Williamsburg, VA area, Part 4

28, 29, 30 August 2013

Tall Son joined us at Colonial Williamsburg Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. We tried to cram a lot into every day and I became convinced that Tall Son is bitten by the same touring bug that afflicts Great Husband. Gotta see it all!

Early on Wednesday we went to see Martha Washington at the St. George Tucker house, and she was absolutely fabulous! We cannot imagine a better rendition of Martha or a more knowledgeable person portraying her!

Lee Ann Rose portrays Martha Custis Washington

We also had tickets to see a delightful concert performed entirely on glass instruments – the glass armonica invented by Ben Franklin (no, we didn’t go insane), glass bells, a glass violin, and another instrument/sculpture made of glass and other materials by two very elderly brothers in France. The musician taught us about each of the instruments and his performance was “simulcast” on a screen above the stage so his hands and the instruments could be seen. We were amazed that he could play that full scale of glass bells without accidentally clanking them together and shattering them!

Glass armonica

We were anxious to play RevQuest that same day, a game developed by Whistling Son and other Colonial Williamsburg staff, this year titled “The Black Chambers.” RevQuest includes online portions and on-site portions, solving puzzles and ciphers, and talking to characters on the streets of the Revolutionary City to gather the information needed to aid the Revolutionary cause. We began by thinking we could simultaneously tour Colonial Williamsburg while solving the challenges of RevQuest, but after a while we realized that RevQuest would require our focused attention, and we were just barely able to solve it by the end of the day. The game was incredibly fun and plenty challenging. We encountered other families who were taking it quite seriously, including a husband who said of his wife, “She’s obsessed with it!” When the plot of Revquest took an unexpected twist, and a large group of us suddenly encountered the enemy—British redcoats--we thought we had failed in our mission. A little girl was so upset, perhaps thinking this was all real, that she started to cry!

Bravo to Whistling Son for his efforts on RevQuest! We look forward to playing the new version in 2014.

Thursday highlights in Colonial Williamsburg:

• Period music at the Raleigh Tavern—harpsichord, violin, and viola di gamba
• Order in the Court at the Courthouse—audience members volunteer to play the roles of the accused and the magistrates. The woman who was accused of “singing bawdy songs uncomplimentary to the king” had Great Husband and me in stitches! She had such an indescribably hilarious voice that if she is not soon hired as cartoon voice talent, she is missing her true vocation!
• Tour of the capitol building and gaol (pronounced jail, but the letter “j” did not exist back then)

Here are tourists being trained to join the revolutionary forces!
It was hilarious -- they had trouble obeying orders,
including much mixing up of right and left, and failure to keep
up with the proper rhythm. Sticks were used as rifles.

Friday highlights in Colonial Williamsburg:

• Small group chat with Thomas Jefferson at the St. George Tucker House
• Display of spinets and harpsichords at the Dewitt Wallace Museum
• Speech by the Marquis de Lafayette at Dewitt Wallace
• Tour of the Governor’s Palace presented by a “servant” in the palace, shortly after the British stole all the gunpowder from the Williamsburg magazine, and after Governor Dunmore and his family escaped into the night in fear of the colonists

Thomas Jefferson as portrayed
by Bill Barker

After he finished his work day, we picked up Whistling Son, toured his office and met his boss, Lisa. Then we headed for Washington DC.