Recently, we took a long weekend trip to the Virginia Beach area in the south of the state - a little break just for the two of us, as our world is about to radically change in just a few short weeks. On our way down country, we stopped in Fredericksburg for breakfast and for Karen to make a pilgrimage to her favourite craft store Hobby Lobby.
The Virginia Beach area is a part of the country rich in history, both for the original colonisation of America and for the eventual defeat and expulsion of our forces from these shores in the Revolutionary War/ War of Independence.
The area of nearby Jamestown, Williamsburg & Yorktown is what has become known as the Historic Triangle. Jamestown is the site of the first successful British colonisation of this continent in 1607. Williamsburg is the first city and capital of the growing Virginia colony, a large, central part of which is run as a kind of open-air history museum. And finally Yorktown is the site of the battle where in 1781 the British, under General Cornwallis, faced our ultimate defeat at the hands of General Washington's forces, assisted by the French Navy.
Each of these in its own right certainly has enough to see to easily consume an entire weekend. And so, for this initial visit, we decided to start at the beginning with Jamestown.
The museum part of the experience is a fascinating, very well presented exhibition on the history of early colonisation in Jamestown and Williamsburg. To do it justice would take a number of hours in its own right - plenty of fodder for a revisit, in any case.
The more "hands-on" part takes the form of a recreation of a native American village of the Powhatan tribe - the people the settlers first encountered on their arrival, a recreation of the settlers' fort (excavations of the original site are perhaps a mile or two away), and replicas of the three ships they sailed across the Atlantic on.
The area is staffed by costumed retellers who explain all about what happened and when.
I really appreciated these recreations since, even if they are partly based on conjecture, they do provide a much more direct and tangible way of understanding the subject matter than excavations would.
The most interesting, in fact, was the explanations about the native village. I learned that many of the unique foods to be found in this country (grits, sweet potatoes, cornbread, succotash, jerky, corn products (chips, tortillas)) originate from the native cooking which was discovered here by the colonists.
These natives lived in a very sustainable manner, with a great understanding for their natural surroundings.
I found it ironic that we are only just starting to get back to that 400 years later with grown locally / seasonal eating movements and products made from natural materials.
One of the things that amazed me most was their understanding of natural insulation and damp coursing, without reference to any of the modern manufactured materials that we call upon for such purposes today.
It truly is amazing the wisdom that we have lost and squandered in the course of history without even realising it. Now there is a reason for humility if ever I saw one.
Next came the fort and ships, though having seen so many European historical sights, they were not as fascinating.
One good thing though, while we were down by the James River was that we spotted a car ferry for crossing over. It seemed so much more romantic than yet more highway bridges and tunnels that I decided we just had to give it a shot.
The lady in the shop said "oh, you don't want to go that way. It's for local people who live over there - it'll be much slower", but in fact - far from being an inconvenience - some chilled, meandering back-road driving was just what the doctor ordered!
By the time we arrived at the ferry, we were a long way back in the line of cars, and as we sat admiring the falling sun from the jetty, I was concerned we might not get on. In the event, we did so fairly comfortably.
The James is a really wide and exposed river/estuary surrounded by a flat landscape, much like the Humber, in fact, and so we got to enjoy both a wide view of the golden sun getting low in the sky as well as the bracing, refreshing wind sweeping across the water. It seems like such a mundane thing, but to me I almost think it was the highlight of the holiday - I just like boats!
When we rolled off the ferry, we were in Surry (sic) County, a beautiful unspoilt area of long roads and marshy forest, interspersed by wide, shallow grass-filled rivers and, shock horror(!), old villages not overrun by the sprawl of CVS and fast food.
After a brief hiccup when our first hotel room smelled like a urinal (!) we then settled into the comfortable and centrally located Crowne Plaza. The rest of the evening was spent at an outpost of the Gordon Biersch brewpub, whose tasty garlic fries, pulled pork sandwich, and in-house brewed beer I am a keen devotee of!
The following day was not very good weather-wise, and so we got in some shopping before heading down to the beach.
The experience of what is known as "the boardwalk" (approximately equivalent to the prom) is rather different from the British seaside, though ironically with the same gale that day!
For a start, in Virginia Beach at any rate, it is separated from the road by a continuous line of tall hotel buildings. It also lacks the amassed souvenir vendors and arcades of a Blackpool or Scarborough.
Perhaps, though, early March isn't a very good time of year to make definitive pronouncements on how much life there is to a place.
Still, even a leaden sky can have a silver lining - we retreated to a hotel bar with a sea view for a break from the wind and some much-needed refreshment!
The following day, before heading back up country, we had two pilgrimages to make.
Number one was to a breakfast joint I had seen featured on Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives show. We had Crab Benedict - a seafood twist on the class American breakfast dish, Eggs Benedict, which would usually be poached eggs and "Canadian bacon" (round, almost gammon-like sliced ham) on an English muffin, covered in hollandaise sauce). In this case, the ham was replaced with fresh crab meat - very good, though the place was so popular we had to wait a whole hour for a table, an experience made slightly more bearable by one of their delicious homemade cinnamon buns!
Our second stop was at Cape Henry, where the Jamestown settlers first came ashore on the American continent and off which 174 years later, British naval forces would be defeated by the French, thus leaving ground forces marooned and unreinforced to face defeat at Yorktown.
The site is marked by a large stone cross with engraved inscription, which represents a former wooden cross erected on the site by the settlers in 1607.
Being there was a special moment and made me think about my American journey, these last two and a half years.
Finally, we climbed to the top of the dunes to look out to sea, where a helpful visitor pointed out to us in the middle distance the shape of the USS Enterprise - the navy's oldest aircraft carrier, now in its 51st year of service and heading out on its final voyage before decommissioning. It was a special moment on which to end a great weekend.
Well, that’s it for this letter. My next will likely be from the front lines of fatherhood :-)
Mark
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