Sunday, June 7, 2009

Jamestown and Arlington

We have very little time in the Williamsburg/Yorktown/Jamestown area. After spending a couple of hours in historic Williamsburg the day before we decided to bypass Yorktown and decided to go visit the archaeological area of Jamestown. Besides the mosquito which were out in full force, we enjoyed our time.

We had very little time for a tour and museums do not hold much interest when you can use all your senses! The problem with not being able to enjoy a tour guides perspective is not hearing all those wonderful details that just don't make it onto the placards.
Captain John Smith
We were able to hear a little about the archaeological dig that is going on at the Jamestown site.
Those diligent homeschool kids reading the placard telling us where the ships landed when sailing up the James River.

Ahw!!!!!! The love of a brother and sister is priceless! That smile on Lil' Cowboy? Makes a mom's heart melt!
It was yet another rainy day as we drove from the Williamsburg area to D.C. We stayed outside of the Capitol in Falls Church, VA. Highly recommend where we stayed so if you are ever going to be in the area please get in contact with me so I can share our great find. We were less than two miles from the Metro station that took us into the city.
Since we still had a few hours before dinner we decided to hit Arlington Cemetery and the Iwa Jima memorial...and hit Trader Joe's for some food and wine!


This is the memorial for over two thousand unknown men who died in Civil War battles.

We were able to see the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

So, as we were pulling out of Arlington I decided to cross over the bridge to D.C. much to my children's chagrin! We only drove past the Lincoln Memorial. I would not have dared to drive a fifteen passenger van through Washington's crowded streets...well, not for a few days at least.
As we came back over the river into Virginia we stopped by to take a few pics of the Iwo Jima Memorial. I think the strangest point of interest about this memorial was the fact that it was just in an ordinary park. No pomp or circumstance and very few people visiting this huge statue.
We knew that we had many hours of walking and craziness over the next couple of days so our main objective, after seeing this memorial, was to get some food and head back to the hotel where we could get some much needed sleep.
The hotel had a kitchen so we went grocery shopping at Trader Joe's and bought enough stuff to last a few days of meals. I even bought a wonderful wine and coerced the manager to open the bottle for me so I could enjoy when I got back to the hotel. It was nice to cook again even if it was prepackaged meals.
And, once again, we were in a hotel room listening to the most amazing storm gathering outside. Sigh....to get back to the predictable weather of the Central Valley of California!
~Heather

2 comments:

sweetnika said...

a nice meal after a nice day...
just what the soul needed...
so thankful you had such a fine visit...
great post! I'll be in touch about where you stayed, I know my man want to go there... but.. one adventure at a time :)
blessings

Anonymous said...

love the picture of lil cowboy and brown sugar! so cute..