Road Trip 2010: Day 9 of 17 (Williamsburg to Richmond)

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Arriving in Yorktown after spending the day at Water Country USA

Yorktown Victory Center - kind of a funny name for a visitor center. Putting "victory" in the name seems like rubbing it in to me.

Colonial Triangle cities of Jamestown, Yorktown, and Williamsburg

Yorktown battlefield monument

It's neat to see pictures like this of the battlefield to compare then...

...and now

You learn things like what a "redoubt" is

We thought the Yorktown Battlefield Park was beautiful. We drove around and read a bunch of the historical markers and then got out in some places and walked around.

Yorktown Victory Monument

Back on the Colonial Parkway headed to Jamestown



We were momentarily delayed by this goose crossing

This is the Jamestown Visitor Center. Most of Jamestown was closed by the time we arrived. I really hate it when that happens. There's still things to see, but it's not the same. Places closing at 5 pm is probably the most frustrating thing for me on our road trips.

From Jamestown, we headed northwest to Richmond on State Route 5. It was one of the most beautiful drives of our trip. There was little traffic with tree canopies giving way to open vistas of rolling plantations. These pictures don't really capture how beautiful the drive was with the way the fading light reflected off the rolling golden fields.

This part looks flat, but much of the drive is rolling with changes in elevation and scenery

Saturday June 5, 2010

We were back on the road again, which meant dealing with packing things up and checking out of the hotel. It was nice to have stayed in one place for a few days.

Since we didn't spend much time at Water Country USA the day before that's where we started off the day. And since our feet were still raw from the scorching pavement the previous day, we stopped by Target to get some water shoes. The water shoes made all the difference. Adam didn't like the feel of the shoes and chose to go barefoot despite the heat. He goes barefoot a lot anyway so he's not as tenderfoot as the rest of us.

We were at one of the kid play areas in the water park and Adam and Derek were playing when Helen mentioned that she thought a woman nearby looked like Adam's basketball coach from the past season. We looked and looked and decided it was not Adam's coach and moved on. We were walking around when the lady approached us and it turned out that it was Adam's coach. She told us how her son came running to her and said, "Adam is here". She dismissed her son thinking there was no way that Adam was at a water park hundreds of miles from Atlanta when Adam came running by and she said, "Oh, hi Adam".

The water park was fun and we did most of the attractions. I think the kids felt like they got their money's worth.

After the water park we headed to Yorktown, went to the visitor center, and toured the battlefield. The area was really beautiful with lush green rolling hills.

We took the scenic Colonial Parkway to Jamestown to complete the Colonial Triangle. Jamestown was pretty much closed, but we drove around and got out to see some things.

Sometimes on our trips we're in a hurry and have to take the interstate, but we prefer to take less traveled scenic roadways. This time we were fortunate to take State Route 5 to Richmond. What a beautiful drive through the historic plantations along the James River! We were very pleased and thought it was one of the most beautiful drives of our trip.

We arrived in Richmond as it was getting dark. We planned on staying in Richmond and touring around the next day. We ended up along what appeared to be a main drag in Richmond near the University of Richmond. There was all kinds of activity. People were out and about and there were lots of restaurants and shops.

Unfortunately, the traffic was pretty congested so it was taking us some time to go any distance. After our long day we were getting tired and hungry. Being a suburbanite I get cranky having to search for parking. We saw some restaurants that looked promising, but available parking was not evident. This is when things start breaking down. We decided to look for a hotel and all the activity led us to believe there must be some hotels around, but we drove and drove and never saw any. We decided to head for the interstate thinking that we know there are hotels there. We ate fast food and ended up at a Hampton Inn just north of Richmond. We were tired and cranky (especially Helen) that we never found anywhere "good" to eat.