Home Sweet Home

I have not posted since our "victory day" of October 20, 2010 when we arrived in Yorktown.  I have now had almost two weeks to reflect on our adventure, enjoy time with family and friends, and to drive home to Oregon.

As those of you who have been following this blog are aware, Gale, who started with us in Oregon had to depart in Nevada as she just did not have the time to do the entire trip.  Lisa, Dana and I rode together until central Kentucky when Lisa headed south to visit her sister in Knoxville, Tennessee (after a "wonderful" visit with her sister Lisa rode via North Carolina to Virginia Beach, Virginia where she arrived on October 22, 2010.  Dana and I rode the entire trip together from the Oregon Coast to Yorktown, Virginia but parted ways a couple of hours after our arrival in Yorktown.  Dana and her mom (our faithful, wonderful, etc., etc., etc. driver of our support RV, "chief cook and bottle washer", moral support, etc., etc., etc.) took Donna (Fran's friend from Yuma who joined us in Kansas), Cali and Patches (Fran's cats who were our primary source of entertainment and alarm clocks throughout the trip) to Virginia Beach where they parked the RV, Donna, and the kitties for a few days so they could fly back to Oregon for Dana's brother's wedding.  Donna has since flown home to Yuma, and Dana, Fran and the kitties are slowly working their way back to Yuma in the RV.

My son Paul, who had recently returned from living and working in Europe for several years, and his girlfriend Yagmur, greeted us in Yorktown and the three of us stayed in Williamsburg for a few days visiting and enjoying the sights.  Yagmur, unfortunately had to work for three of the days, but Paul and I were able to spend spend that time "catching up" and sightseeing. 

On Wednesday afternoon after we arrived in Yorktown and had some lunch, Paul and I drove back to Yorktown to look around the town a bit and visit two museums.  Yorktown is very small and really consists of some tourist shops, the "old town" which we never saw, and the Revolutionary War battlefield sight and museum.  In the tourist area the only thing we really did was tour the Watermens Museum, a museum dedicated to "preserving the heritage of the watermen of the Chesapeake Bay",  http://www.watermens.org/.
This was an interesting little museum that was worth taking the time to explore. 

We then went to the Yorktown Visitor Center and Battlefield which is operated by the National Park Service.  The Visitor Center does and excellent job of educating about the battle that resulted in the end of the Revolutionary war:

"On this battlefield, between September 28 and October 19, 1781, General George Washington and his allied American and French army of 17,600 troops surrounded and besieged General Charles Lord Cornwallis' 8,300 British, German and American loyalist forces, which were fortified within the port of Yorktown. American and French artillery crews fired over 15,000 rounds of siege artillery upon the British continuously for nine days. On October 19, Lord Cornwallis, surrendered, effectively ending the war."  http://www.baygateways.net/general.cfm?id=55

On Thursday, October 21, Paul and I spent the day walking around Colonial Williamsburg.  We were not able to get into many of the buildings because we decided not to buy tickets until after we had a chance to see what there was to see (we actually originally decided we would spend Thursday walking around and then buy tickets of Friday so we would have access to the buildings, but later decided to do something else on Friday).  The weather was beautiful and we had a great day wandering around, which included a wonderful chicken pot pie lunch sitting outside on the restaurants patio.  That evening we took Yagmur back into Colonial Williamsburg for dinner.

Governor's Palace in Colonial Williamsburg

On Friday, Paul and I decided that rather than returning to Colonial Williamsburg we would take a drive paralleling the Jame's River and go to Berkeley Plantation (Fran and Donna had gone there and really enjoyed it).  It is a beautiful drive from Williamsburg to the Plantation (Dana and I had ridden much of it on our bikes), and the tour of the Plantation was excellent.  Berkeley Plantation was supposedly the site of the first official Thanksgiving in 1619, and was the birthplace of President William Henry Harrison. 

http://www.berkeleyplantation.com/

Paul next to the James River at Berkeley Plantation

Saturday, October 23, was a wonderful day.  Yagmur was able to be with us and the weather was perfect.  We spent most of the day at the Jamestown Settlement,
http://www.historyisfun.org/jamestown-settlement.htm.
We spent several hours exploring the museum - they do an outstanding job of depicting the history of Jamestown dating back to the earliest Native Americans residing there.  There was an especially interesting special exhibit entitled "Werowocomoco, Seat of Power" with artifacts dating back 10,000 years.  http://www.historyisfun.org/werowocomoco.htm
After exploring the museum we took a tour of the replicas of the Jamestown and Powhatan Villages and then walked down to the river where there were replicas of the ships that brought the original settlers to Jamestown.  Jamestown was the first English settlement in America that managed to endure for more than a few months.


Nancy, Paul and Yagmur in front of ship at Jamestown

 Paul and Yagmur returned to their new home in New York City on Sunday, and on Monday morning I picked up my rental car and started heading west from Williamsburg.  My first night out I spent in Lexington, Kentucky with my cousin Patsy.  It was great to have some time with her and she surprised me with having made a delicious coconut pie.  On Tuesday I managed to drive through a tremendous storm around Louisville, with tornado warnings blasting on the radio.  Because the rain was coming down so hard and I couldn't see the cars in front of me I pulled off the freeway at the next offramp and waited out the storm (hoping not to be in the eye of the tornado); it was only about a 15 minute wait which I made the best of by eating a piece of Patsy's pie!  Once the storm was over it was over!  The wind died down and the skies turned blue.  It took me 3 days to get to the Denver, Colorado area where I visited with my daughter's family.  My granddaughters were exited about Halloween and I was able to attend some of their school festivities on Friday.

Lauren in her "batgirl" costume

Kaley in her cheerleader costume

It took me two days to get home from Colorado and I arrived in Portland Sunday afternoon where Steve picked me up and I returned the rental car.  On Sunday evening we went to our favorite Depoe Bay restaurant, Tidal Raves (http://www.tidalraves.com/) for dinner - I had salmon which I had been craving since the day we left Bandon!

Of course the day after I got home we had a torrential rainstorm!  The next couple of days should be nice though and I am going to do a casual bike ride with girlfriends in Newport tomorrow.  I haven't been on the bike since we arrived in Yorktown 12 days ago.  I am really looking forward to tomorrow's ride (I may even sneek in a short ride this afternoon once the fog lifts). 

It was a wonderful "adventure" which I am so very glad I did!  After three months of being gone however, it is great to be home!