Virginia Vacation - Day 10

Not sure how much of a vacation day this was; I suppose it depends on how much you like being in the car. We spent the whole day driving back, leaving before 7 am and getting home around 5:30 pm. I worried about getting stuck in traffic around the Meadowlands as the Giants were home, but it was fine (even stopped at the Vince). The traffic hit once over the GWB and on to the New York Thruway, which was very slow. Another argument for taking the long way around.

The only notable part of the trip was on 128 coming up from the Pike to home, where we got to see a fully engaged car fire. Thankfully, it looked like everyone got out of the car before it went up.

All in all, a much better vacation than Indiana, which was only a vacation for one of us (and even then not much of a vacation, as there's only so long you can hang out by yourself before you start to go a little batty). Then again, vacationing with in-laws can often lead to the same thing.

Virginia Vacation - Day 9

We finally connected the Historic Triangle by going to Colonial Williamsburg. It was pretty interesting, though we'd have appreciated more clarity between what buildings were recreations and what ones were original. Guides would usually note this, but not always (the guide for the capitol building never mentioned that it was rebuilt), and if you didn't go into a building you really had no way of knowing.

Also interesting were the number of buildings on the site that were serving as private residences. You'd need a very high tolerance for strangers traipsing through your backyard, among other qualities. I don't think I could put up with it.

Consequently, you can just walk on to the site from the town. You'd not be able to enter buildings (the staff is very alert to people not wearing a ticket badge), but if all you wanted to do is nose around and see the performances (there's a drum and fife procession, and on the day we were there a number of street theater pieces telling the story of local reaction to independence), you certainly could. And for the money we paid, I almost think I'd have preferred to nose around for free.

And that wrapped up the actual vacation portion of things. All that was left was the drive home.

Virginia Vacation - Day 8

We put the history aside for the day and took up geography, so to speak, by going to Busch Gardens Europe.

For those not familiar with the park, it has nationally-themed sections whose rides and attractions theoretically tie in to the country. For example, in Scotland you'd find the Loch Ness Monster roller coaster, in New France the log flume ride, and in Poland the Escape from the CIA Secret Prison motion ride.

(OK, I'm kidding about the last one. Poland isn't represented in the park.)

One of the things I've noticed as I've aged is that I've become a bit of a wuss where roller coasters are concerned. For me to go on one I need to see it in operation, gauge the height of the initial hill, find out what sort of restraint system is used, and then take a few minutes to ponder if it's for me. The Griffon was clearly not a coaster I was going to ride, given the 90 degree drop after its initial hill (and the way that the riders are held at the top, over the edge of the drop, for a few seconds before plunging to, what I see in my mind's eye, as a splatterific death on the pavement below).

To that end, I wound up passing on the Loch Ness Monster, which the wife went on about five minutes after we entered the park. If she'd been willing to wait a few more minutes I may have joined her, multiple loops be damned.

I do not have this same problem with other rides, so I did go on the variety of motion rides, the log flume, and even the bumper cars (I love bumper cars, they were always the highlight of summer trips to Canobie Lake Park when I was a kid). I did squeeze in one coaster, the Big Bad Wolf, which isn't too bad (though it has its highest hill towards the end, which seems a little cruel).

We also took in a few of the shows, which was kind of disappointing as they had all been changed for Howl-O-Scream. Seemed to early for that to me, but as Halloween candy has been on sale in our supermarket for a month I suppose it's the way things are going. While I wasn't looking forward to the shows, I would have preferred step dancing and guys and liederhosen slapping their feet to vampires singing covers of '80s music.

I will say that Busch Gardens is marginally less of a gougetastic experience than the Disney parks, and going on a Friday in mid-September pretty much guarantees minimal lines. It wasn't a bad way to spend a day of the vacation, and I'd go back if I was in the area (and it was a day where it wouldn't be too crowded), but I'm not exactly plotting my return trip now.

Virginia Vacation - Day 7

This was our second day of historical nerditry, as we went over to Yorktown. Same deal as Jamestown, the state has their own facility with recreated period scenes and the National Park Service is in charge of the actual location. Unlike Jamestown, though, there's been no numerically-significant anniversary to spur spending, so both locations are a bit disappointing.

The state's facility, the Yorktown Victory Center, has a decent museum area, but the movie they show is not very good at all. It tries to tell the story of the battle and the revolution by going through an American encampment before the last big push of the battle and hearing what various soldiers are talking about. It's not content-free, but it doesn't tell you much.

The recreated areas are small, and the encampment is too clean and ordered to suggest that the troops stationed there are fighting a war. There's also a farm/homestead area which doesn't quite fit in, though I liked that they were growing hops.

The NPS site's visitor center is suffering from age a bit, and the movie appears to have been made no later than 1981. The short walking tour we took did an excellent job of covering the basics of the seige and did take us through some of the remaining earthworks. But to see the whole site requires a driving tour, which we decided not to take. Which is too bad, as I'd have liked to seen more.

We did go through the actual town on the way to the NPS site. The downtown appears to mostly be an open-air mall-type thing, which we thankfully did not stop to explore.

One thing we noticed on the way home was the preponderance of gates on the on and off ramps that would cut them off from the roadways. From what I've read they seem to be there to allow for contraflow during hurricane evacuations, though I imagine they'd also help if the military had to get a lot of people in or out of the Norfolk/Hampton Roads area quickly.

So that was two-thirds of the Historic Triangle down.

Virginia Vacation - Day 6

My brother is an excellent golfer. My father loved to play, and wasn't too bad, either. One of his uncles was, for a time, the pro at the Westchester Country Club. So there is some connection to the game in my family.

I, for whatever reason, don't seem to share that connection, or at least not to the same extent. Which is why I had some trepidation going into this day of the vacation, the day where I annually tee it up with my father in law and the wife's uncle.

The Golden Horseshoe Golf Club in Williamsburg has two championship courses, one designed by Robert Trent Jones, Sr. and the other by his son Rees. We did not play either of those. Instead, we opted for the $29 special to play the Spotswood Course. Which, when you think about it, isn't a bad deal considering it allowed us to play unlimited holes and included carts.

The course itself needs a little work. The 8th hole (which is the subject of the bottom right picture on their web page) may not be draining properly given the level of green slime on the water, and had more sand than grass on its green. Overall, though, it's a perfect course for hackers like us.

We're quite a trio when we go out, considering that the wife's uncle is legally blind and I often play like I am. Seriously, if this were a Cooch golfing recap I'd have had to contact MIT to design a polygon to contain some of my more egregious scores. But as we played on I got into the rhythm of things and even had legitimate par opportunities on occasion. Not that I converted any of them; it's hard to putt when you're more used to doing so while timing the arms of a tiny windmill. On at least two holes I took shots from under trees with a left-handed seven iron that my dad carried around for just such an occasion.

We wound up playing the course three times, as the second time around we zipped through in just about an hour. It sounded like a good idea at the time, but around hole 23 we started to flag, and we more or less played it out to satify honor.

The day ended up pretty much like every other vacation golf day, I enjoyed myself but not so much that I want to play every week. Though we do have a municipal course in town that's fairly cheap...

Virginia Vacation - Day 5

This was the first day of historical geekery, as we went over to Jamestown, the site of the first permanent English settlement on American soil.

I was a little confused when reading about Jamestown, as there are two main attractions. One, Jamestown Settlement, is run by the state of Virginia and is a recreation of early Jamestown on land that is near, but not part of, the original site. There's a large and well-appointed visitors center, behind which you find the recreated settlement area, which includes typical native dwellings, the fort and a work area of the town in about the 18th century, and full-sized replicas of the ships that brought the colonists to Virginia in 1607.

The other part is the actual site, which is run by the National Park Service as part of Colonial National Park. The site doesn't have any original structures, but does have some later ones as well as a good museum showcasing artifacts found during excavations. It's also cheaper than the settlement site.

We wound up doing both, and both have their advantages. The settlement recreation made it much easier to visualize colonial life, and some of the guides were quite adept at explaining life for natives and settlers alike (the younger guides were less knowledgable, though I expect that they were recently-hired college students based on some comments they made). We also got to put on some colonial armor and help hollow out a canoe, which was fun. Still, there was an air of make-believe to the place that made it a little hard for things to fully sink in.

The actual site has the advantage of being the actual site, as well as some extremely knowledgable rangers. It helps to have seen the recreation first, I think, as it allows you to overlay the visuals on to the original site. It takes away some of the fun of coming up with your own mental pictures, but at least replaces that with something reasonably accurate.

Both facilities show the benefit of the 400th anniversary of the founding, with new buildings and exhibits. Both also try to demonstrate the balance between the English settlers, the natives they found upon arriving, and the Africans who wound up in the area after escaping from the Spanish, an important part of the history but one that the settlement beats over your head a little too much, I think.

Anyway, if you ever go I'd plan on visiting both sites. No combo admission, sorry to say, but both offer combos with sites at Yorktown. More on that on Thursday.

Virginia Vacation - Day 4

A rest day, mostly spent in or by the pool at the timeshare. Had a conversation with a guy from Ohio that I gave up on once he recommended eating at Red Lobster while we were in town. That was pretty much all the interaction I had with other guests for the week, which is probably for the best.

We did go grocery shopping, and failed in my first quest for a bag of Utz's crab chips (which contain no crab, they're potato chips with Old Bay seasoning). They don't show up in supermarkets up here, even though Utz products have been widely available for at least a year. The only place I've found them up here have been at the Christmas Tree Shop and a local Italian grocery which doesn't always offer them (or were out the last time I went in, which was some time ago). Thought they'd be easy to find given our proximity to Maryland, but no soap.