Just a year later we finally got to take our grandson Alex to Colonial Williamsburg for a week, on the motorhome.  This is a first for him as the last time we had him out it was with Cory and it was just an overnight. Our drive to American Heritage RV was uneventful, the repairs held up nicely, and as soon as we settled in and disconnected the car we were off to Colonial Williamsburg.  I must say that their pricing is confusing and at this time there are so many options that my mind was boggled.  We settled on a simple multi-day ticket (that is three days) but could not buy the senior tickets online.  We bought them at the campground where they were just $2 less than at the gate.  Alex’s junior ticket was cheaper online, although maybe I could have saved $.50 at the campground.  Go figure.

We began with a tour of the Governor’s Palace guided by Mary, the Housekeeper, who was a bit rushed because she was preparing the house for a ball that evening and needed to survey all the public spaces and her office in preparation.  When we took this tour a year ago we were impressed by the carefully researched and prepared presentation.  We were no less impressed this year.  Although this was a different “actor” clearly she had the role down perfectly and was able to respond to questions in character.  we were all delighted and walked out into the beautiful day to tour the gardens and then take a broad view of the entire historic area.  Alex was particularly interested in seeing some chickens.  He has won awards for his raising and handling of Bantom Chickens and knows far more about breeds and breeding than one would expect from a 12 year old.  We were given the location of two chicken flocks on the premises, but were not able to get to them on Friday before things started to close down at 4:30.  At 5:30 there was a Fife and Drum Corp with torchbearers that marched from The Capital to The Palace Green with a stop at the Magazine for the firing of the canons.  We were entranced and marched along with them for about half the parade route.  Bandwidth will not permit me to show off Alex’s video footage of the torches and the playing.  We rode the shuttle bus back to the visitor center and returned to the coach for a late dinner and early to bed for us – very late for Alex.

Saturday morning we got up, had breakfast and headed back to Williamsburg to have a conversation with Thomas Jefferson in the Palace Garden.

Mr Jefferson gave a very moving monologue for about 40 minutes on the development of the colonies that date in 1776 and the ideas that he thought would make for a good government.  He addressed many questions from the attentive audience including some from the far future.  We might not agree with all of his ideas, after all he was a slaveholder and a political leader of his time.  However he had many who disagreed with him in his time as well.

After training to be part of the militia:

We wandered on from there to the Capital where the tour included a presentation in the House of Burgess about the doings of the days and the fact that the Lords had left town rather hurriedly upon hearing of the happenings in Lexington and Concord.  Seated at the table were Patrick Henry, James Madison, and er, ah oh well so much for my memory.

The guide talked about the issues leading to the need for the colonies to declare their independence from the Crown and concluded (you need to click on this):

We moved downstairs to the Courtroom where capital crimes are tried and look who we found in the jury box – reserved for members of the upper house: