A Nod to the Drive-By States

We have stayed in so many different places at this point in our journey, and yet whole states go by the window without us really stopping for more than a cup of coffee or to use the bathroom. I've been reflecting on this the last few days. I wanted to give a nod to the states that we only glanced at from the minivan windows.

Alabama was supposed to be a chance for us to stop in Birmingham, and stretch our legs, and see the Civil Rights Institute. By the time we reached Birmingham the museum was closing. So, I quickly got out and looked around while Elijah sat in a meeting in the car, and the kids finished up a movie. Afterwards, we stopped for a cup of coffee, and Izzy threw a tantrum which turned into our first back seat time-out of the car ride.

South Carolina was the next state where we made only a brief stop. This time we had intended to camp in a wilderness at the top of the state that was in both North and South Carolina. The rain was so intense all the way through the drive north that we changed our plans. We stopped in Greenville, SC to have dinner and try to figure out a new plan. We had a great Indian meal, and drove around the town more than once. It's a very sweet little town, with lovely buildings, and very good services. We almost decided to stay the night just based on how inviting it felt, but we didn't.

After Maryland we drove through Pennsylvania but didn't stop. We noticed several bridges in Delaware as we attempted to navigate through them. And we got incredibly lost in New Jersey, just where Elijah said we would, because that spot on the map was incredibly confusing. As a result we ended up driving very close to Princeton University, though we never actually saw it. When we got back onto the highway it became a progressively more and more expensive toll road. We did get coffee in New Jersey also, and we almost stopped to get the boys a haircut, but we decided it was best to keep going. Elijah and I were having a good conversation that couldn't keep.

We spent a lovely mid-day in Connecticut with family for lunch, and then drove through stunning little New England towns as we made our way up through Hartford, and finally into Massachusetts and Boston.

We had dinner with family in New Hampshire. We also had coffee and drove through Portsmouth before arriving for dinner. Then much later in the night, while driving to Vermont, we got lost for a moment trying to find coffee, thinking that the exit number was enough to determine the necessary place to get off the highway.

We stayed overnight in Vermont, having driven through the whole southern mountains in the night. Even by moonlight it was beautiful, with lakes and little villages, and obviously lovely wooded hills. We only stayed for half a day before driving back into upstate New York, but Vermont is simply breath-taking, and somehow homey. I always love to visit it.

On our way from Niagara to Detroit we drove through Pennsylvania. We stopped in Erie for lunch. Then we drove along Lake Erie through Ohio, stopping several times for food and bathrooms. Both places boasted very nice people and a surprising number of colleges and universities of note. It's so clear that once upon a time the cities by the Great Lakes were very powerful centers of industry, just as the cities along the Erie Canal and the Hudson River had once been. The industrial beginnings of this country have not necessarily fared well with time. Many towns rise up in one's sight along the highways with beautiful old buildings. Buildings that no longer house the great and powerful elite who originally required that these places be built. The infrastructures are falling apart, the streets hold more potholes than people, and the businesses that put these places on the map have either shrunk or been forgotten. Williamsburg and Fort Pulaski reenact the past in costumes and teach of a time before the industrial revolution at the beginning of the country, or in the struggles of the early years, but the manufacturing cities and shipping yards of the founding industries don't yet claim enough historical significance to warrant a lucrative tourist trade. Only time will tell whether places like Syracuse or Detroit can become a fascination for tourists based on the powerful markets they once represented. Perhaps someday the Erie Canal will have mule barge reenactments, where you can spend a week pulling a barge up the canal as part of an industrial experiential vacation.

The country is a very big place. For all of the sites we have seen there are, every day, another hundred or so that we pass up. One could spend years wandering the United States and never run out of new sites to see. And so I wanted to just give a nod to those states we have passed by with little more than a thought for how to get through them and on to the next state. Someday perhaps we will stop in Cleveland and see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Perhaps like our babysitter Melissa just did, one of our kids will choose to go to college in the Mid West, and we will find ourselves visiting a city we never thought we would get a chance to know. For now these places will have to remain simply interchanges in our memory. Some of them the kids didn't even look up from what they were doing in time to see. Some of them they slept through.

George Washington and His House

After having such a great time at Colonial Williamsburg we were in eager anticipation of our next days adventure at Mount Vernon. I had been there a long time ago as a teenager and had a memory that it was a beautiful house and a fascinating look at the life of the first president. The boys have an interest in George Washington. Eli did a report on him a couple years ago, and they are often acting out parts of the revolutionary battles that include Washington's army.

So, it was a bit of a surprise when we arrived at the Estate and realized that it was really not that kid friendly, and although beautiful, not that fun. The tour was heavily mediated and we were informed by one of the early tour guides--there was a new one in each room--that they didn't usually answer questions, but that he was in an unusual mood and so thought it would be fun for a change. Then too, all of the shops and out-buildings that were simply still tableaux of colonial processes, had been inhabited with real skilled crafts people at Williamsburg. As a result the kids were not as impressed by the empty gardner's house, and the empty shoe makers hut. For the children it wasn't particularly ironic that these functions in Williamsburg had been done by crafts people for an entire town, but here on the estate of George Washington these same skills were done for one plantation, and done by slave labor. I on the other hand found this endlessly curious.

I had remembered at my last visit being struck particularly hard by the horror of slavery in the midst of such an educated household. The weirdest part of this visit was that the slave quarters and all of the tableau displays around slavery and the slave quarters seemed to have been cleaned up and made humane since the last time I had been there. It seems that the reality of slavery on the Washington plantation could now only be discussed if the lives of the slaves, and their situation--which was specifically and openly stated in the signs placed around the slave quarter displays--was accompanied by a visual display that was inconsistent and seemingly at odds with the information written on the signs.

These elements of our tour made the visit to Mount Vernon less and less palatable as we continued on. By the time we reached the monument to the slaves anonymously buried in the woods far from the house, I had become seriously disturbed. Disturbed by the reality of slavery and racism in our country that is inescapable across the history and behaviors of the entire country, but also disturbed by the slippery double-speak of the historical displays that attempt to present a now aware and progressive culture while still amplifying, in a million small ways, the realities that scream loudly how much we still have to do, and how unresolved issues of race, class and gender still are.

Hannah did not want me to take a picture of the view of the Potomac River from the back porch.

She did everything in her power to keep me from taking a picture.

The boys and Elijah working out the puzzle presented to us at the beginning. We were supposed to have to go to each part of the estate to figure out the puzzle, but they were able to answer all of the questions except one without actually going there.

I finally got a picture of the Potomac when Hannah wasn't looking.

And then another for good measure.

When we had first told the kids we were going to Mount Vernon Izzy had said "you mean the house with the dove on the top?" I didn't know why he had asked that, so when I saw the dove with the olive branch in its beak I was completely amazed. "How did you know it had a dove on top Izzy?" He told me that it said so in Liberties Kids. That was a great series, my kids basically don't need to take US history now.

The house is very beautiful.

Izzy asked why the garden was cut like that. He suggested that it must have been for when people came in by airplane. I told him that it was a European tradition and had begun way before airplanes. He found it troublesome that people would make designs in a garden that were best seen from the air when they couldn't actually be in the air.

The kids assessing their puzzle books realizing that the only question they had not been able to answer required that they find the monument to the plantations (called an estate)  slaves.

These slave quarters were redesigned from the ones I had seen the last time I was here. The bunks are designed from the historical specifications of soldiers bunks, not from specifications of slave housing. The clothing hanging gives the impression that the house slaves had extra clothing when if you read the signs that describe the allotment of clothing and food for each slave it is clear that this is not the case. Near the hearth of the slave quarters is a display of abundance that does not match the description of the actual diet described on the displayed signs which openly state that the nutrition provided was not enough nutrients and minerals to sustain a person.

Before entering the path to the Slave Memorial one is confronted by a sign with a quote from George Washington's will. It reads, ". . . it is my Will & desire that all the Slaves which I hold in my own right, shall receive their freedom." The date on the quote is July, 1799 and yet the date of the dedication for the memorial to these slaves is Sept. 1983, fifteen years after the death of Martin Luther King Jr. That the monument exists is lovely, that the slaves and then freed men who died and are buried at Mount Vernon are in unmarked graves is troubling.

This smaller tombstone-like marker is off to the side almost hidden in the trees.

Hannah's Walking Tour of Mount Vernon

Living History in Colonial Williamsburg

Ever since we watched the PBS series Liberty's Kids, which depicts many of the important characters and situations of the American Revolution, the boys have been completely enamored with the beginnings of the United States. So as we were approaching Virginia it struck me that we should take the kids to Colonial Williamsburg. I had remembered going there as a teenager and being struck by the crafts and costumes. What I had not remembered was just how incredibly steeped in historical information the whole place is. So far I think it has been the best teaching experience we have had on this journey. We witnessed so many different artisans and actors teaching the history of various skills, politics, cultural issues. We talked to actors about the legal ramifications of freeing slaves in colonial Virginia, we talked with the milliner about the transmission of clothing design from Turkey and India to the Americas, we learned from the weaver that the Americas were in direct competition with Egypt for the importation of cotton. I have rarely had my head so filled with a variety of data by the end of one day. Colonial Williamsburg is astounding. I highly recommend it. Not only that, Jamestown and Yorktown are both right near by and apparently have equally interesting dynamics. One could easily spend a week or two in that one arm of the Chesapeake Bay discovering living histories.

A 3D relief map of the town of Williamsburg. We were surprised to learn that many of the buildings are inhabited by people who actually live in the houses of this historical town, in amongst the living theater. All the rents go to the upkeep of the historical district. Only one house is not owned by Colonial Williamsburg. It belongs to a very old Virginia family who were apparently not happy with the way the Civil War turned out. They still hold ownership of the house and they refuse to sell.

When you first arrive in Williamsburg after buying your ticket and wandering past the gift shop, you arrive at a classic colonial farm property, with fields of corn and real pigs and chickens, and the farm house and out buildings. The kids thought this was it, and were ready to dig into exploring the farm for a while. They talked with the women who were apart of the farm experience and admired the chickens. It was almost difficult to get them to move on.

A colonial farm house.

Finally we got them to walk into town, and they were excited to see all of the buildings, horse drawn carriages, and people in costumes. It took us a little while to get our bearings, but once we did we began to explore and visit the various trades people who were around the town waiting to teach about their skills. I was so impressed by the extended historical knowledge of each trades person. These are truly skilled and very informed people. From shoe making to gun making to suit making to furniture, every one of them could answer the hundreds of questions that were thrown at them, and all of them actively worked at the trades that they represented, their shops were filled with goods that had been made on site. To top it off they all remained in character throughout.

Carriages pulling into the center of town to prepare for tours of the community.

Hannah having been removed from the armory where she touched one too many things sat under a tree and watched the carriages come by.

The armory, our first stop to talk to a trades person. They made guns and spoons and candlesticks and other interesting items using metal molds.

We had seen in the schedule for the day we were there that General Lafayette and George Washington were going to speak in the garden of the Governors Palace not long after we arrived. The boys have a real fascination with General Lafayette and we were kind of excited to take them to see him speak--even if it was only an actor--and give them a chance to really get a sense of the man as a reality.

The palace is a beautiful large building with manicured grounds and decorative wrought iron gates. We didn't take the tour of the house because the wait seemed too long, but wandering around the outside of the house was really lovely.

A view of the back of the palace from the garden.

The British coat of arms on the back door of the palace.

The gate at the front of the house.

The front entrance to the Governor's Palace.

The actor who plays Lafayette also travels to France to enact the role of Napoleon on occasion. He was really great in this role, even going so far as to give a lecture on the philosophical implications of the Enlightenment and the hope that the American Revolution brings to the larger understanding of liberty. During the question and answer period I had an ah ha moment when he suggested that the reason the French were so interested in aiding the Americans against the British, was partly revenge, but partly motivated by the wish to retrieve their colonies in the west indies for the sake of sugar production. Remember the sugar processing plant on the Mississippi River just outside of New Orleans? Somehow sugar is a major culprit in the politics of the Americas.

General Lafayette talking to the crowds.

The boys watching Lafayette and Washington speak. Eli asked them during the Q and A how they had discovered that Benedict Arnold had betrayed them. We had a really interesting answer that included history about Arnold's purposely incompetent management of West Point during the war.

After listening to the generals we went towards the end of town and ate lunch at a very nice Tavern.

This detailed history was on the back of the menu. Everywhere we went within Williamsburg was steeped in information about not only the original developments and usages of objects, buildings, peoples, but also information about the continued history and restoration of these places.

The dishes and furniture were very authentic.

The ubiquitous kids menu experience was less authentic, as was the food.

After lunch we stopped in to the milliners shop and learned some fascinating things about the clothing of the era and the traditions around apprenticeships, as well as some interesting gender stuff that I specifically asked the tailor of the shop about. It turns out that while most tailors were men, widows of tailors were encouraged to continue in their husbands work, in fact all widows of tradesman were encouraged to continue their husbands' businesses, but were often not called out as such, so that many trades had more women in them than was on the surface suggested. We also learned that seamstresses were simply hired hands, they did not know how to cut or design.

After the milliners' shop we moved out to the street where we witnessed a dramatic presentation of the community in argument about commerce and politics as a result of the war. One grocer was accused of hording salt. Others had to uphold their reasons for wishing to be separate from the British.

If you look behind the stage you can just see Elijah and the kids peeking out watching the actors.

The court house farther down the street where earlier several citizens had debated going to war.

Eli with his map of the town.

If a house or store is open for visitation they place a British flag out front to indicate that you can come in and look around.

Not long after the citizens argued with each other over whether they should be loyal to the crown, Benedict Arnold and the British Governor road into town and reclaimed Williamsburg in the name of King George. It turned out that Benedict Arnold was played by the same actor who had earlier played Lafayette. I didn't tell the boys that until after we had left town. I wanted to see if they would notice on their own.

Benedict Arnold announcing the British rule of the town, and suggesting that the Americans were almost defeated.

The boys watching the actors.

Not long after the actors went off towards another part of the dramatic presentation we wandered towards the encampment of the militia. The boys had been hoping for some battle scenes, but it turned out that for the most part that was simply off stage allusions. When you go to see the soldiers camp however it turns out that they will recruit you and they even have a sergeant who trains the new recruits in the necessary drills for holding a musket properly.

Entering the camp.

All three of my children joined the militia.

They learned how to hold a gun using long sticks.

Being instructed in the proper form for stabbing with a bayonet.

At the end the sergeant really shot the musket so that we could see what that was like.

Next door to the militia encampment is the cabinet makers shop. I was excited to see this after the response the boys had had to the wood turner in Asheville. We discovered all sorts of interesting things about furniture making in colonial America, including that most of the wood was walnut or other local woods, except for mahogany which came from the Caribbean. By this point I was beginning to think that contrary to popular belief, globalization was well and truly entrenched already in the 18th Century.

Eli talking with the guy about wood turning and various ways of making rounded edges.

Wood stacked outside the shop in drying stacks. Everything in these shops was real, and all of the old processes were being maintained in historical fashion. They made their own tools, traded with each other for goods, and as we learned in the blacksmith's shop they were actually creating many of the products and elements they needed on site to do restoration of the actual site itself.

One of our last stops for the day was the blacksmith's shop. The blacksmith had broken his hand doing something "boring" he told us. But he had two apprentices working diligently creating nails the whole time we were there. They were making nails for a building being built next door.

Izzy actually asked a question of the blacksmith, which is how we know he was truly into it.

Watching the nail making.

Right near the blacksmith's shop it turned out Benedict Arnold was holding an audience where you were allowed to confront him about his treachery. Eli couldn't resist, he had to go see him. We were late, but the woman assistant let us in, so we sat quietly in the back. Eli couldn't resist asking him a question at the end during the Q and A. He asked Arnold why he had betrayed General Washington. The actor who had played Lafayette, was equally genius at Arnold and managed to sound like a calm and rational conservative who was meanwhile clearly talking to much trying to convince us all that he was in the right. It was a great performance. The boys loved it!

Benedict Arnold addressing the accusations of the crowd.

The boys watching Benedict Arnold. As the actor left the room in character he passed us and turned towards Eli and thanked him specifically for his question. Eli was very proud.

Colonial Williamsburg was exhausting, we were all dragging ourselves to the car at the end, but it was well worth it. I could easily have spent several more days there. We saw only a small percentage of what is available, and the kids had begun to make friends with several of the community characters, especially Hannah who had charmed some of the ladies of the town so much that they had trouble saying good bye.