Colonial Williamsburg, 1

Not long after we arrived in Cary, college friends Susan and Ken invited us to accompany them on a trip to Colonial Williamsburg. What transpired in early December was one of the best short trips we've had, in part because of the company but also in part because of the exceptional place we visited. We'd been to Colonial Williamsburg years before--day visits with kids--but now we had the opportunity to spend three off-season week-days there, with ample time to interact with the "re-enactors" (more anon), to really savor what is a fine research and educational institution, indeed the largest living museum there is. BTW, we found nothing candy-coated about the place...the negatives as well as the positives of the society and times were well evident.

Colonial Williamsburg has a fine website, with many pix, much commentary, and several virtual tours as well (https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/learn/virtual-tours/?from=home), so I won't attempt any more here than posting some of our better pix with relevant commentary. Vicki and I thoroughly enjoyed the visit and are certain to return. Thanks, Susan and Ken, for rousing us from our down-sizing doldrums!

We stayed at the Colonial Williamsburg Lodge

On one of the several house tours

Street scene; the foregoing and immediately following by Ken

Posing our last day there in front of the Governor's palace

The plan: Ken and Susan are very organized travelers

At the witchcraft trial our first night there

At the blacksmith's shop: these are no mere "re-enactors"...they
are really practicing the trade as it was done in colonial times and
appear free to come and go out of character as the circumstances
warrant...they all have a canned intro for the casual or hurried
visitor...but if you stay a bit, you can have a long, detailed, and 
edifying conversation...we saw this in every house, every workshop...
the intersection  of technology and science is always fascinating...

Revered in Virginia because of the tobacco thing, I suppose;
executed as a traitor long before there was a colonial Williamsburg

In the apothecary shop

Really gnarly old tree

Susan and Vicki approach the capitol

Among the meeting rooms

Getting educated about colonial governance

Rifling at the gunsmith's

Street scene; OK, this is not what it would have looked like in
1760, but some concessions have to be made...

Christmas decor competition (appetizer foreshadowing)

At the silversmith's

Wigmaker

Champion wreath

Research and preservation going on all over

Among our several visits to the excellent museum

Eating well, as often as possible...a great captain's plate at Berret's;
preceded by the cheapest oysters I've had since France, as foreshadowed

Goodwin preached at the Bruton Parish church as well as other
places in the East; was an unrelenting advocate for the preservation of
Virginia's historical buildings and artefacts; hit the jackpot when
he interested Rockefeller ("Praise John from whom oil blessings
flow") in the project; we found ourselves sitting beneath the plaque
during a concert at the Bruton; erected by "friend and fellow worker" John D. 

Weaving

Several of the Founders did time in Williamsburg, Virginia's
capital until the Seven Years War (aka the French and Indian
War)

It would be another two generations before Thomas Crapper
was born...yes, I enjoy perpetuating the "over-statement" of
Wallace Reyburn's playful biography Flushed With Pride...