Day 5: Colonial Williamsburg (part 1)

Wednesday, October 18

The other highlight of our trip was the day we spent in Colonial Williamsburg. There is so much to see that one day hardly does it justice, but with the ages of the kids, that's all we could hope for on this trip.

We started off our morning parking at the Visitor's Center. We rented costumes for Samantha and Michael to wear during out day in the Colonial Period. It's fun to see the kids dressed up and the people in Colonial Williamsburg respond a little bit more to people who are dressed up. And they certainly were by no means the only ones dressed in colonial garb. The woman in the rental office even showed Samantha how to curtsy and Michael how to bow. She showed Michael how to put one leg forward, turned slightly outward, so the ladies could see his "wonderful leg" - otherwise known as "putting your best foot forward".

We walked over from the Visitor's Center to the colonial area. My husband misled me by "understating" the distance from the Visitor's Center to the colonial area - it was about a half mile. When we reached the colonial area, we jumped onto an orientation tour that explained a bit about how things worked and what we could expect during our day. All of the sites that were "open for visitors" would have a "Union Jack" flag posted out front - it made it easy to see what was open and what wasn't. This is also important because some of the houses on the street are actually occupied by Colonial Williamsburg employees who rent them out.

We visited too many "craftsmen" and other "tradesmen" to enumerate each of them, but I will highlight some of our more favorites.

When we reached Duke of Gloucester Street, we headed to the ticket office and purchased tickets for a carriage ride later that morning. We got lucky because at 9:45am in the morning, most slots were already filled and the only one left fit our schedule well.



While waiting for our time to ride the carriage, we headed over to the Governor's Mansion. We intended to tour the mansion, but planned to do that later in the day. For now, we spent time on the grounds. We saw the Wheelwright and the carriage house, and then headed around the back to the immense gardens. The Governor had a very large estate, especially for that time period. We wandered through the gardens and finally found the boxwood maze. It is clear by the way the hedges have grown, and the fact that it is the end of the growing season that many kids had dug "through" the hedges instead of walking through the maze - it made it harder to find the actually maze. After getting through the maze we went up on top of the old ice house where you could get a good view of the maze.