Mark’s Notes On The Go

Wow, it’s quiet tonight; I mean needle-hit-the-floor-and-echoes quiet. I didn’t realize the level of noise here until tonight. You see, the same day I arrived here, a bus load of high school students descended as well. Every room around me was filled with them. They were failry well-behaved, but it’s still a lot of kids, so the noise levels were there. Luckily, I’m someone who can sleep in a hostel with minimal disturbance, so it was never a factor.

Anyway, I woke up this morning to the sound of the diesel engine on their bus idling outside as they loaded up. So, having an early start, I decided to drive myself to Jamestowne. I’m actually quite glad I went that route, as the Colonial Parkway has all these little stops you can make and look at the James River, etc. There’s also a loop around the bottom of Jamestowne Island that I would have missed on the shuttle down there.

First a word to anyone thinking of visiting Jamestown right now. If you’re into history at all, it’s an excellent place to visit. But you might want to wait a year or so. Next May is the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestowne colony, the first permanent English settlement in North America. As such, the place is one big “Pardon Our Progress” poster as they prepare the place for the big to-do next year. If you wait until either 2007 (or after if you want to avoid the major rush), you’ll get brand spanking new facilities and interpretations and such on your visit. I’m sure I’ll come back eventually just to see what results from it.

The interesting thing about Jamestowne turns out to be that even here there’s frightfully little original left. The church tower is later 17th century and maybe one other building. If you survey the scene at Historic Jamestowne (the acutal site of the original fort and town), you see lots of brick foundations and the like, but you soon discover that the archeaologists excavated what was there, recorded it, and then reburied it. Most of what’s above soil is a recreation of the ruins below! So, that’s kind of ironic! But it’s still really something to stand there and imagine being on a boat for 5 months before finally landing in a new world that you have no clue how to survive in. My ancestor who was there arrived in 1619, so still considered part of the original colony, but nonetheless, he and his wife, my 10 greats grandparents, at least had a small trial blaed for them by the time they arrived. But I digress…

The original settlement was on an what was then an isthmus. The site was abandoned at the close of the 1600’s when, according to one version I read, the water source went bad. The land slowly eroded into an island, and for many years, it was believed the original site itself had been lost to the James River currents. But in the 20th century, it was recognized that the majority of the site was intact and the government sat about preserving the site and began to dig. You can still today see Archealogists at work and talk with them. Today they were digging up an older well - they thought perhaps the first well in the Fort. From what they said, wells frequently went bad or dried up and new ones were dug. The old one would then become a convenient trash pit, which is what makes them appealing to archaelogists. Not only can they find the components of the well, but the bits and pieces of refuse from everyday life. There was a BBC film crew there today. Not, mind you, that I’ll be on TV, but if you see a science piece on a well at Jamestown, I was there!

Completing that tour, it was nearly 2pm, so I headed over to the Jamestowne settlement. I was a bit afraid it would be Disney meets history. And in some respects it is, but it’s still quite fun, and I think an excellent way to introduce kids to history. They have recreations of all three of the original ships that brought the Jamestowne Colony to Virginia. The Godspeed and Discovery aren’t that big but still fun. The susan Constant, however, is great fun to tour. They also have a recreation of the original fort and a Powhatan village. My one nit is that all the Indians are pale faces in buckskin, but I guess this is where I have to use my imagination. I will give them an unusual kudo in their committment to being accurate. They have a recreation of the first Anglican church in Jamestown within the fort. It turns out that recent digging at the original site shows that they have the location of this church wrong. Seems you could just point that out to people and leave it be? Nope, not here. The guide said they were rebuilding the whole thing… ouch… at this point, the foundation is on the correct site. Wasn’t sure if they were rebuilding it entirely or just moving it. Either way, that’s committment.

It was after 6pm when I got back in. I grabbed lunch/dinner and came back to the room for a bit before heading out for some photos of sunset on the Colonial highway. The sunset itself wasn’t all that spectacular, but the light was great and I think I got some nice ones. We’ll see. Then on to Williamsburg for tonight’s “tour.” I use the term loosely as it was the re-enactment of witch trial in 1705. There were only three of us in the group of 60ish people that weren’t part of a school group. It was still fun, though. As first there, I got to sit up by the Royal Governor during the trial. The lot of the actors were great. It really was at times almost as if you had landed in a court from pre-revolutionary Virginia. As it was, she was found not guilty, which surprised me. It was based on a real trial, but the original outcome is lost due to a fire in Richmond during the civil war. It’s presumed she was found innocent as her will is from 30+ years after the trial.

Tonight, I took the bus from the Visitors center into the historic area and back. So, a little rest on the tired feet. The funny part is I must have been the LAST tourist out of the town. I was the ONLY car in the HUGE parking lot when the bus rolled in, and I was the lone person on the bus aside from the driver. Not quite as good as getting chased out of Herculaneum, but close. I think I’ve closed another historic attraction!

Tomorrow is partially Yorktown battlefield and a wrap up on Williamsburg. Friday I check out and head south. I have to decide what I’m doing then. I had thought to go to Richmond to the museum there as a rifle that’s been in the family since Dr. Woodson in the early 1600’s is on display there. The thing is, I got a response from a curator that leads me to believe: A) There’s little left original on the weapon, and B) there’s some doubt that any of the gun truly dates from when family history says it did…. hmmm… The other option is a visit to Flowerdew Hundred, the land that they lived on after their arrival in Jamestowne. Not in the same direction, so I need to decide shortly… hmmm…

Exhaustion has definitely set in, but it’s a happy exhaustion.

I woke up ahead of my alarm this morning so got an early start. I was in Williamsburg before everything opened, so the beginning of the day was peaceful, before the masses descended.

I had a 10am tour that, as luck had it, was lightly attended. The guide and I got to talk a half hour while we waited to see if ANYONE else at all would arrive. Turns out he had been visiting family in Buford, Georgia just yesterday and had driven all the way back yesterday… My sympathy… When the tour started, it was just me. But about 5 minutes in, a trio of ladies from New Jersey, who were just a tad my Mom’s senior showed up. They said they had come to Williamsburg on their Senior trip and had continued to come back together over the years. The group was so small they had passed me and the guide looking for the group earlier.

It was a shame more people didn’t show, but we had a great tour of the artifacts that have been uncovered during excavations at Williamsburg. We also got a lot of the history of those excavations and how they’ve changed over the years. Now, the practice is to dig in parallel pits leaving much of the site undisturbed in case future archeaolgists have more sophisticated methods so that they can uncover more of the past with less destruction that we do now. The minutia of their jobs is astounding. From pottery shards to the silica contained in plant cells, they catalog everything they find at a site. Being a private, non-profit deal, the digging ebbs and flows, but if what we saw is a sample, as they said it was, then there’s a wealth of history in that warehouse.

That tour ended, I decided it was time to take lunch. If I thought Biltmore was bad… Lunch was $20… Granted, $10 of that was for a plastic tanyard that I can get refilled for free as long as I’m here… The dark side of this is that I’m at yet another Pepsi only location. Still, I more than got my money’s worth of Pepsi products just today. I’m sure they make out like a bandit off some people, but there are those of us getting our money’s worth of liquid refreshments… I had a grilled chicken sandwich in one of the taverns. I would have also had the bread pudding had I any cash left… Maybe tomorrow or Thursday. My grandmother made a dish that she called the same and it looked like hers. Actually, she made it for me exactly one time. She was in a memory lane mood and she loved to bake, so she made it for me because she remembered her mother and grandmother making it. So, it appears to be an old dish. Thanks to my Uncle, I have her recipe, but I’ve never had the heart (yet) to try making it.

I also had an afternoon tour, which was called “Bits and Bridles” - a horse teamed tour which the lady at the ticket office yesterday recommended. It was actually quite good and went beyond horses into the animal sciences group at Williamsburg, who are working on saving a number of “rare breeds.” Not limited to just colonial animals, mind you, they also are working to preserve animals such as plow horses who have been on the decline since the mechanization of farms in the 1930’s. I now know more about horse shoes than I ever thought I would. I wouldn’t count on me remembering a lot of it in a few days…

In amongst all this, I visited some of the colonial buildings. One guide today said that 80% of the buildings are recreations. The part I want to know is more about which ones aren’t. While the recreations are fantastic, I want to get a chance to see the ones that are authentic. I visited the storehouse where the gunpowder that sparked the revolution was stored. That is, authentic. I also visited the parish church, which is authentic to 1715. It’s really something to sit on pews that Jefferson, Washington, etc. had sat on. And the baptismal font in the church was moved there from Jamestown, so there’s a chance my Woodson ancestors had been in contact with it.

Even though it was a recreation, I visited the Governor’s palace, which is really amazing. It’s life began as a place for the royal governor. It later was home of the first two Governor’s of Virginia (Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson), but it’s life ended as a make-shift hospital in a fire in 1781, after the removal of the capitol to Richmond. There are a lot of authentic to the era pieces inside and the items that aren’t were often made by companies still in existence today that made furnishings for the Governor’s palace in the 18th century. As the tour completed, we had just a few minutes to tour the gardens before closing, so I will have to go back again. Really beautiful.

After all this, I broke for awhile and came back here for dinner and a little rest for the feet. I had a ghost tour at 8:30pm, so it was nice for some down time. I didn’t walk back from here. I had a few groceries to pick up. The neat part of my hotel room (and there aren’t many) is the fridge and microwave so that I don’t have to eat take-out constantly. So, provisions taken care of, I decided to drive to the Welcome center and try that approach. I had yet to walk from that direction. It was at least as long a walk as from the hotel. Maybe longer… But nice as there were buildings I had not yet seen in that direction. However, I’m glad there are buses running back because after the ghost stories, I wouldn’t have relished the dark walk back on that winding, woodsy path…

The ghost stories were just great. They were all period stories, which regardless of truth, were stories that were told in the day when Colonial Williamsburg was one of, if not the most, important cities in Colonial America (can you tell I’ve been feed propoganda all day?). Each were told inside authentic Colonial homes by candle light! Wheee! One had some familiar family names but I’ll have to check my notes at home to see if there’s a connection or not. Not uncommon names, so it could be merely a coincidence, but I’ll cross check it eventually.

I’m spent, but tomorrow is another day. I plan (hopefully) to get an early start so that I can drive over to the welcome center and hop the bus to Jamestown. There are two attractions there, one is the actual site of Jamestown where the first settlement was back in 1607. My Ancestors, Dr. John Woodson and wife, Sarah, landed there some years later in 1619, but that’s the draw for me outside of the history of the place itself. The other attraction is a recreation, somewhat like Williamsburg, of life in the original settlement. Unlike Williamsburg, the recreation isn’t on the actual site. I like that in some ways since when you visit the original site of Jamestown, what you see left is genuine, and you can watch the archaeolgists dig. When you visit the other site, you know it’s entirely a recreation. Not a bad thing, mind you.

Random fact learned today. In colonial times, the maximum distance a person could travel in a day was 70 miles. The max, mind you, was less than most of us drive on a wide open interstate highway in an hour… Remember, this is before rail travel. People traveled by boat or horse.

Oh dear, that’s a long drive. Don’t let anyone kid you, it’s a really long drive.

The beginning was interesting. I-40 coming out of Asheville is a lot more winding and downhill than I’m used to. You know the road is mountainous when there are signs instructing trucks that they can use the shoulder to cool their brakes. They also had a 35mph limit on them. And the absolute best was the ramps for out of control trucks…. uhm… I saw enough of those to make me think that they must be for a reason… They amounted to a lot of small dirt hills leading to a large one… One would assume the small bumps were to slow the truck and the last big one was the final stop… brrr….

And here’s a random observation, you know you’re not in Georgia anymore when all the rest stops have ONLY Pepsi products. I stopped at two stops in North Carolina and one in Virginia…. nothing but Pepsi… bleh… Oh well, when you’re desperate, you’re getting what they sell… well, at two of three stops anyway…

I’m going to have to examine the maps a bit before I leave, especially once I settle on where I’m stopping over on my way back. I followed the AAA map that I got before leaving and once I got off I-95, I figured I must be close… oh, try at least 30 miles away… I mean, the scenery was beautiful, a very rural way in, but after 7 hours on the road, staring at the map constantly and watching for the next turn was absolutely no fun. Maybe if you had a co-pilot, but solo, I think there has to be a perhaps longer but more interstate oriented route out of here…. I hope…

Speaking of solo, I had expected to pick up a friend from deviant art on the way up, but he had to back out because things came up to keep him in Charlotte. I had planned this trip solo anyway, but it would have been nice to have had some company on that long tedious drive, let me tell you. Maybe another time.

Once here, I checked into the hotel and then headed over to the Welcome center to get my tickets. I’m paid up for my whole stay in Williamsburg for entry to the colonial village and to Jamestowne and Yorktown. That also includes the shuttle buses to those attractions. After that drive, I think I’m going to let someone else do the driving for the next few days. I’m more or less in walking distance of the village. I walk at a good pace and it’s about 10 minutes away.

I also booked a couple of tours and some evening activities in the village. It’s kind of nuts how busy they are. I had thought to be a little less schedule oriented here, but the lady at the counter advised against that. In fact, as I went through the schedule of things I wanted to do, for three of the four, I snagged the last spots on those tours… yoiks! So, looks like all day tomorrow is Colonial Williamsburg, I have a tour at 10am and another in the afternoon and one more that night. Wednesday is probably all day at Jamestowne. And then Thursday is probably part day here and part day in Yorktown.

Williamsburg was already pretty much shut down when I got the tickets done and drove back over here. But I tested out the walk and got some evening shots of the village. Beautiful warm light. When I have the energy to actually go through these shots….

So, back here, grabbed some dinner, and now it’s time for TV and bed…

Aren’t I exciting as all get out?

Okay, if you’re ever planning a trip to Asheville and you really want to see the place (and I recommend it), allow yourself a few days at least. I really only had one full day. If I had hit the road super early yesterday and not dawdled, I could have had a day and a half. It’s not enough. I got to see some of downtown yesterday, as I already reported on. But today was devoted to Biltmore Estate.

I arrived shortly after opening and got my tickets. I ended up shelling out the $45 for the entrance plus an audio guide (the audio guide was only $3 extra….). There were no tours of the house proper today, but all the side tours were on. They had garden tours, motor coach tours of the property, and various tours behind the ropes of the house. Continuing my climb to the top of all large structures pattern, I chose to take the roof top tour. You saw that coming, right? Okay, it wasn’t nearly as strenuous as Climbing either St. Paul’s or St. Peter’s Cathedrals, but it was a lot of fun.

Despite the fact they were expecting in excess of 5,000 people today at Biltmore Estate, I was one of only three people on our tour. So, we had lots of time for questions and I think we got a little more out of our tour than most. The guide was awesome and told us a lot of tidbits about the house. The rooftop tour isn’t just of the roof, as it includes various rooms and corridors otherwise off limits.

That tour complete, I had yet to take the proper self-guided tour of the home. I had wandered around the outside a bit before the roof tour, but the estate was doing “timed entry” today to try to control the crowds, so I hadn’t been able to go in before hand. It was about 11:30am at this point, so parched and a bit hungry, I decided to go pay $10 for a coke and a sandwich. Oh well, at least it was a healthy sandwich…

The audio guided tour of the house was probably in excess of two hours. I mean, I got my money’s worth. I went in every room and I listened to every audio commentary there was for that room. And the house is just amazing. Well ahead of it’s time, a home from the late 1800’s with electricity and plumbing (43 bathrooms when hardly anyone of the day had one), and it’s original. And the grandeur…. Wow, when I saw the banqueting hall, it was like deja vue. I could have been back in any English castle I’ve visited before. And the victoriana is evident everywhere you look. Ornate moldings, elaborate carving, gargoyles and grotesques (and I’ve been trying hard to remember where in England I last saw examples like those). It really was a feast for the eyes if a bit unforgiving for the feet.

After leaving the house, I wandered through the gift shop for a bit and then began to tour the gardens…. yes, more walking…. and more… and more… And I never saw them all. I tried, believe me, I tried. If one lived near here and likes gardens, that alone would pay for the $80 or so it costs to be a season pass holder. I mean, this is a garden designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, the father of American landscape architecture and the designer of Central Park in New York. While the greenhouses and formal gardens were just stunning, it was the woodland gardens (still Olmstead) that really spoke to me. I so wished I had been here to see that Azalea garden in bloom!

I walked the gardens for about three hours before dragging my sad feet back to the house to catch a bus back to the parking lot. Driving out, I passed all the other attractions I failed to get to, the winery, the farm, and the other garden paths. Nevermind Biltmore Village that I drove through but never got to see on foot.

It was just a side trip for me. The real goal is Jamestowne area of Virginia, but now I think I may have to come back here some day and allow myself a few days. There’s so much more here. Art museums, a nightly ghost walk (that my feet would shoot me for, nevermind that it’s now raining), ,galleries, parks, the mountains, etc., etc. And this is just what I discovered in the day and a half I’ve been here.

And tomorrow morning, I head on to Colonial Williamsburg and the next stop on my trip. I had thought about going to see X-Men III tonight or maybe Why We Fight at the art theater downtown. But I’m just exhausted. Between being on my feet for most of the day and the oppressive heat (which according to the guide at Biltmore is unusual), I don’t have the energy to get back out or be up late. I want an early start in the morning.

Hate to think how hot it is at home right now. The heat here feels like what I left… But the real killer for me is something that is in bloom here that we either don’t have or has already passed bloom at home. My allergies have been havoc since last night. Watery red eyes and all. Luckily I packed the allergy pills!

Oh, and I posted a really random snapshot from yesterday for any who want to check it out.

Not a ton to report from the first leg of the journey.

Got an early start this morning (for me), leaving Alpharetta around 8am.

The stretch to Greenville got pretty monotonous. Shift right to pass, shift back left, shift right again… joy…. There’s not much of visual interest once you pass the lakes as the Georgia border.

But in Greenville, the path AAA had plotted out leads to a bit more scenic roads, mostly not interstates. Mountains started blossoming around me, but soon it was pretty much the same sort of road. And making good time, I decided I should take a side trip. I saw a sign that said “Bat Cave” - cool, I’ve never visited caves before, I thought. I figured that it was some sort of national park. About halfway there, the thought crossed my mind, what if it’s a place named Bat Cave?

Well, guess what… it is… But it was on a scenic byway, so it was worth it. However, I’m glad to see Georgia isn’t the only place where scenic byway means, “winding road of death with no place to pull over and linger on a view.” I saw the most beautiful mountain valley totally filled with yellow flowers of some description. It positively glowed, but there was nowhere to pull over and document the moment on “film.” Alas… I’ve come to realize that by and large, I’m a flat lander. I definitely don’t enjoy driving on roads that whip back and forth the way they do up here, or even just a tad north of Atlanta for that matter.

At any rate, before I sound like it’s a bad trip, it’s not. Asheville is beautiful. The downtown is practically overflowing with awesome old architecture, obviously influenced by the Vanderbilts. I’ve yet to see the estate itself, that’s on tomorrow’s agenda.

I got to the hotel around 2pm and got settled in. It’s probably about 15 minutes from downtown, near Biltmore Mall (if that’s the only mall here, it’s not saying much, I’m assuming there’s more elsewhere). Afterwards, I drove down the Blue Ridge Parkway for awhile. Not quite as curving as the stretch to Bat Cave at least! Scenic overlooks frequently and mountain tunnels which lead to an interesting discovery.

The tunnels have signs asking you to turn on your headlights… so, I attempt to… hmmm… nothing… weird… but the lights do flip on automatically as always (which is the only way I normally turn them on). The problem is, it takes half a tunnel for them to flip on…. After two tunnels like this, I pop open the fuse box at the first scenic overlook, and I find the one that’s supposed to be for the headlights… empty… I don’t mean blown, I mean, empty… So, I popped a spare into it… problem solved, but what, I’ve had this car since 2001 and never been able to operate the headlights manually if I wanted to? Strange! It’s not like I ever tried…

So, after meandering down the parkway for awhile, stopping periodically, I headed back into Asheville and went back to downtown, this time having time to park and wander since everything else was