Our Weekend Trip: Norfolk, Jamestown, and Yorktown

We all needed to get out of town after the busy-ness of school and work and holidays, and the boys had three days off of school for Martin Luther King, Jr day.  We only decided a few days before, so we weren't quite sure what we were going to do, but we booked a hotel for a couple days in Williamsburg.

First Day - Norfolk

We left on Sunday morning.  We all woke up pretty early and so we thought we would leave a little early to try to skip the rain.  It didn't work.  As soon as the garage door shut, the rain started.  And it poured.  Because we live in the middle of nowhere, everywhere is basically a 2 lane highway.  So, the drive took a little longer than we expected.

We finally arrived in Norfolk, still in the pouring rain.  Thankfully, not much traffic since it was Sunday - but, boy, just driving around Norfolk with the Chesapeake Bay and all the crazy tunnel bridges and road construction.  What a mess!

The zoo seemed out, so we decided to go somewhere else.  Nautilus wasn't open yet, so we pretty randomly decided to go and see the MacArthur Memorial because it opened at 11.  After getting everyone out of the car (quite a feat to put 6 people in our little mini mini-van and get our bags, stroller, and pack and play) and distributing umbrellas, we ran over to the MacArthur Memorial.  Katsu didn't even know it was for General MacArthur, and of course, the boys had no idea who he was.  But there was a cool jeep and a motorcycle and the boys were excited to see the movie.  They all ran and sat at the front by themselves and loved watching the war scenes.  Next, they wanted to see the gift shop.  We had to pry them away - they had all kinds of little collectible army guys and they wanted them all!  The lady in the shop gave them a catalog and they poured over it the rest of the trip.

We went to the Memorial next.  Seth was only sort of interested and Logan was kind of running around everywhere, but Andrew seemed really interested in the history and wanted to read all of the exhibits.  Katsu was especially interested, as MacArthur had a very large role in the peace time rebuilding of Japan after World War II.  We were able to show the boys the surrender document that Japan signed and different historical artifacts from that time period.  Pretty cool for a random stop for the day.

We ate some sandwiches in the car and fed Noah and drove on over to Nautilus.  We probably should have just walked ... by the time we found a parking space we were about as close as we were before.  Norfolk has statues of mermaids all through town, and the boys were more than happy to search for them the whole time.  The boys were fascinated when they saw the battleship.  The boys were excited when they saw it ... except for Logan who was pretty nervous.  He seemed nervous about a lot on the trip - scared of monsters on the battleship or monsters in the hotel room, but in the end, he had lots of fun.

First, we started off touring the free part of the museum.  It was interesting, but the boys were getting bored, Noah spit up everywhere, and it was time to get tickets.  So, we bought tickets and went to walk all around the exhibits.  They were geared towards kids - they talked about the Chesapeake Bay and shipping and things like that.  The boys especially loved the one where you could play on a water table and arrange tiles to make the water go in different ways.  They spent a long time looking at that.  Noah got fussy, but he finally feel asleep.  The boys played in a play area and then we finally went and toured the battleship.  The USS Wisconsin was HUGE.  It is 16-17 stories tall and 3 football fields wide.  It was really cool, walking around and looking at all the guns.  They were amazingly big!  Then, you could go up and down ladders and look in many of the rooms.  The quarters were so small and such a maze.  I can't imagine living there.  Logan was pretty scared that monsters would get him and thought some of the mannequins were monsters.  Then, when Katsu explained what they were, Logan though some of the real people were mannequins!  The boys really loved it.

After this, we went and saw a 3D movie.  Besides Disney, I think this was the boys' first.  It was a surfing one.  Andrew and Seth really liked it - Logan would try to reach out and grab things, but got bored quickly, so me and him and Noah went outside to look at exhibits.

When we were done, it was time to go back to the car and drive to Williamsburg.  We had friends from Michigan that lived in Williamsburg, so we went to their house and had dinner.  It was fun.  The boys were excited to be able to run around and play with some new friends (they had a 2nd and 1st grader).  And it was nice to have a good meal that we didn't have to cook and catch up with friends.

Finally, we were able to check into our hotel.  Noah was pretty upset and ready to go to bed.  Katsu set up the pack and play and amazingly, after eating, Noah went right to sleep and slept just like he did at home!  Yay - success!

Second Day - Jamestown and Yorktown

We weren't quite sure what we were going to do.  There is just so much to see in this part of the country.  But, it was a fee-free day at National Parks, so we decided to check out Jamestown.  There is a national park and also a dress-up village - but we only went to the National Park.  I guess, until 1994, they didn't know exactly where the Jamestown Fort was.  For some reason, they thought it had all washed away in the sea.  But a graduate student thought it wasn't in the sea and did some digging in 1994 and found evidence of the fort.  So, this area is still an active archaelogical site where they are still finding new parts of the fort and town and learning more about the people who lived there.  We started out at the visitor's center and watched the movie.  Logan kept loudly asking if it was done.  The boys decided to do the Junior Ranger program and I am so glad we did.  They got their booklets and we looked around at the exhibits.  Both here and at Nautilus, the boys were very interested in looking at the replicas of ships and counting how many cannons they had.  Then, we went outside to see the fort areas.

The boys loved running around and looking for answers to their worksheets.  Seth got a little stressed out - he could read, but writing all the answers was a bit much for him, so we helped out.  We ran and found the John Smith and Pocohontas statues and the Memorial and looked in the Memorial Church to find plaques on other people who lived in Jamestown and facts about them.  Then, we looked at where they had dug up foundations and artifacts and bodies.  Then, we went to the archaeology museum and looked around.  The boys especially likes the skeletons and the weird little things they found - like piles of frog bones, or the ear wax picker.  After running around a bit more, we had answered all the questions, so the boys ran back to the Ranger and got their first Junior Ranger patch.

Since they enjoyed it so much and we are notoriously cheap, we decided why not head to Yorktown.  We took the Colonial Parkway and loved it.  The road was so calm and peaceful and reminded me of the Blue Ridge Parkway.  It totally set the mood, too - you could hardly seen any buildings or road or traffic - just the trees and the water.  Logan and Noah fell asleep in the car.  So, Katsu and the two older boys went into the visitor center and found the Junior Ranger booklets and started watching the movie.  Noah woke up and woke up Logan, so we all came in and finished the movie and then looked at the exhibits.  The boys really liked walking on the ship and seeing what it looked like.  Then, we ran outside and the boys ran along the embankments and pretend to shoot each other and climbed on the cannons.  We walked down to Main Street and tried to answer all the questions from their booklets - some were hard!  We couldn't believe when we saw the cannon damage on the houses in Yorktown - the cannon balls were still embedded in the walls!  Crazy!  After answering to the best of our ability, we walked back and the boys got another patch and got sworn in as Junior Rangers.  Then, we drove around and saw all the major places the battle took place and drove by the field where Cornwallis and his men surrendered.  The boys loved running around all the embankments and it was pretty fun.

We ended the day with a trip to an Asian buffet - the only time we ate out on the trip - and back to the hotel to watch TV (Sponge Bob, oh joy!) and go to sleep.  Another tiring and fun day.

Third Day - Zoo and Great Dismal Swamp

We left a bit early and go to the zoo in Norfolk before it opened.  The boys were stoked because their was a mermaid painted like a tiger and they had plenty of time to get their picture taken with her.  The zoo was perfect - pretty small, so it only took an hour and a half to see it.  The animals were pretty active.  The sun bears were fighting over food and the tigers were growling up a storm.  Our boys were fighting over the map, as usual, but once we got over that, we had a pretty fun trip.  We drove to the next-door park afterwards and played and had lunch.  We tried a new way home with a different tunnel bridge and went right next to the Dismal Swamp.  I thought it might be fun to stop if we saw a visitor center, and we did indeed find a visitors center to the Great Dismal Swamp State Park right over the state line.  We stopped and got brochures and then went to the state park visitor center.  Unfortunately, the ranger wasn't there, so we couldn't do their Junior Ranger program, but we looked at the exhibits (fought over all the interactive ones), got some activity books, and then did a little hike on the boardwalk.  They built a large canal in the late 1700s around the eastern edge of the Great Dismal Swamp since the area was mostly impassable and they needed a way to transport between Chesapeake Bay and the Albemarle Sound without going through the treacherous waters of the Outer Banks.  The canal is really pretty to look down.  The hike on the boardwalk takes you right into the swamp - it was pretty cool to see.  The light makes the stagnant water look all the colors of the rainbow.  The boys eagerly looked for signs of wildlife - footprints or scat.  They really always want to see bears and bobcats, but unfortunately (or fortunately) we only saw some birds.  It was a nice little stop before we finished our trip and got home just in time for dinner.