Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Thelma and Louise...part two

After we left the island of Chincoteage, we headed down route 13 (which, by the way, is the most obscure highway ever!).
 We stopped at a few towns along the way...


One of them was the town of Parksley...




Right smack dab in the middle of town was an old fashioned five and dime store called Jaxon's...


You can't see it, but my mom is tearing up in this picture...




The minute she walked in, she said it was like being a little girl again at Kresky's--her local five and dime in Fredonia, Ny...


The way the place smelled, and the way everything was displayed on cabinets was just as she remembered as a child.




It truly was a blast from the past...just look at these old hair nets...(are there other people wearing these other than lunch ladies?)



We continued down the road until we reached Williamsburg, Va.

It was Friday afternoon when we arrived.

Kudos to my mom for safely getting us over the Chesapeaque Bay Bridge Tunnel (a 30 minute ride over a bridge completely surrounded by water). My mom has a great phobia for bridges and tunnels, so this was quite an accomplishment for her...




There was so much information to cover in just the short time we were there that we decided to focus on the slavery aspect of things...(We went on a plantation tour and began to regret it about 10 minutes into it)
The guy leading it treated us all like we were personally responsible for slavery.  He actually made us go out in a cotton field and PICK COTTON (it was 98 degrees that day, no lie!)  We left feeling ashamed of our whiteness...


This was a slave woman's handbook on how to care for her mistress...



This was so interesting...It's actually the menu that the staff used as a guide for what to cook.

I would love to have a copy of this...

It's hard to imagine cooking like this during a time when there weren't any modern appliances...







Oh...to have a "well paled" garden...






We met up with Lynne and Ken (aunt and uncle) who live in Williamsburg.  They treated us to a delicious lunch at the Trellis...It was so blazing hot that day that we lingered a bit longer in the a/c building...



After our lunch with them, we did a bit more site seeing in Williamsburg and went back on the road to our final destination....Monticello-- (Thomas Jefferson's home)...

Look at this garden!  It's a mile long and absolutely, positively beyond words!!!

The story about Thomas Jefferson being in love with his slave Sally Hemmings was very interesting to learn about...She was actually his first wife's half sister...

When we got home and told Brian all about what we learned, he likened it to the SNL skit where they were able to bring our founding fathers back from the dead and a press conference was held.  The reporters could ask any question they wanted, and of course, every question asked was about how these guys slept with their slaves...


slave kitchen...(If ONLY mine were half as nice as this!)

 


Here we are right before going on the house tour...

This was such a lovely trip...I know I'm forgetting a million things...
I can't believe how long it's taken me to actually post about this...
It's always hard to recap the adventure...

As always, these trips with my mom leave me feeling rejuvenated and relaxed...
We have so many great memories to look back on of our time together...

Thanks for a fabulous trip, mom!

8 comments:

  1. Hey, i was wondering when part 2 would appear:-) Williamsburg is much more beautiful in the summer-fall than when we went for our honeymoon in january...:-) I remember that SNL skit and cracked up reading that:-)

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  2. Welcome back to blogging Thelma, thanks for your nice comments on my blog.

    I love your new Fall banner!

    You've got some seriously great photos in this post. I love the flowers in the bucket and the canopy of trees especially.

    The slave tour sounds a bit rough. Nothing like a good chastising to give you that authentic vacation feel!

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  3. ahhh- memories... that was a great trip and i'm grateful that you posted it- someone had to!!!! love everything except the side views!!!! ...holy ugly!

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  4. What an awesome trip!!! I would live to visit Williamsburg. My dream to go visit all those places someday!!! :)

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  5. those gardens take my breath away

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  6. oh my gosh what gorgeous photos you have in this post! i am so excited for you to have these mom and daughter trips, what amazing memories you are making with her. i love that.

    love those gardens! oh man. but it makes me laugh that you have "garden envy" when i envy yours every time i do yard work!

    i am laughing a little about the slave tour, even though, yikes, that guy sounds kind of nuts. i must have missed the memo that said slavery was all our fault. :)

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  7. looks like a wonderful trip!! i loved the garden pictures

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  8. The pic u took of that tree is the same exact tree that me and my 2 other siblings always climb when we go to Williamsburg! So neat! I have to say that it is the BEST climbing tree eva!!

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