The Williamsburg rain storms

Let's start by saying rainstorms in Williamsburg (and I venture the east coast in general) are not like our rainstorms in Hillsboro. The plan for today was to get up and head down to Williamsburg again to see all the reenactments and visit this shops and things we missed from yesterday. When we woke we were greeted with a lovely little downpour of rain. Everything Mark had read had a disclaimer that reenactments may be cancelled due to weather conditions. Ugh!!! So we decided to get head to Jamestown and Yorktown instead. As we were driving by the visitors center to Williamsburg, I suggested we just go ask and see if anything is cancelled. Thankfully nothing was cancelled at that moment and being from Oregon with webbed feet and all we figured we could handle a little rain. The rain slowly started to dwindle as the reenactments began and we are so glad we didn't skip it. We watched a family with only one son and the father having already passed have to make the tough decision of going to war for the cause. The continentals came into town recruiting.

We also saw a bit about what was happening in Saratoga.

Benedict Arnold seized Williamsburg.






An interesting show was how the African Americans (being pc here) had to make the decision to stay with what they new in slavery or take the risk of possibly being lied to and join up with the British and earn their freedom.


The last reenactment was General Washington galloping down the street proclaiming his victory in Yorktown over General Cornwallis.






It was quite fun to experience this and everyone stayed in character. We asked all sorts of questions and the people answered as if they were in the 18th Century. Ksenia asked about the stockings a gal was knitting and the conversation led to Christmas stockings, which was foreign to her. She explained what they did, but nothing to do with stockings being hung by the chimney with care . . .

To continue our adventures we visited the wigmaker . . . Very fascinating.






We saw the milliner and tailor. I think my mom would be extremely thankful she has sewing machines for all the things she does after seeing how they made things in the 1700's.






The silversmith and his assistant were fun to watch. They looked like they got along really well and we got to see how they made wire by stretching or pulling it through different sized molds.






From there we did a quick tour of the gallows and prison.






The best surprise was the military camp. Kaleb and Ksenia both "enlisted" for three years. Ksenia is going to be doing some baking and cooking along with general cleaning and care for the camp and soldiers. Kaleb might possibly be in the drum corps however is is old enough to actually fight, so it is still up in the air as to what he will actually do. Ksenia will be keeping care of him and making sure he bathes a couple days a week and he will be sharing a tent with four other men. He doesn't seemed to think that will be a problem because he is often times found squished on a bed with James, Ryan, Michael, and Cole anyway . . . Nothing new for him.


We learned how to throw a tomahawk . . .

We learned a little about the importance of the fifes and drums and Kaleb even got to try on a drum and play a little. First time playing drums in a couple weeks . . . not the quads, but still fun.

Finally we finished our tour of Williamsburg in the Capitol building. We transported ourselves back to June 12, 1776 and pretended we were citizens of the time asking our representative to convey our requests to form and new government and in essence commit treason against the crown.






Since our plans changed and changed again, we thought we made it to the reenactments so we would try to leave around noonish go have lunch and then finally get to Yorktown and Jamestown. We were having so much fun despite the humidity learning all the different trades and visiting the different exhibits that we didn't actually leave Williamsburg until about 2:30. Our campsite is close so we figured we would run back, get some lunch/dinner and figure out timing for the other two places. While we were getting something to eat we could hear the thunder off in the distance and let me tell you it moves quickly. Inside of a few minutes it started pouring rain with thunder and lightning on top of us. Now being from Oregon, we are not scared of a little rain, but I'll tell you the thunder and lightning is a lot different around here. It goes on forever and it is really loud. Being that we were quite exhausted, we all opted for skipping Jamestown and Yorktown until tomorrow and staying in our cute, little tent trailer for the evening. We may kill each other but we all are glad to be resting for a bit.

Tomorrow it is planned to visit Yorktown and Jamestown and if we have time we are going to visit Fredricksberg Battlefield on our way out.




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Location:Williamsburg VA