We recently had a chance to visit colonial Virginia during Ben's Fall break. Our adventures included Jamestown, Williamsburg, Virgina Beach, The College of William & Mary, as well as Thomas Jefferson's "architechtural autobiography," Monticello.
It was fun to discover the origins of our nation as well as explore the mid-atlantic states a little bit.
Jamestown: We saw three real wooden ships with their crews preparing for another voyage, a woman making a burn-out canoe from a log, a fortress, glass blowing and blackpowder musket shooting.
Williamsburg: We spent two days walking through Williamsburg trying to soak it all in. Between the re-enactments, the architecture and the tours we were able to gain a sense of what it might have been like to live over 200 years ago.
Monticello: We found some inspiration for our future home. Thomas Jefferson integrated neo-classical architecture with some contemporary French ideas. His entry way was meant to impress and educate, if not altogether intimidate his house guests. His parlor was large by even today's standards with high ceilings. Also, impressive was his collection of portraits of persons he found inspirational. Mostly philosophers like Locke and Bacon. The predominately open floor plan connected his room to his study to his famous library to his contiguous greenhouse. All very cool. Maybe we could just buy it from the state of Virinia, but where's the fun in that?
After we came back, we found a small apple orchard, similar, but not as cool as Apple Hill, where we went pumpkin hunting after we threw back a few doughnuts with cider. Being a fun, farmy little place meant for young families, they had these silly painted plywood photo ops. We couldn't resist. Especially in light of Telia's pregnancy, thinking that someday we might explain the birds and the bees to our children using this picture.
