We Finally Did Something

 Yes, after two weeks of sitting on our butts we finally got up and went to see some of the sights here in Tidewater Virginia. But first, I just wanted to note how excited we were to read that the Olympic torch was lit yesterday at Olympia, Greece, in preparation for the Paris Olympics. Those of you who loyally follow us will remember we were THERE just a month ago, standing at the very spot where they light the torch. I think it bears saying once again, what we've been doing is SO COOL!

  Now back to the present. We're in a wonderful spot here on Healy Creek. The house is beautiful and the setting is incredibly scenic and, yes, the cats are still head cases but they're getting used to us. Midnight slept on our bed a couple of nights ago and is hanging around us in the mornings, so she's becoming friendly. I can't say the same for Maisey as she still hisses at us unless we have "kitty crack" in hand.

  Now, before you go calling the ASPCA on us, the cats both get really excited for Purina Cat Chow like it's some kind of exotic delicacy. The owners don't like to give them much of it, preferring that gross wet food that smells like... cat food. Anyway, Maisey whines whenever we're in the kitchen, expecting treats. We feed her the gross stuff she's supposed to like but, unless we throw some "crack" in it, she just turns her nose up at it and walks away. Cats.

  Speaking of animals, our little spot here is rife with wildlife. Deer graze around the edges of the property.

Lizards hang out on the front step.

Like our digs in Minnesota last summer, hummingbirds are in abundance here.

  There's also what we think is, a very weird sounding frog. Penny sent a recording of it off to David for identification and here's what he said:

"Could be Fowler's Toad. It sounds lower and more nasally than the American Toad trill and the habitat fits. Good find. They are at the extreme northern range in Ontario at Long Point so we don't encounter them much."

  Did you get that? All I got was "Good find". I'm glad David went off to school and learned this sort of stuff so we don't sit here wondering if there's some kind of weird, noisy alligator living under our deck, or Bigfoot, settling down for the night after eating some of the oysters under our dock.

  We did manage to get out for some golf last week but the course we played had just aerated their greens. For those of you who aren't up on greenskeeping, "aerating" is the act of poking holes in the ground to allow air to get at the grass roots. Golf courses use a machine that pulls quarter-inch diameter cores out of the greens and then they fill the holes with sand. In a couple of weeks the green is good as new but, until then, it's like putting on a sidewalk... and it was. As a result, golf was less enjoyable that it could have been. On to other things.

  Remember when we went to Cyprus and I checked the weather for Paphos and figured it would be warm and then it wasn't? Same here. When we arrived we were told this spring's weather has been unusually shitty. It's not January in Edmonton but we were expecting temps in the low 20's and it's taken until yesterday to achieve that, thus it was time for us to get out and about... or as Canadians are supposed to say, "oot and aboot" (that's for any Australians in the audience).

  Yesterday was hot, around 32C, so we grabbed our water bottles and sunglasses and ventured forth in search of historical significance. I checked all the Internet sources I use to figure out what's worth seeing in an area and decided Yorktown and Jamestown were worthy targets of our wanderlust, so off we set.

  As you all remember, we use Atlas Obscura to help us find weird and interesting sights. It wasn't much use in Cyprus and Greece as it kept pointing us at legitimately historical things. There were no giant gods on sticks, no Zorba The Greeks made of old tennis balls, no weird places where aliens were reputed to have stopped for souvlaki. We had to make do with actual, legit history.

  Back in the States we know the ol' Atlas will be a potent weapon in the battle against boredom and mediocrity. Not here. It seems it's great in places where there's nothing interesting to see, like Oklahoma or Kansas. Once there's interesting stuff, forget it. Instead, we were forced to come up with our own interesting stuff, so here it is.

  Our first stop on the way to Yorktown was a place I spotted during a run to the local Walmart for groceries:

  Ok, I thought, this will be a good place to check out. I mean, "Fort Nonsense", right? Probably named for the famous Revolutionary War general Bartholomew "Nonsense" Tutwaddle after the famous Battle of Noseworthy where twelve Americans defeated seven hundred redcoats using nothing but a pile of rocks and a mousetrap. Right? Ok. I made that up. We stopped to check it out and, guess what? There's nothing there. It turns out the Confederates were going to build a fort there in 1863 and abandoned it so the locals christened it with the "Nonsense" moniker. Disappointing.

  Continuing towards our destination Atlas Obscura did point out something of note nearby, so we took a detour near Gloucester, towards the well-signposted Rosewell Plantation. We were assured this was worth a look as Thomas Jefferson was said to have penned an early version of the Declaration of Independence while staying there. Significant, right?

  Well, it turns out it's only open on weekends.

  Now, this place is really closed. They might as well have posted signs reading, "Piss off and Go Away! This means YOU!". They even had a barbed wire fence to keep us out. It's a ruin for God's sake! We climbed all over ruins in Greece that were three thousand years old. What did these people think we were going to do with their measly three hundred year old ruin? Anyway, here's what we could see without breaking out the wire cutters and making like we were in a bad remake of The Great Escape:

  Like I said, ruins. Nice trees though. We should have turned around right there and then as it was a sign of things to come. But no. Intrepid explorers that we are we decided to push on in search of more historical edification. And, sure enough, it didn't take long for us to find something extraordinary:

  Well, if they had an extra sign lying around it would have been more impressive. Just the same, this is no ordinary place. Not far from here is a pretty good BBQ joint and a really good ice cream spot. Not ordinary at all. Nor this:

  I've always said those Two Men and a Truck movers are liars because they always send three men when we hire them to move us. At least these guys are trying to be honest.

  Continuing on our trek it didn't take long to reach Surrender Field near Yorktown, site of the last major battle of the Revolutionary War in 1781. This is where British General Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington, triggering negotiations which led to the Treaty of Paris two years later and independence from Great Britain. A more iconic site in the United States would be hard to find, right? We followed a sign directing us to a tour road that would take us around the site, expecting the kind of detail and presentation we'd seen a couple of years ago while touring Antietam and other Civil War battlefields in Maryland.

  Now maybe we're a bit jaded after Greece. We know there's little remaining evidence of early European history in North America because they built everything out of the readily available wood and wood rots. No marble here. But this is an iconic site right? There's tons of documentary evidence describing exactly what happened here and when and who did it, like with the Civil War battlefields, right? Wrong. We saw the odd signpost that would indicate this spot is where Washington's adjutant cut his hair or this other spot is where the mechanic that fixed the broken cannons did his work or this spot is where some guys made camp and slept.

  The most impressive display was this "Washington slept here" board:

  Yeah. Tents. The house in the picture was nowhere to be seen. We drove around the rest of the tour road for another twenty minutes but didn't encounter anything that was remotely interesting so we went in search of the actual Surrender Field and its Visitor Center. We expected to see a museum there displaying various bits of war detritus like musket balls and soldier hats and lots of flashy movie displays and annual re-enactments on the schedule, right? Wrong. There's a little open air viewing platform giving out onto the field:

  There's a display of cannons that were captured and stamped with "SURRENDERED" and other "you lost, nyah nyah nyah" stuff on them.

  Otherwise, nothing. Just a field. By the way, have a close look at this cannon. You'll notice all kinds of royal-like inscriptions, fancy handles and engraving, etc. It's a cannon guys. It seems kind of weird the British would put so much effort into making their cannons look nice.

British soldier: "Hey Yankee, look at how nice our cannons look. They're shiny and have a crown on them and lots of fancy writing. We do that because we're bigger and stronger than you and we're going to deliver a beatdown on you if you want to fight us."

American soldier: "Hold my beer."

Perhaps the British could have put the same kind of effort into training their generals. Just sayin'.

  So, it was starting to look like the locked up ruins of the Rosewell Plantation would be the highlight of our day, but we pushed on, nevertheless. Our next stop was Jamestown, or "Jamestowne" as the early colonists spelled it, because they loved putting unnecessary "e"'s on the end of everything. If you don't know, Jamestown(with an "e" on the end) is where the first British settlement in North America was established in 1607 and is considered to be the place where America was born. It's most famous residents, John Smith and Pocahantas, can be found frolicking in a Disney flick somewhere. Thus is the state of American history in the twenty-first century.

  We arrived at the Jamestown (with an "e" on the end) Settlement and were greeted with the kind of Visitor Center we expected to find at Surrender Field. Lots of exhibits of artifacts dug up by archaeologists and history things and a movie and a gift shop. It's all run by the National Parks Service, the people who bring you the same impressive sites like those we visited last year, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest and the like. We flashed our handy annual parks pass to get in free and set off to explore the ruins and see all the history stuff.

  I should stop here. That's not exactly what happened. We did flash the pass and did get in free but we were told that only got us admission to the New Towne (see?). It would cost an additional $15 each if we wanted to see Old Towne (yep) as it's not run by NPS. Apparently it's on land that's owned by a private concern called Preservation Virginia and, until recently, they bundled both sites together under one, much cheaper, ticket. Unfortunately, as the docent told us, the two groups are not currently "getting along" so NPS ticket holders aren't welcome in Old Towne unless they pay extra. We decided against it. I mean, there must be more than enough history to go around, right?

  Wrong again. There's nothing there. A few bits of brick foundation. A broken down eighteenth century mansion that was obviously not built in accordance with the building code. Oh, and a mini Washington Monument. Well, it's the Tercentennial Monument, built in 1907 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the settlement, but it does bear a striking resemblance to the big one in DC. According to the documentation it was built for $50,000 which isn't much for a monument, so here's what I'm thinking...

  It's 1906 and the local historical society wants to do something to show people they're on the job. 1907's coming up and they need a monument they can rally around, get their names in the local paper, get some famous rich white guy to make a speech at its unveiling... that kind of thing. One of them says they like that Washington Monument thingie they got up there in DC and he knows a guy that knows a guy and they should build one. Of course, the one in DC is rather large and they only want something about 50 feet tall so they buy a copy of the plans and get their guy to build a scale model. Much cheaper. It was also completed on time, rare for government work. Now that's just my take on it but I'll bet the real history isn't far off.

  That was it. Nothing else to see, except for a fence and a big Preservation Virginia banner draped over it and a lot of interesting stuff behind it. By then we were hot, tired and pissed so they weren't getting our fifteen bucks to see what we should have been able to see with our parks pass if those jerks would just talk to each other. So we left.

  On our way out we came to the Glasshouse. No, it's not made of glass and no, they don't throw stones there. This was a replica of the place where they made glass for windows... and other glassy things. This must be worth a look, we thought, so we did. Well, they make glass there the old way, using a big stone furnace. Except it's powered by natural gas and can make glass overnight as opposed to the old-fashioned way that uses hardwood for fuel and takes two weeks to make glass. Otherwise, it's the same. It's even built out of wood. With a 2,400 degree furnace inside. Wood. Hmmm. I was sure this didn't meet fire code.

  Sure enough, after watching a guy make glassy things for a few minutes we wandered around to see the ruins of the original glasshouse and read a sign proclaiming that the new Glasshouse was built after the previous one, built in 1974, burned down in 1976. Inside the display of the ruins is a picture of another replica glasshouse, circa 1957, also made of wood, also burned down. Somebody give these guys a course in physics.

  With that, we were done, We headed home with some unforgettable experiences... sort of. We also learned so many history things... sort of. Ok. We went home. I know that for sure. And we had BBQ and ice cream at Ordinary. The best part of the day.

Until next time.