Day 6 - Jamestown and Yorktown

Once again, we were up bright and early!  The children enjoyed some playtime outside while Ken and I packed up the car.

A game of cops and robbers - with Felix as the robber!

And then onto one of the favorite "rides" of the day - a ride on the ferry!!  There were so many birds around that any bird enthusiast child will love the ferry.  We bought Nathaniel a little kit that had a compass, magnifying glass, and binoculars as one of his souvenirs along with a bird book of Virginia birds.  He spent every spare minute and every ferry ride like this:

Get a close look at the bird

Figure out what bird it is.

If your children are interested in birds, a great book is the Birds of (pick a state) by  Stan Tekiela.  We had one for NY and so when we saw this one about Virginia birds, we grabbed it for the kids.  There were many birds which aren't in our area of New York.  The kids had a blast identifying all the different birds we saw.

Reminder: Bring a light jacket.  It's a little breezy on the ferry.

Jamestown is closer to Chippokes than Williamsburg.  In fact, you can usually see the ships in Jamestown from the ferry.  The ferry pretty much lets off in Jamestown.  It only took about 40 minutes or so to get from  Chippokes to Jamestown.

As you see, Ainsley's bonnet didn't get used once!

And please, please, please, get this picture when you go to Jamestown.  It's a must do.  :)

LIFT!!!!

Unfortunately for us, we hit Jamestown with just about every school in Virginia.  It was much more crowded than we expected it to be.  Crowded places do not make this homeschooling Mama happy.  And unlike Virginia's Living Museum, there was no where to escape them.  There were too many groups and they were everywhere!

Waiting our turn to tour the boats

Even with how crowded it was, the staff was great.  They obviously had to let school groups on together, but they would sneak us non-school groups in between the school groups so that we had a chance to see the boats without being shoulder to shoulder with people.

Feeling how uncomfortable and cramped the beds were

We didn't stay down on the docks for too long.  We did see the boats and enjoy our time down there, but it was INCREDIBLY muggy and buggy down there.  Finally, the gnats and mosquitoes drove us away.

Family group shot (minus Mama who was about to pass out from the muggy heat)

When we got to the main settlement we took our time wandering around and talking to the interpreters.  And once again, the interpreters were outstanding, and our children loved interacting with them!

This man fell in love with Ephraim, and the feeling was mutual!

And this lady fell head over heels with Felix, but really, who wouldn't!?

We went over to the exhibit about the guns with about 50 million school kids.  The lady who did the gun demonstration warned us that it would be loud and boy was she right!!  If your children do not like loud noises, you'll want to stay away from here!  (You can hear it everywhere really, but it's worse when you are close by.)

Cover your ears!!

Gun demonstration

After the gun demonstration, we went to the Indian Village for a little bit.

After the Indian Village, we had really seen enough of Jamestown.  The crowds were a bother to us, and we were getting hungry, so we set out to the picnic area to have our lunch.  A juice box somehow exploded in our cooler, and most of our sandwiches were soaked.  So we had to buy lunch.  I don't really remember what we got except bread pudding.  And the reason I remember that we got bread pudding is because it was very windy, and when you combine wind and bread pudding, this is what happens:

Bread Pudding and wind don't go well together

Thankfully, because we packed for Chippokes and Lake Anna separately, we had our Lake Anna clothes in the car.  So Ken ran and got the clothes and took Ephraim to the bathroom to wash up and change his clothes.

After finishing lunch and changing into clean clothes, we headed over to Yorktown.  Had we realized how much we would enjoy Yorktown, we more than likely would have done that first.  But then again, if we went there first, it more than likely would have been overrun by school groups too.  And man oh man do we hate crowds!

But thankfully, when we made it to Yorktown, the place was a ghost town.  It looked like it would rain at any moment, and I think that kept people away.

And once again, the interpreters here were great.  I really think that all the people who work at Jamestown, Yorktown, Williamsburg and the like must LOVE their jobs.  Now granted, it was only us and one other family here, so he had the time to devote to us one on one, but still it was obvious to tell he was enjoying what he was doing!

Gun demonstration - the gun was bigger than Ephraim was!

Too heavy for Nathaniel to hold on his own

We left the other family to have a little one on one time with the interpreter, and we wandered around the camp.  The kids had a blast exploring the tents and the area.

While we were exploring the camp, the other family must have left. The interpreter called my kids over and asked if they were interested in playing a game.  We have a similar game at home called 4 Way Countdown, so the kids knew how to play it already.  He was surprised that our kids new about it.  He said not many kids knew this game, but all kids seem to love it.  We learned it was a very popular game to play in the camps during the revolutionary war.

Playing 4 Way Countdown (or the revolutionary equivalent)

 It started to drizzle so we went inside the building and found a little dress up area.  And we all know how my kids love dress up!!

The kids convinced Ken to dress up too!

Once the drizzling stopped, we headed down to the farm area.  We spent a lot of time in this area.  There was another homeschooling family down there, along with the interpreters who were, once again, WONDERFUL!  So granted, we were talking and chatting about life more than learning about the Revolutionary War, but we had a grand time all the same!!

Foxglove in the garden

Tom the Turkey.  The kids were allowed to feed him

After spending a while down there, we started to hear thunder in the distance.  After hearing it 2 or 3 times, we decided to hi-tail it back to the van before the downpour started!

It was on our way home that we encountered the longest line for the ferry that we had all week.  One of the ferries  was down, leaving us with only one ferry.  We only had to wait 3 or 4 ferries before we could board, and with all the birds around, our kids weren't bored at all!  Nathaniel spotted an osprey nest with the parent coming back to feed the nestlings.  He spent the entire time glued to his binoculars!

Watching the Osprey Nest

We were glad we were going home instead of starting our day.  The line on the other side of the river was crazy!  I can't even imagine how long their wait was!!!

Only one ferry working equals a LONG wait!!!

We eventually made it home and spent the rainy evening watching Wild America episodes and the old Superman TV show episodes.  All in all, we had a good day, even with the massive crowds!

Up next: Our last day in Chippokes Plantation