• Dec. 1, 2007
Who knew they experience Black Friday at Historic Jamestown??
Never in a million years would I have thought that Historic Jamestown experiences Black Friday, just like every Wal-Mart, ToysRUs, and shopping mall in America. But, they do; and we were part of 14 million people to visit it on Black Friday this year.
The day after our "hotel adventure" we had planned to spend the day at Jamestown. A little educational sidebar to our holiday, you might say. I had been planning to visit Jamestown this year anyway as we will begin to study it when we resume our studies after Christmas break. I went there on a field trip myself as a grade-schooler and I just loved it! So, the plan was to get up on Friday morning and eat breakfast and go to Jamestown. Simple, right? Well, I've learned that nothing really turns out simply when it involves my family. Throw in my 2 dogs and my mom and dad for good measure and you could end up with any variety of scenarios for the day.
We, in my household, are not really early birds. We are of the opposite variety of fowl--night owls. However, Thanksgiving night, we were pretty tired. Once we finished playing musical hotel rooms, we were all about ready to call it a day. The weather on Thanksgiving Day was gorgeous: 75 and sunny. During the night, the temperature dropped a mere 40 degrees!! AND, the wind was really kickin' too. We got up and my dad came by saying that the free breakfast that the hotel offered would be over in 30 minutes. What a wonderful way to start the day! Rush for the food!! By the time I got down there, there were 2 (folded) scrambled eggs and a box of Cheerios left. No danishes, no sausages, no bread, no bagels, no Fruit Loops. Well, I figured that there HAD to be a McDonald's close-by. However, the girl working the breakfast room was fantastic and brought out tons more food and also made us waffles to boot. While we got the rooms emptied and the van all packed up, my dad left to go to a local grocery store to pick up our Pagan hams for Christmas.
Now, if you've never heard of a Pagan ham, you are really missing out!! It is absolutely, without a doubt, the most fantastic ham I have ever eaten in my entire life! My kids think it is absolutely hysterical that for Christmas and Easter (the two holiest days of Christianity) we would just stuff our faces with PAGAN ham!!
I'm thinking, "Ok, let's head off to Jamestown now." I didn't realize that we had to go back to Granny's house to pick up the leftovers from Thanksgiving Day. Ok, detour. I'm good with detours. And it was really nice to get to see Granny and Aunt Linda once more before we headed out. I debated about whether or not we should leave the dogs at Granny's. I really didn't want them to be in the back of the van barking their fool heads off because they were cold or something. It would be just my luck that some ASPCA person would be walking by about that time and I would be arrested for cruelty to animals or some such thing. It would really put a cramp in my day if I got carted off to jail because of the dogs. Not being one overly fearful of tempting fate, we decided to go ahead and bring the dogs with us.
I also thought about leaving Lily with Aunt Linda. She refuses to sleep at all when we are anywhere but home. She will not sleep in someone's house. She will not sleep if we are quiet as a mouse. She will not sleep in our car. She will not sleep neither near, nor far. She will not sleep as we walk about. She will not sleep, just cry and pout. She will not sleep here nor there. She will not sleep anywhere. She does not like green eggs and ham. She does not like them Sam I am!! In the end, I decided to just bring her along with us and see what excitement she would add to the day.
We got to Jamestown about noon. We were astounded by the number of cars. Completely dumb-founded is more like it. We were told to park in the overflow parking lot. Who knew Jamestown has an overflow parking lot!?!?! This was not a good sign. We got inside the building to buy our tickets. The line was a half a mile long! AT NOON!! Danny and Dad stood in line for tickets and I took all the girls to stand in line for toilets. We all ended up being done about the same time, so that worked well. I decided that I wanted to take the kids to see things in the chronological order that they happened. The kids didn't really care, but I was hoping to make some sort of educational impact on their brains. We visited the Powhatan Indian Village first. We were pretty amazed that their houses, which were basically reeds woven together (and resembling wicker placemats) were so air-tight. It was a cold, windy day, but those Indian houses were warm, and that was without the fires that would have been in the middle of the house back in the 1600's.
There were lots of animal skins around and the little girls were fascinated with those. They thought it would feel pretty good to sleep with a blanket of rabbit fur over them at night. I agree. We saw a turkey cooking over a spit and discovered that it really didn't take any longer to cook them over a spit than it does to cook them in the oven. I'm thinking next year we should cook our turkey on a spit. I'll probably get out-voted though.
After the Indian Village, we headed down to the river and went on a couple of the boats there. They are replicas of the Susan Constance, the Discovery and the Godspeed, which brought the colonists to Jamestown. So tiny. At least one of the replicas there has actually sailed from England to Jamestown under it's own (wind) power. Those people were so amazingly brave to trust their lives across such a vast ocean to these itty-bitty little boats. I'm not so sure I could have done that. 
After we finished touring the boats, we headed up to Jamestown Fort. It was probably the most crowded of all the parts we visited. But, it was so cool to walk through. The fort is in the shape of a triangle, with cannon at each corner, which, of course, Darcy wanted to fire. 
Everything is recreated to look as it would have 400 years ago and there were a bunch of little buildings and houses inside. People dressed in period costume were abundant and were so fun to listen to. 
We went to the Governor's house and discovered that he had a trap door beside his bed in his bedroom. (His was the only house that had a separate bedroom). Megan asked what it was for. We thought it might be a hiding place in the event of an Indian attack. We found out that it was for him to keep his personal stock of food in. His food was better than that stored in the common storehouse and it was more plentiful as well. For the governor, it was all about appearances. However, he was not paid by the queen for his presence in the colony. He was there on his own nickel and was hoping to share in the profit of the Virginia Company (which never made a profit.) Everything he had was ornate. He even had leaded glass windows. Really cool. We learned so much, even though we really didn't get to linger as long as we wanted to. It was so windy and cold. There were so many people. It was hard to get into each of the houses to hear what was being taught. All in all, I think the kids had a good time. I gave the big kids a disposable camera and told them to "shoot Jamestown" from their own perspective. I'm anxious to get that camera developed!
By about 3:30 the kids were really hungry and we were not about to spend a ga-zillion dollars on the food there at Jamestown, so we decided to call it a day and head on out. After a dinner of Chick-fil-a with my parents we headed out. As I got on the highway and really got up to speed I heard the most terrible retching, gasping, and gagging coming from the back of the van. Oh joy! It went on and on. Literally for 10 minutes I listened to the most horrible, near-vomitous sounds that you have ever heard. BUT, there was absolutely no way, no how that I was going to pull off the highway and look for a store where I could buy some Dramamine...................for the dog!!!! Yes, the dog. This dumb dog has struggled with carsickness ever since we got her as a 9 week old puppy. I gave her the last Dramamine that morning, not realizing it was the last one! By the time we headed for home, that one had worn off. You have never heard more wretched sounds coming from an animal than what comes from our dog. After 10 minutes, she gave up and calmed down. She was okay for most of the rest of the trip, although she did have another retching episode about 45 minutes from home. Fortunately, Cookie held her cookies!!
All in all, it was a fun Thanksgiving and a good trip to Jamestown. Granny got to see the kids for the first time since June. We all had a wonderful time together. We got to throw in a little bit of school too. The kids saw Jamestown and left it intact. They didn't burn down the Indian Village and they didn't set the Susan Constance adrift. What more could you ask for in a holiday?
