vacation

The Williamsburg Inn

I went to Williamsburg for the first time this December. It is a little strange that I could live in VA for 25 years, visit Busch Gardens twice, and never visit Colonial Williamsburg. But I finally did at the suggestion of my wife on our way to visit my parents in NC.

The evening we arrived, they staged a lighting of the Taverns, which turned out to be a ceremony of sorts with fifes and drums, a volley of musket fire, and an announcer to describe the history behind each of the buildings illuminated by the glowing fires.

Musket fire during the Lighting of the Taverns.

Incidentally, I did not check to see if the guy in the middle still had his face.

I didn’t have too much to say about Williamsburg until I started going through the images again. Those Colonials must have led a miserable existence. These people didn’t even have centralized HVAC! We walked up and down Duke of Gloucester Street ( it’s pronounced “Glawster”, it is one of my pet peeves when people attempt to pronounce the –oucester or the -orcester in British words. Yes, Worcestershire Sauce, is pronounced “WOOS-ter-sher”…but I digress) and I had to marvel at how the town ever survived. Then I remembered that without the Native Americans' help, they wouldn't have. Nothing like paying back the good graces of those who ensured your existence as initiating mass genocide (actually, the first settlement, Jamestown, would never have been possible were it not for the benevolent native population, but once Jamestown was anchored, subsequent towns became possible). Happy Holidays!

Williamsburg is a swamp. Not so much nowadays with all the paving, but nonetheless, it’s a swamp. So the summers suck, and the winters are cold enough to suck, too. No big surprise to see, then that nearly every headstone in the historic church yard had January or February as the date of death. Catch Malaria in August, die in February. In fact there was a headstone that dated to the 17th C. Pretty cool. Not too often can you see things in the US that date back to 300 years ago. Santa Fe, NM is one of those places, of course…

But the charm of historic Virginia is still evident, be it the variety of wreaths on the doors, or the sheep in backyards of homes bathed in bright, raking winter sunlight under a blue sky. One thing I couldn’t figure out is why they paved over Duke of Gloucester St. I thought it would look and feel so much better as cobblestone. I suppose it’s inconvenient for the cars that do eventually get through to deliver goods to the shops.

You can drop a dime or two in the town, as it literally costs money to go into any building and should you dare to drink the horrid coffee served next to the Old Coffeehouse (they don't serve coffee except after the tour you take with them, and then it is a sample) is twice as expensive as Starbucks. But you can see fires lit, muskets shot and fifes and drums being played all in the setting of authentically restored 17th and 18th century buildings. There aren’t too many places to see that.

And speaking of awkward segues, you can’t see Santa too often, so when you do, you have to set up lights and be ready. After Williamsburg, we visited my parents in NC, and my dad dressed up as Santa to visit the neighbors’ grandchildren next door on Christmas Day.