish, scallops, a couple versions of shrimp, fried oysters, Oysters Rockefeller, crab legs, clam chowder, chicken tortellini, prime rib and a bunch of other stuff I didn’t have space for before capping off with a variety of desserts including eclairs, chocolate chip cookies, baklava, and carrot cake. I am ashamed at how much of this food I was able to devour before I couldn’t. However, I have been able to recover from my remorse.

Peggy stayed up real late last night and did not rise until after 10 this morning. We ate a late breakfast, did our shower stuff and promptly sat down to take a day off from sightseeing since it is so strenuous. Sightseeing is right up there with drinking, reading and purchasing expensive meals for pure calorie expenditure and we sort of elected to loaf around and watch cable TV instead. It is very trying but we were able to tough it out.
It did rain a bit today but not enough to make us change our minds about doing nothing.

Today we drove down the lumpy paving of I-64 to Newport News, VA, to visit the Mariner’s Museum, a maritime museum with a bunch of great exhibits. We initially paid them $14 a head to get in and wandered into a large section of the museum that dealt exclusively with the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia which most folks call the Merrimack. The USS Merrimack was salvaged by the Confederates after the shipyard at Newport News was burned by retreating Union forces at the beginning of the Civil War. The partially destroyed Merrimack was re-outfitted as the ironclad CSS Virginia and was shortly thereafter involved in the first battle of ironclads which ended in a decisive draw.
The Virginia / Monitor exhibit is extensive and we were beginning to think that the museum should be called the Monitor / Virginia place when we arrived back in the lobby and found out we had only seen a little fraction of the facility. The place also has a great variety of sailing ship bowsprit art, model ships, a small craft museum with real boats, a section on submarines, cannons, mortars, reconstructions of parts of sailing vessels, lots of biographical material about seagoing types, maritime instruments for timekeeping and navigation, a life-size reconstruction of the USS Monitor, reconstructions of the Monitor’s turret and the actual turret that they recovered off Hampton Roads, VA, which is still in an enormous conservation water tank until it quits exuding salt.
After wandering about in the museum until our feet bellowed for relief, we departed and drove to Yorktown. At this location you can see all the old earthworks for the protection of guns and soldiers for both the British and the U.S. sides in the Battle of Yorktown. Yorktown was where George Washington and the Continental Army surrounded the British and their commander, Cornwallis. Once surrounded by artillery, even the Brits knew they were screwed since there were Continental guns on most sides of their garrison and the York River at their backs. It did not take long for them to bail out, having the British Navy pick them up and take them back to the U.K. We won and they lost. It is probably fortunate that we won here since the Continental Army was much harried during the war and had Cornwallis not gathered all his forces here to be driven into the sea and the war continued, the result could have been quite different. If it had been different, we might still be eating crummy food and driving on the wrong side of the road.
We decided to splurge on a meal in a seafood restaurant on the way home but, as usual, the place we selected to eat was closed so we went back to the Invader and had good food.

Culture day for the uncultured. We hopped in Charlotte and drove to the Visitor Center parking lot at Colonial Williamsburg, a carefully reconstructed likeness of original Williamsburg. We started the day in the facility museum which had a great variety of museum stuff. There is a bunch of art, primarily portraits of rich folks that were pivotal in W’burg’s early history. They also have an enormous colonial furniture collection, lots of china and glass, a bunch of old weather vanes, a reconstructed mental institution where is is evident that loony care was horribly bleak, Paul Revere’s silver works and a load of old handmade quilts which Peggy really enjoyed.
After spending a few hours in the museum, we strolled down one side of the main drag of W’burg, taking in the colonial armament magazine, magnificent horse-drawn carriages, a stop for beer and a cookie apparently from 1619, some shops, an armory facility and ending up at the Capitol building. One side of the building is where the colonial House of Burgesses met to legislate and the other side was the crown’s side where the laws that were contrary to British interests were rejected upstairs and downstairs was the big court of that era. Only really nasty crimes like armed robbery, rape and murder were adjudicated here with minor crimes being handled at the lower county courts. The building is a beautiful brick structure with allegedly four brick-thick walls, oval and circular decorative windows and, fortunately, air conditioning because is was pretty warm today.
This place requires substantial amounts of walking since motor vehicles are not allowed inside W’burg during the daytime. The rather stiff multi-day entrance fee of $50 covers all the museums and exhibits but not actual admission to the area which is quite scenic. However, without access to the exhibits, the place just wouldn’t be the same. After putting in our 5 or 6 hours on our feet, we retreated to the Invader to loaf for the remainder of the day.

Today we reluctantly departed NC and drove to Williamsburg TT near Williamsburg, VA. The scenery from the road is wonderful which almost makes you ignore the absolutely horrible highway paving in Virginia, at least on I-95 and I-64, the two highways we took to get here. It would seem that their Department of Transportation has mandated that all lanes of their highways should be as lumpy as possible utilizing terrible patchwork, cavernous and yawning potholes the size of wheelbarrow tubs, uneven lane surfaces and bridge approaches that seemingly were mined but unrepaired after detonation of the explosive charges. At least it was not raining which would have partially concealed the myriad hazards under poorly directed drainage. Perhaps the state has a deal with technicians that engage in wheel alignment services.
Regardless of the crummy roads, the place is quite beautiful. The Williamsburg TT park is a bit crowded but the spaces are almost all pull-thru types and easily accessible by competent drivers, a classification which does not apply to me. We have nice neighbors and the facility has ample amenities for trailer trash like us.
It was a pretty harrowing drive for us to get here so we loafed for the rest of the day once we were set up in the camp spot.

Uh-oh. Laundry day. I drove Peg to the facility’s laundry and walked back to the Invader where I did some simple maintenance while Peg was sweet enough to carry out the miserable clothes washing duties. Very little other elective activities today other than some very pleasant napping.

Today was a trip of exploration but there was not too much to discover. We started by driving back down the road to Henderson, NC, to pick up another water pressure regulator to replace the unit that the world’s smartest living person, me, had left firmly attached to the spigot back in Advance. What a bozo.
Our drive took us on about a 90 mile loop through northern NC and a little bit of southern VA. Although there is nothing here to get excited about other than Lake Gaston, the drive was spectacular anyway. The foliage is putting on a show that people like me who have lived in the drought-plagued west would find exquisite. There are trees and shrubs that are flowering almost wherever you look interspersed with small farms with emerald green crops just coming out of the soil. The roads are a bit narrow but that probably just keeps the tourists at bay.

We departed Forest Lake campground and Advance and cruised east to another TT campground in Littleton, NC, called Lake Gaston. This campground is right on a very large lake with some neat lakefront private residences around it. The lake has some tiny little wooded islands that look great from the campground but since we are not equipped with a boat we are out of luck on island exploration. No Tom Sawyer stuff for us.
The camp spots are quite a bit more spread out than in the Forest Lake campground and we pulled into a nice spot within view of the lake. There is easy access to a beach, great camp spots in a mature pine forest, nice docks and piers, a store, a pretty good sized library in the lodge and a good laundry. Peg and I took a nice walk along the lake and found a good bench to sit on the shore and watch the sun go down. It is quite beautiful here.