Williamsburg, VA

18-24 March 2013

By the time we left Augusta, I was suffering from a bad cold which affected my oomph for the next phase of the itinerary—Williamsburg, VA. Still, we spent several days at Colonial Williamsburg (our fifth time there) and had a fantastic time. We got to see Thomas Jefferson for the first time, loved hearing Patrick Henry speak behind the Governor’s Palace, and had a private audience with George Wythe at the St. George Tucker House. George Wythe is likely unknown to you, but he was an essential character to the nation’s founding because he was the barrister who taught young Jefferson and several other founding fathers, helped found the College of William and Mary, and invented the moot court system.

For the first time we got to tour Bassett Hall, the house of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and wife Abby, who were the money behind the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg, starting in the 1920s. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. devoted his life to spending as much family Standard Oil fortune as he could, including paying for the restoration of the Palace of Versailles after World War II. The last living child of this pair is David Rockefeller, who is now 98, and who still comes occasionally to visit Williamsburg, saying, “I love to visit mother’s house.”

Another interesting tour was behind the scenes at Bruton Heights, where conservation and climate-controlled storage of all sorts occurs--furniture, fabrics, paintings, paper documents, etc. This time we learned about the delicate art and science of paper conservation on a tour of the paper conservation lab. One of the young interns was working on a contract signed by Thomas Jefferson, and one of the first things checked was whether the ink is oil-based or water-based. If oil-based the document is permanent enough to go undergo various baths and treatments. The intern was applying narrow strips of Japanese paper to the document, using fine wheat paste, and the purpose is to repair and strengthen the document.

Whenever Whistling Son was not busy with his work at Colonial Williamsburg, we spent our time with him. Unfortunately we missed by just one day the opportunity to play RevQuest, which has been an essential part of Whistling Son’s work at CW. RevQuest is an interactive game in which visitors solve clues about the Revolutionary Era, and interview reenactors on the streets of CW in the process. A new version of RevQuest comes out each summer.

Most evenings, we played the card game Quiddler with Whistling Son in the Escape or at his apartment. I’ve learned that my spelling skills are in serious decline.

On Saturday we went to the Mariner’s Museum and Monitor Center in Newport News. It’s an amazing place, and enough to fill a whole day. For the time being I’ve got the iron-clad ships the Monitor and the Virginia (former Merrimack) straight, but I don’t promise it to last. In contrast, Great Husband remembers everything!

On Sunday we went to Richmond for Mass. Fr. Novokowski, formerly assigned to our parish in Omaha, is now pastor at the FSSP’s St. Joseph’s Parish there. After Mass we went on an all-day driving tour which included the Petersburg National Military Park (siege and battle here critical to ending the Civil War), historic buildings in Petersburg itself (lots of potential here), Chippoke’s Plantation State Park (cancelled from our original camping plans due to my cold), a ride across the James River on the free ferry (takes only 20 minutes), and one hour at the Historic Jamestown visitor center.

It was a cold rainy day, and shortly after we returned to the camper, the rain turned to sleet and then to snow which accumulated on the grass, on the campers, and on the picnic tables. For many hours into the night, sloppy wet snow patties fell from the trees onto the roof the camper, startling us again and again as they landed. This is all in keeping with the theme of this trip—cold weather.  

At the Dewitt-Wallace Museum, there is a terrific exhibit of spinets, harpsichords,
and pianos, with listening devices so you can hear many of them played.
This is a spinet, which in contrast to a harpsichord, plucks only one string at a time.

Patrick Henry

Cooking in the Colonial days.
That's beef tongue in the lower right.

Bassett Hall.
Furnishings are eclectic and just as left by the Rockefeller family, down to a hairbrush.
The dining room table is set for the soup course, and the bowls are full of "mushroom soup",
accurate to historical records (as is everything at Colonial Williamsburg).

Bassett Hall.
Unlike what I expected from the outside, the house is quite small inside.
The servant's quarters are at least as spacious as the part occupied by the Rockefellers.
The servants were a Swedish couple who lived here year round,
but the Rockefellers came only in April and October.

  

Augusta, GA

13-17 March 2013

Some people have been watching this trip to see if such an elaborate scheme could be executed according to plan. Up until this point in the journey, almost everything has been in synch with the spreadsheet. When we arrived, however, at Fort Gordon, Georgia, to visit Java Daughter, things started to slip in minor ways. We planned to camp on the military base at Leitner Lake (no reservations available), but that campground was entirely full with long-termers and others who set themselves up a whole month early in anticipation of the Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta. We couldn't have predicted that. Instead Great Husband found us a spot at Heritage Mobile Home and RV Park in Augusta. It's a very basic place, no shower house even. We paid $25 per night with full utilities, but the sites go up to $100 during the Masters.

Our granddaughter, who is four, nicknamed Blondie for this blog, camped with us three nights, always enjoying the amazing conversion of the dinette to become her bed. Blondie is already establishing a camping routine that must not be varied, playing with the same games and toys in the camper each time she is with us. “I never forget anything," she said. "Did you bring the crackers with letters on them?” She was referring to Scrabble Cheeze-Its imprinted with the alphabet. 

As Blondie was settling in one night on her table-bed she observed Great Husband and me in the queen bed and said, “It’s ridiclious for two people to sleep in the same bed.” "Ridiclious? Why?" asked Great Husband. Said Blondie, "One might push the other one out!" 

Blondie marched in a St. Patrick's Day parade at preschool, but she was a little confused about the saint. "Was he a leprechaun?" she asked.

The seashells collected on all the Florida beaches of this trip were a great hit with Blondie and her younger brother "Charmer." They washed them over and over, sorted and resorted, and tried to identify them according to the "map" we had brought from one of the parks. Charmer would have taken his seashells to bed if allowed. Since we are not grandparents who buy the kids lots of toys, seeing all this did my heart good.

Baking Bread in the Car, Part 3

18 March 2013

Today we had a relatively long drive between Augusta, Georgia and Williamsburg, VA. It was enough time to bake two separate loaves of whole wheat bread in the car. This time I modified the wet ingredients to include some genuine maple syrup, hoping that the addition of something sweet would give the little yeasties some additional incentive to rise and make for a less dense loaf. The addition of maple syrup appears to have caused a slight improvement in texture, but baking in a slow cooker invariably seems to produce relatively dense, moist bread.

One of batches of whole wheat bread I made last week was ultra-dense, and almost inedible to Great Husband. I suspect it was because I added water that was too hot, rather than just lukewarm, and that killed the yeast. Beware!

Last week I also made two loaves of gluten-free bread, and those were successful and tasty. That recipe was also from "Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day." It includes expensive non-wheat flours, but we considered it a worthwhile experiment for the sake of variety. The wet ingredients included eggs and honey and oil in addition to water. We liked the resulting bread very well, but it is also a fairly dense, moist one.

Update: Considering how small and dense the slow-cooker bread has been, I can't recommend this style of bread-making for future trips. After getting back home, I took one of the leftover pre-mixed bags of ingredients and baked it up in our Zojirushi bread machine. So much better!

Crooked River State Park, St. Mary's GA

11, 12 March 2013

A brief drive from Amelia Island, we came to stay at this terrific state park in Georgia. The grounds are beautifully kept and it is more manicured that the state parks we saw in Florida. Reservations are not for specific sites, and you choose the one you want upon arrival. We loved the wide open campground here, where the sites are scattered among pine trees, and there are not pads as such, but just sandy soil and grass.

Hoping to see a gopher tortoise, we took a walk near their nesting area, but didn’t encounter any. But we saw a man fishing from the shore who had a string of speckled sea trout, and had a chat with the very colorful campground host, who told us to be careful walking the Palmetto Trail because “the rattlesnakes are crawlin’.”

While planning this trip we made reservations to go to Cumberland Island (near St. Mary’s) and take the Lands and Legacies Tour there. Cumberland Island is now the Cumberland National Seashore, operated by the National Park Service. We also made advance reservations on the ferry, which is pretty much the only way to get to and from the island. There are only a few remaining privately owned properties on the island, and almost the whole island is being returned to wilderness. Only 300 visitors are allowed to the island each day, so it is important to plan ahead. I believe that only 20 spots are available on the Lands and Legacies Tour per day.

On the ferry trip, we met Ray and Carol from the Atlanta area, and enjoyed getting to know them. As it turned out, Ray and Carol were camping directly across the road from us at Crooked River Campground. Hi to Ray and Carol if they read this blog!

Now back to the tour. It was about six hours long, with ten of us in a passenger van, plus the NPS ranger who narrated and answered questions, and who provided us with earphones so we could hear her over the jolting of the van. The trip covered nearly the entire length of the island, on the bumpiest road I have ever known. If you can tolerate the bumps without carsickness, the only other warning I’d make is that waiting for the first bathroom stop can be a challenge. You also need to be able to climb in and out of the van at four separate stops. Before you think that the trip sounds horrific, I’ll insert here that we had a great time!

We saw The Settlement, where former slaves built houses after the Civil War, because they continued to work at hotel jobs, etc., on the island. The best stop was at a house built by Lucy Carnegie (sister-in-law to Andrew) as a wedding gift for one of her nine children. The Carnegies owned essentially the whole island at one time and built many mansions there, including this one which is called Plum Orchard. After lunch on the grounds, we had a great tour of the original house and additions, which cost $65,000 when completed in 1907. Plum Orchard was used as a winter home. Descendants of the Carnegies turned their land holdings and this house over to the National Park Service in the 1960s (I believe) when they couldn’t keep up with the maintenance of the house any longer. The NPS put $5 million into the house in structural repairs, fire sprinkler system, and paint. A good deal more money would be necessary to really bring the house back to top shape.

Compared to other old houses we have toured, I was impressed with how bright this one is inside due to the beautiful big windows. Besides numerous bedrooms and eleven bathrooms, the house has a “squash tennis” court to play a game which is now “extinct”, according to our guide. It also has a 9-foot deep swimming pool, which was filled from an artesian well. The pool was unheated and reportedly smelled like sulphur.

Cumberland Island is home to wild horses, which have been there for centuries. By law, the horses are left to fend for themselves, and they are a scrawny, very unhealthy looking bunch. The island also has wild pigs, which are considered a pest, and which are hunted and trapped to reduce their numbers.  Somehow coyotes also ended up on the island, and they already threaten the nests of shorebirds. The NPS is concerned that the coyotes will also threaten the nests of sea turtles, once they become aware of those nests.

On the return trip on the ferry, we had our best dolphin sighting yet—a dolphin close enough to see his whole face and body!

Our site at Crooked River State Park

Hiking on the Palmetto Trail

One of the few remaining houses at The Settlement

This is another house in The Settlement.
Jimmy Carter slept here. I kid you not.

Plum Orchard.
Great Husband and I ate here on the porch. I kid you not.

Inside Plum Orchard
I like the wallpaper here--it's original.

One of eleven bathrooms in Plum Orchard.
The tub has a feature that sucks the shampoo out of the bottle.

Dressing rooms and pool.
For children, they added just a little bit of water, and the kids
walked down all of these stairs to swim.

We obeyed the bottom sign in this city park in St. Mary's. 

Fort Clinch State Park, Amelia Island, FL, Part 2

We are mightily impressed with the State Parks of Florida.* Each time we leave one, we have regrets that we aren’t staying longer, and each time we arrive at the next, we are very pleased with the new prospects and soon fall in love all over again. Fort Clinch State Park was no exception. There are two campground options here, one wide open and near the beach, and the other, which we had chosen, another “jungle” with great separation between sites and protection from the wind. As we pulled up to Site 22 we could hardly believe the size of it and wished we had all five kids with us to share this special place. We could imagine the old days with the whole family together to enjoy the campfire. It makes me tear up to think of those times. But on to other subjects…

Upon arrival here, we promptly headed for Fort Clinch, which is part of the park. Impressive! Similar to National Park facilities, there is a small museum and an introductory film to introduce the fort to visitors. Excellent! And in touring the fort itself, we were in for a treat because a ranger was there to re-enact the role of a Union soldier and teach us about the fort. He was cleaning his musket by pouring boiling water down the barrel, and explained that if the guns aren’t kept clean by the soldiers, the barrels can corrode and weaken and they can explode. We learned much more and recommend this as great place to visit!

During a sunset walk from our campsite to the nearby Egan Creek, we lucked into seeing the second dolphin of our trip. We were anxious to see more wildlife, but that led to a funny episode for Great Husband. After dark, he could hear rustling in the dense growth around our site, but we had no idea what critter was there. Could it possibly be an alligator? We left home without good batteries for our flashlight, and Great Husband decided that it was utterly useless. He was calling it “the glowstick.” Nevertheless, we had eaten tuna for supper and didn’t want that fragrance left overnight in the camper, so a walk to the dumpster was in order. Great Husband summoned his courage and headed out to walk the significant distance with the glowstick and the leftover tuna water. I left the camper door ajar so he could jump back inside quickly if the alligator was after him! Wow, he was gone such a long time that I decided that he might actually have encountered trouble! I admit that I shut the door so the alligator couldn’t get me, too!

Jumping forward to the next evening and “the rest of the story”--we went to hear a ranger talk about reptiles. Great Husband asked the ranger about what animal might have been rustling around behind our site. “Oh, it was probably an armadillo,” he said. So, we got a good laugh about that, and have since seen several armadillos who, rather than attacking, scurried away from us quite quickly.

Fort Clinch also has a fabulous beach and I had my last chance to collect more seashells. A delightful group of shorebirds was clustered together, looking out to the Atlantic. We enjoyed watching them so much! But then some dumb humans came along and deliberately chased the birds to get them to take flight. It was especially maddening because the dumb humans were disobeying signs which said that birds should be left undisturbed now in nesting season.   

We liked Amelia Island very much and hope to return here someday. It seems a comfortable mix of vacation homes and older, likely full-time, residences. The older downtown part of Fernandina Beach (which is the name of the town) especially appealed to us, and we can recommend the Crab Trap for a moderately-priced dinner.

*The Florida State Parks, including the check-in offices for camping, all seem to be close at sunset, but after that you need to know the 4-digit code to open the gate. So don’t be a late show on the day you first arrive. We like the gate system for security reasons. It limits access to the campgrounds to only those who are registered campers.

Fort Clinch

Pollyanna (me) with a Union soldier at Fort Clinch

The Beach at Fort Clinch State Park

Waiting for the arrival of the Queen, I guess

Hiking on the Willow Pond Trail
and they are not kidding with this sign!

Site 22 at Fort Clinch State Park

Fort Clinch State Park, Amelia Island, FL, Part 1

8, 9, 10 March 2013

This whole five-week trip was built around attending the Concours d’Elegance here on Amelia Island. Great Husband is a car guy and the Concours is the ultimate car show. I am not a car gal, but even I enjoyed the two days we spent here. My eyes may have glazed over as he explained the history of Car X and Car Y and Car Z to me, but I realized he was so excited about what he was seeing that he needed to have somebody to share it all with! Even for a non-car person, the people-watching was fun, and there were car shapes and car colors to evaluate with the eye of an artist. The event is held at the Ritz Carlton and the hundreds of extraordinary cars, which are there only by invitation, are displayed on the golf course. It is a perfect setting.

Two parts of the Concours were especially fun for me. On Saturday we sat outside on a bench to eat our lunch, and listened to the car auction which was piped outdoors. Only those who are registered bidders got to attend the auction in the auction hall, but how fascinating it was to hear how the auctioneer drove the prices up! For example, just when we thought the Aston Martin had peaked at $400,000 and was about to be sold, that auctioneer was able to twist things his way, do some careful delay maneuvers, and inch the price up to something like $440K.

To one bidder who kept increasing his bids by $5000 increments on his desired cars, and who apparently was not winning in the end, the auctioneer tried to get the bidder to move higher faster by saying, “Five isn’t working for you, sir!” It seemed an insulting thing to say, but with his wonderful British accent, anything the auctioneer said turned magical.

My other favorite activity was watching several hours of awards ceremony from the viewing stands. There were 100 judges and many car categories. Each winner drove into the open-air arena and the announcer described its special features and interviewed the driver most charmingly. One little vehicle had been buried for 50 years before being dug up and restored. Many of the cars had this kind of history, in which they could easily have been lost or destroyed, but the right person came along at the right time and poured heart and treasure into rescue and restoration. Two of the award winners (at least) had been brought over for the Concours clear from Europe. And one winning car was brought by a woman who is 101 years old!

1902 Delahaye

Ferrari 512

GT40
This car won Le Mans twice--1968 and 1969

Little Talbot Island State Park

7 March 2013

Great Husband wondered whether we’d need a ferry to get to Little Talbot Island State Park, north of Jacksonville. As it turned out, highway A1A brought us here without complication. This is another gem in the Florida State Park system! As we pulled into the campground, we couldn’t help but ooh and ahh over the Spanish moss and yucca. Without any experts to ask, we’ve decided this yucca might be the variety called “Spanish bayonet.” We can’t let such a good name go to waste.

Little Talbot State Park has its own five miles of beach on the Atlantic, where I enjoyed collecting even more ocean treasure (shells). It is something I’ve always wanted to do since I was a kid. We watched the pelicans diving from great heights for fish dinners, and I briefly caught sight of a dolphin in the distant water. We’re still wearing winter coats to the beach, but we are thankful that the chilly weather means we’re nearly alone out there. Today we heard the local seasons described not as Spring, Summer, etc., but as “the mosquito season, the no-see-em season, the red bug season, and the cold season.” We keep saying it is worth it to be here in the cold season to avoid the bug pests and have the beaches to ourselves.

The highlight of today was seeing Kingsley Plantation, part of the Timucuan Preserve, run by the National Park Service. What a fascinating place! The plantation owner’s house and the slave quarters are still in existence. The most famous of the property owners here was Zephaniah Kingsley, who bought a 13-year-old slave girl from Senegal and made her one of his three “wives.” She went on to become a plantation owner herself and owned her own slaves! And that is just scratching the surface of this amazing story, including the changing face of slavery as Florida moved from Spanish control to become part of the United States.

We learn so much from the interpretive talks given by National Park Service rangers. Here is one example from today which tied together discussion of the plantation crops with the horrific impact on the slaves. Besides raising “sea island cotton”, which is a tall plant that produces long-fibered cotton, plantations in this area also produced indigo dye to sell to Europe. By nature, indigo plants have a putrid smell, but they were combined with stale human urine to make an even worse brew. Because of the noxious work, slaves who made the indigo dyes typically died within seven years.

At low tide this morning we drove to The Bluffs of Big Talbot Island and then
 walked to the Boneyard Beach to see “the silvered skeletons” of fallen trees
 weathering in the sand. 

Kingsley Plantation
Slave quarters are in an arc of 25 buildings, all made of “tabby” which is concrete and seashells.

Kingsley Plantation

Kingsley Plantation
The plantation house and its separate kitchen (kitchen on the left)

Kingsley Plantation
Each slave house was two small rooms, one with a brick fireplace and chimney.
This picture shows the tabby construction.

Spanish moss and “Spanish bayonet”
 in our campsite

Salt marsh seen from our campground