Today started with a fairly early morning getting the trailer cleaned and packed up and since it leaked the other night, Mark needed to do a little caulking across the top. We then headed out to Jamestown. If we haven't mentioned it yet, the national parks card ($80) totally pays for itself on a trip similar to this one at least twice over. Jamestown and Yorktown were both totally free because of the card. So we are intrenched in Mark's expertise and due to last nights thunderstorm, this was going to be a bit of a quick trip. He first took us to the glass blowing house. It was a lot of fun. We got to see glass blowers making some beer type mugs. Mark bought me a very nice little bud vase. The process is exactly the same as it was in the 1700's except for the kiln. Due to time and resources the kiln is electric and gas instead of wood. If they were to use wood then the glass would not be blown except for about five days a month. It takes that much time to cut the wood and build the fire and get them hot enough. The cool thing about this glass is because of the elements in the sand in the area the glass turns out green.
Glass blowers
After we visited the glass house, we headed towards Jamestown itself. We spent some time in the visitors center learning all sorts of things. After a short little walk out to the actual site we joined a ranger tour for a few minutes and learned interesting facts. Finally we spent some time on our own exploring. One very exciting thing for me was that Jamestown is an active archaeological dig site still. I teach a unit on archaeology and so I took lots of awesome pictures to share with my students.
Jamestown
It was time to go to Yorktown. We gathered ourselves into the van and headed that direction. Before we went into the visitor's center, we had a little car picnic for lunch. Once in the center we looked around at the museum and decided on a driving tour of the area. It was cooler than a walking tour. We basically stayed in the car except at the redoubts which were very interesting. It is really awesome to be on this trip with Mark. Being a social studies teacher teaching US History has given all of us a wealth of extra information. I would not have really understood the importance of the redoubts if it weren't for him.
Redoubt number 9 taken by the French.
Plaque commemorating French sacrifice during Revolutionary War.
Redoubt number 10 taken by Americans.
Plaque commemorating Americans taking redoubt number 10.
Can't wait to see DC!!!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Jamestown, Yorktown and on to DC
Looks like you could have spent more time there but you must 'look and push' as Dan would say on our trip. Mindy, love your post about Jamestown and Yorktown. Thanks so much for taking the time to post. I wish I would have written more about our trip. I have forgotten so much.
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