Yorktown

Yesterday saw us visiting Yorktown, which is the third point of the historic triangle here in Williamsburg, Virginia. This was another place where we got confused, because a mile from the Yorktown operated by the National Park Service (the one we wanted to see) is the Yorktown American Revolution Museum operated by the State of Virginia. It's another "living history" museum, and I'm sure it's worth visiting. We, on the other hand, didn't want to pay yet another hefty admission fee. After inquiring inside, we drove an additional mile down the road to the actual Yorktown Battlefield and Historic Yorktown. There, we could get in for free with our geezer pass. It's the best part of being a geezer, for sure.

Just outside the entrance to the visitor center was this cannon. These could be seen at various places in the park.

Inside the visitor center is a small museum containing artifacts from the battle at Yorktown, including this replica of a ship. I took some pictures of the inside as well, but it was very dark, and so they didn't turn out very well.

From there and back outside, we walked a short trail to see the Yorktown Victory Monument.

There were inscriptions on all four sides. This one describes the final battle of the Revolutionary War.

This one describes the Articles of Peace that granted the United States its independence from England.

Behind the monument is the York River.

Walking a little further, we could visit historic Yorktown. This is actually a modern-day residential community, but the houses are historical landmarks from the days of the battle. Many were empty fields because the British had taken to burning and tearing down the homes and using the wood to shore up their earthworks barriers. I'll say more about that in a minute. Mainly, this was a windows and walls kind of place.

Before heading out to see the battlefield(s), we stopped in at the visitor center and purchased the driving tour audio CD ($4.95). It narrated the 7-mile drive around the area and gave us a good history lesson about those final days. Mainly, it was a lot of these earthen berms where soldiers could take cover. They completely encircled all of Yorktown and the Continental Army was able to use the cover of darkness to build their own set of "earthworks" trapping the British Army inside before the battle ensued and they were forced to surrender. The French were allies of the Continental Army, and undoubtedly contributed to the winning of the war for independence.

This is the Moore house where the terms of surrender were negotiated.

And that's pretty much all I have to show you for our day of sight-seeing. We could have gotten out of the car and walked more of the trails, but we were feeling lazy after three solid days of sight-seeing. Mainly, we wanted to pick up a couple of things from the grocery store and get back to the RV for naps.

Smitty and Sadie have negotiated a peace about the catio. Sometimes Smitty hogs it while Sadie lies in wait.

When Smitty yields his position, Sadie takes her turn at hogging it and Smitty has to wait. The only time they'll share the catio is when we arrive at a new location.

Smitty got out for another long walk yesterday morning.

He consumed a large chef salad of blades of grass.

We had planned to leave our current location today, but it's so calm and peaceful here, we decided to stay an additional two days. Today we're going to head out in the other direction to Charles City County, Virginia, where the Plantation Road is located. There are several plantations built in the 17th and 18th centuries where descendents of the original families still reside. We are planning to visit just one, the Westover Home. You can see a slide show of the place at that link I've given you. If we finish up there early enough in the day, I might talk Mike into visiting a quilt shop.