June 18, 2010 - Day Forty-two

Today marks six weeks on the road, and we haven’t killed each other or the dogs yet, or vice versa.

On our agenda today was a visit to Colonial Williamsburg, the historic district of the independent city of Williamsburg, Virginia. It has buildings dating from 1699 to 1780 which made colonial Virginia's capital. For most of the 18th century, Williamsburg was the center of government, education and culture in the Colony of Virginia. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, James Monroe, James Madison, and others molded democracy in the Commonwealth of Virginia and the United States here.

We found a parking spot at the huge visitor’s center, and the evening before had learned from the West Virginia fishing couple that one needn’t pay for admission as long as one walked and didn’t go into any the museums or exhibits. This would be perfect for us.

So off we went, leaving the visitor’s center on foot headed back into a time warp. We thought it would start just beyond the bridge that the left the center, but no….we had to walk about a mile to get into the actual area. And it was still hot.

We entered the town and yes, it was 18^th century America, but it had sort of Disneyland effect on me, without the rides or Mickey. The buildings were immaculate and people dressed in period clothing where driving and riding horses, which pooped all over the streets, affording a true period aroma.

We only had two hours to visit this huge area, so we only saw a small part of it. People were telling us we had to spend two days here to see everything, that was more time than I wanted to spend here, nor did I want to spend $150 for a two-day pass.

Since it was lunch time and we were getting hungry, we headed to their equivalent of restaurant row, choosing a tavern to quench our desires. As we headed to the street where the tavern was located, we were blocked by a rope across the road and young woman dressed in a period outfit asking to see our tickets. We had none, and with that we were banned from entering since there was some sort of show going on further up the street that only paying guests could witness. She did tell us a back way to get to the tavern via an alley. The sign on the back door directed us to the front door, which now put us where we were banned just minutes ago. Oh well, live and eat.

At the door we were greeted by three people, again in period dress, and promptly escorted to our table which was in the basement of the tavern lit by candles. Marianne had a hard time reading her menu in the dim lights, so my trusty LED pocket light came to the rescue. Marianne ordered the equivalent of a cheeseburger and fries, and I had a Virginia ham sandwich, with a crawfish soup appetizer. All the food was scrumptious.

After lunch we retraced our steps back to the truck, stopping but once in an open air period market selling an assortment of trinkets, including the popular three edged hat, which was donned by more than one tourist.

It turns out that the highlight of our visit to the town was the 1957, 45-minute movie shown at the visitor’s center, about Colonial Williamsburg at the time immediately before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, starring a young Jack Lord, of Hawaii Five-O fame.

We came back to the trailer, dead tired from all the walking and the heat. We rested up a bit until we conquered our next challenge that evening, washing clothes.

The laundermat at this KOA was again within walking distance of our trailer, but since we had too much laundry to easily carry we drove the truck over there. And for some godforsaken reason, the laundry was not air-conditioned. So not only was it hot outside, it was doubly hot compliments of the commercial-sized driers.

We just put our clothes into two washers, stuck in our $2 each and walked back to our trailer, leaving the truck. Thirty minutes later I walked back, put the clothes into two driers, paid $1.50 for the drying and returned to the trailer. Another thirty minutes later we returned to retrieve our clothes, but by now the lights had gone off in the laundry room and rather than put more money into the driers and wait in the heat and dark until the clothes were dry, we removed our still damp laundry, loaded it into the truck and drove back to the trailer.

We had to hang and spread our laundry all over the trailer in order for it to dry. It would end up taking 24 hours before the clothes was dry enough to accomplish this feat, compliments of the high humidity in the area.

After all of this, we just fell into bed.