5/22/07 - Site of the Original Jamestown Colony

Today we visited Jamestown, which was the first permanent English colony in the Americas.  The colonists arrived in May 1607, 400 years ago this month.  History of Jamestown

 

The sign in this picture shows what the fort is thought to have looked like, based on archeological evidence.

Archeologists have been exploring the Jamestown site for a number of years and the digs are ongoing.

Note the remains of a brick and stone foundation in this picture.  The lines in the surface indicate the edges of disturbed soil or structures.

View of another dig site.  The crosses in the foreground mark the locations of burials that were discovered during an earlier dig.  The statue on the pedestal in the distance is Captain John Smith.

A section of the reconstructed palisade that was built following the methods used by the colonists.

 

 During the Civil War these earthworks were constructed by the Confederate forces to defend the James River and their capital, Richmond, VA which lies upstream.  At that time the exact location of the Jamestown colony had been lost to history, so the soldiers didn't realize that they were building on the site of the original colony.

We drove home the next day, after staying the night at a campground in Williamsburg.

5/21/07 Williamsburg

Today we tour Williamsburg. George Washington and his senior staff are discussing the plans for the battle of Yorktown and the public is invited to listen to the discussion and ask questions. We couldn't miss that!

Afterward we took the tour of the Governor's Palace, which was the official residence of the British Governor of the Virginia Colony. That's King George's coat of arms on the building.

Inside the entryway the walls were lined with swords, flintlock rifles and pistols. The tour guide explained that these were there to show those who entered the building the power of the British Empire. Very few people got past the entryway and only the most important actually were received by the Governor.


This is the Ballroom.

The very fancy molding around the ceiling.

This is a small part of the extensive formal gardens around the Palace.

A demonstration of the method used by the colonists for shearing sheep was being demonstrated nearby.  The sheep seemed to be relaxed and enjoying removal of his or her winter coat.

5/20/07 Jamestown Settlement

This year is the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in America. Today we visited Jamestown Settlement, a re-creation of the types of buildings that existed in the original Jamestown Colony. They also have re-creations of the three ships that carried the colonists from England, as well as examples of the buildings that the native Americans were using at the time.

This is the largest ship of the fleet - the Susan Constant.

The smallest ship, the Discovery.

The Godspeed.

A sign showing the route that the ships took to cross the Atlantic.

They chose a small island in the James River (named for King James) and built a fort for defense against the possibility of an attack by the Spanish or the Indians. The houses they built were similar to those that they had left back in England.

This is the pulpit inside the church.

The armory where weapons were stored.

The blacksmith shop. Not all blacksmiths were men.

The steps in making a nail from a piece of square stock.

5/19/07 Enroute to Williamsburg

After our visit to the Alligator River Wildlife Refuge yesterday, we drove back to Cape Hatteras National Seashore and spent the night at the Oregon Inlet campground. Today we travel north to visit Williamsburg and Jamestown.

As we passed through Nags Head we saw many more houses up on stilts.

We passed by the naval shipyard at Norfolk. They were working on an aircraft carrier.

5/18/07 Visiting Alligator River

It was a cloudy, breezy day. We decided to make a side trip to the Alligator River Wildlife Refuge on the North Carolina mainland. On the way north on Hatteras Island, we passed some houses that had big sand drifts in their front yards. There had been a coastal storm a week or so before we arrived and it had blown a lot of sand from the beach across the island in this area. All of the houses on the island are raised on stilts for protection against flooding from hurricanes.
Must have been quite a job to plow out the driveway for this home.


There was a very nice nature trail at the Alligator River Nature Center. The trail went through a swampy area and was all on boardwalk. One of the first things we noticed were the Bald Cypress trees, which we had never seen before. These trees have "knees" that come up from their roots and stick up out of the water.

There were some beauiful flowers along the trail. This is a Yellow Iris.

This one is a Blue Iris.

These beautiful bell-shaped flowers were on long stems that came from vines that climbed the bushes. The leaves on the vines and the vines themselves looked like a type of Clematis.

A portion of the trail went along the side of a small pond or stream, with a lot of Duckweed floating on the surface. It looked like the water was slowly flowing, carrying the Duckweed and some of the floating plants along with it.

There were also some ferns with pretty brown seed heads growing alongside the trail.

5/17/07 Heading North

The weather was pretty wild last night. Just before the sun set, the wind started blowing very hard, making us happy to be in the motorhome. The campers around us who were in tents were all adding stakes and extra tiedown ropes to keep their tents from blowing down. This morning all is quiet again, but it is much warmer and more humid. We decided that it is time to move to a campground with electricity so we will be able to run the air conditioner. Before leaving, we took one last, although short, walk on the beach. This is definitely a place that we will return to.

We found a Ghost Crab that was too far away to duck into his hole. Doesn't he look brave with that big finger pointing at him?

On the ferry heading back to Hatteras Island.

An alien space ship had landed in these people's front yard! It really is true that you can never get a clear picture of a UFO!


We spent the afternoon and night at Ocean Waves campground in the village of Waves. It was time to refill the fresh water and empty the waste tanks. The air conditioning felt good too. We set up the satellite antenna so we could watch TV. Boy, this sure beats the tent camping that we had done in the past!

5/16/07 Ocracoke Island - Day 3

In our walks over the dune to the beach and also along the beach we had noticed numerous small tunnels that had been dug in the sand by some sort of animal. This morning, we discovered who the tunnel diggers were - Ghost Crabs. Several of them had their holes under and around the picnic table in our campsite. We watched them going in and out of the holes and picking something up off the ground to eat (ants maybe?).

We went to Ocracoke Village and stopped to see the Ocracoke Lighthouse. It looked like it had recently been painted.

The infamous pirate Blackbeard was caught and killed just off shore of Ocracoke Island.

We had lunch at the Jolly Roger so we could enjoy watching the Pelicans again. We then went back to the campground and went for another beach walk. We came across these strange marks in the sand. Perhaps the bubbles in the sea foam had picked up some sand that had stayed behind when the bubbles burst?

The tide was coming in and we noticed that air was bubbling up out of the sand at the edge of the incoming waves. We decided that the most likely cause was air coming up from the Ghost Crab tunnels that were being flooded by the waves.

5/15/07 Ocracoke Island - Day 2

We took a walk on the beach this morning to see what we could find. At the top of the dune we saw a very well camouflaged grasshopper. Do you see him?

What a beautiful, uncrowded beach!

We took a picture of this bird so we could identify him later when we got back to the motorhome. He turned out to be a Black-bellied Plover.

The ocean is just beautiful today and the water is warm enough to go swimming.

After lunch we decided to walk the nature trail across from the campground. The trail is a loop through the forested area on the Bay side of the island. We had to be really careful to avoid the poison ivy that was growing along the edge of the trail in many areas.

Most of the trees were Loblolly Pines, which have needles about 6 inches long.

The trail came out on this nice view over the Pamlico Bay.