We’ve decided there’s too much to see in the Chesapeake Bay and surrounding areas to rush through it and try to get back to Michigan by mid-October, so we’re slowing down and are going to spend the rest of the summer and early fall here. We’ll leave the boat over the winter around Baltimore or Annapolis and resume traveling up the east coast next spring.
So last Wednesday we traveled all of 15 miles to Hampton VA to a marina recommended by friends. We had our choice of slips, so we got one just 4 slips away from the parking lot. There was no wind and no current as we backed into the slip – what a pleasant change from the last few marinas! And there is a restaurant on the other side of the parking lot with excellent she crab soup – score, score, and score!🙌🏻
Enterprise picked us up Thursday morning in a very new Nissan Altima, and we were off to do some shopping. Unfortunately we couldn’t find several things we wanted, so it was Amazon to the rescue. We will have packages waiting for us at our next stop – that’s always exciting!
Friday we went to colonial Williamsburg, which is less than an hour from our marina. We were able to see about half of it and will go back tomorrow (Sunday) to see more of it. I realized as we were driving back that I took no photos! We toured the governor’s palace and learned that rooms painted green were an indication that you had money, because green paint was expensive and required repainting every couple of years. We talked with a shoe cobbler and got to handle several types of shoes, watched a woman using a spinning wheel, who explained in great detail the whole process, and talked to a cooper about the rings they used to hold barrels together. We toured the George Wythe house and learned how he was a mentor for Thomas Jefferson, as well as many other prominent figures. I could go on, but you get the idea of how much history there is to witness there.
We had lunch in an old tavern there, then headed back to the visitors’ center where we thought we could walk past an old plantation. Thirty minutes later we had made a complete circle and no sight of a plantation. We asked a docent about it and were told it wasn’t there anymore, in spite of what the brochure and map said. Needless to say, we were not happy to hear that.
Remember the bell tower and buildings I pointed out in an earlier photo? We were curious what they were so I looked at google map and discovered they are on the campus of Hampton University. Since neither of us had heard of it, we googled it and found it to be a fascinating story. It was founded in 1868 by General Samuel Chapman Armstrong as Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute for recently emancipated slaves. Booker T. Washington was one of the first students here.
We decided we needed to check out the museum and the Emancipation Oak, so this afternoon we crossed the river and explored. The bell tower is part of Memorial Chapel (1886), has 12 bells, and tolls on the hour. If we’re on the fly ridge we can hear it. The building just to the right of the bell tower is the Academy Building(1881). The museum on campus was founded at the same time as the school because Armstrong thought a good education trained the head, the hand, and the heart – he called the museum the curiosity room where students could see and touch artifacts from around the world. Today the museum is the oldest African American museum in the US, and houses 10,000 objects from traditional African art, to Native American art, to modern African American fine arts.
