Second Time's The Charm
I decided to keep the car for one more day, and I'm glad I did because today was a nice day. It was cold but the sky was blue with nice white clouds. After morning muster, I made the drive out to Jamestown Settlement again. It was overcast but then it picked up. I got there just 30 minutes after they opened and was one of the first few people to go in. I'm glad I went that early because it was getting pretty busy by the time I left at around 12:30PM.
The first "exhibit" is a Pawhatan indian village which consists of a couple round/oval vaulted ceiling huts, some more rustic huts, a fire and a corn grinding apparatus. The people manning this exhibit, dressed as indians, were very distinctively Caucasian. You'd think they would at least have tried to get people that look semi indian. Next was James Fort, which was constructed to protect themselves from the Spanish and the native indians. It was nothing more than a tall picket fence with a few cannons around a handful of buildings, including barracks, church, armory, governor's house, etc. All this is reconstructed mind you, but apparently this is what the original settlement really look like to the best of their knowledge. The structures were pretty small and dimly light. The time period of this historical site is circa 1607 so the buildings are actually constructed in the late medieval/early renaissance manner. I am fascinated by that period in history so I was really excited to see what everyday buildings looked like then, as opposed to castles, manor houses, etc.
Next were a couple exhibits outside the fort, by the water. They were mainly boatmaking places and places related to fishing. There were 3 boats docked, the Susan Constant, the Godspeed and the Discovery. The Discovery is the smallest of the 3 and it's hard to imagine how such a small ship could have survived such a journey. Even the Susan Constant, the bigger one, is very small by today's standards. The berths were very small and enclosed, but then again, people were a lot shorter then. It took them about 4.5 months to make the first trip from London to Virginia, stopping in the Canary Islands and several Caribbean islands. They had their only hot bath in the Caribbean. Pretty amazing, makes you be glad planes exists. I tried to talk one of the workers into escorting me on to the maintenance pier so I could take proper pictures of the ships but they said no, short of trespassing, not much else I could do.
I was all done by noonish so I headed back to Norfolk, got lunch, my Canon 100-400 lens and went to the zoo. I was expecting a proper zoo, but this is more like a small park with a few animals. It only took me a couple hours to see everything, and I lingered by the lions' den. There wasn't much activity, I guess winter is not exactly a popular time of year to be outdoors.
The first "exhibit" is a Pawhatan indian village which consists of a couple round/oval vaulted ceiling huts, some more rustic huts, a fire and a corn grinding apparatus. The people manning this exhibit, dressed as indians, were very distinctively Caucasian. You'd think they would at least have tried to get people that look semi indian. Next was James Fort, which was constructed to protect themselves from the Spanish and the native indians. It was nothing more than a tall picket fence with a few cannons around a handful of buildings, including barracks, church, armory, governor's house, etc. All this is reconstructed mind you, but apparently this is what the original settlement really look like to the best of their knowledge. The structures were pretty small and dimly light. The time period of this historical site is circa 1607 so the buildings are actually constructed in the late medieval/early renaissance manner. I am fascinated by that period in history so I was really excited to see what everyday buildings looked like then, as opposed to castles, manor houses, etc.
Next were a couple exhibits outside the fort, by the water. They were mainly boatmaking places and places related to fishing. There were 3 boats docked, the Susan Constant, the Godspeed and the Discovery. The Discovery is the smallest of the 3 and it's hard to imagine how such a small ship could have survived such a journey. Even the Susan Constant, the bigger one, is very small by today's standards. The berths were very small and enclosed, but then again, people were a lot shorter then. It took them about 4.5 months to make the first trip from London to Virginia, stopping in the Canary Islands and several Caribbean islands. They had their only hot bath in the Caribbean. Pretty amazing, makes you be glad planes exists. I tried to talk one of the workers into escorting me on to the maintenance pier so I could take proper pictures of the ships but they said no, short of trespassing, not much else I could do.
I was all done by noonish so I headed back to Norfolk, got lunch, my Canon 100-400 lens and went to the zoo. I was expecting a proper zoo, but this is more like a small park with a few animals. It only took me a couple hours to see everything, and I lingered by the lions' den. There wasn't much activity, I guess winter is not exactly a popular time of year to be outdoors.
posted by June at 11:25 PM
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