Jamestown "Settlement"- Day 4 & 5

We were all so tired from all of the walking that we had done the day before, that we decided to stay in and rest on our forth day here in Virginia. We started the day with sausage, eggs, grits and toast with coffee and caught up on the news. Lounging around in our pj's after running to the store to get some food for dinner seemed like an excellant idea; so we did!

Since we didn't eat breakfast until close to lunch time, dinner seemed to come awfully fast.....:-).  But I had a "feast" to prepare, so I started making preparations right after "brunch".  I planned a meal of baked Tilapia and grilled jumbo shrimp marinated in red wine and seasonings with broccoli and carrots and grilled onions cooked in dill and butter.  Wayyyyy tooo much food for four people, but some how we managed to eat every drop! 

Other than desert and a long night of television, that was it for Day 4 folks...ha


So, let's go on to Day 5

This morning we had reports of rain moving in and determined to not be stranded in the house because of bad weather.  So, we ventured out to the historic Jamestown Settlement.  Not to be confused with the original Jamestown which I posted pictures of a couple of day ago.  Those pictures were original building that had been restored or preserved for 400 years.  Today's pictures of a "replica" of all that excavation has revealed "was there" during that time complete with an Indian village.  On the way out of the complex, Chris decided to take a different road and we came across this play area for families that would be staying here.  It was very chilly out today and we didn't see anyone using the slide.  Perhaps it is much busier in the summer months.

And THEN, we saw this right next to it complete with an outdoor tent.  We decided that we would have some Bar-b-que for dinner and get back here before he closed for the evening.......

 

We headed out of the complex toward the settlement........

When we arrrived, this was the first thing we saw.........

The building was HUGE and I wondered if we would get through all of it in one day.....I mean since we had to pay a fee to get in, I didn't want to miss anything!

And here we go..........:-)

We were getting more excited every minute about what was waiting for us....:-)



After thinking of the "task" before us, we thought it wise to at least grab a quick snack to keep us going.  They informed us when we arrived that it would be a 3-4 hour journey through time.........
 

If the weather had been warmer we would have sat outdoors.  But as you can see, there is NOBODY outside!  Brrrrr.......7 degrees celcius (44.5 Farenheight).....did I spell that right????.... hummm.  Well, anyway.......

  

Here is a shot that I took to try to give you an idea of the size of this gynomous building....
And the buildings that you see in the background are all attached and connected to this one.....we have our work cut out for us! 

We couldn't figure out what this thing was except to say that it was a monument....it really didn't have a label or plaque....                                                ???????????????

Once we cleared the building and the huge monument, we came upon the settlement entry way.....:-)... yay!!  Geeze, these folks weren't messin around.  Notice the cannon peeking out of the fence?  Their biggest enemy at that time was Spain.

and here begins settlement life in the 1600's............

   
And of course, Chris immediately got into character....haha.  "I hereby dub thee, Scrago McSquarely"!.........haha

This would have been the "home" of the settlement officer.......not bad for that time.....kinda cute...:-)

This would have been his bedroom........

and two bunk beds in the rafter.........I couldn't help but think of flees or lice as the bedding was made of straw and covered in thin cloth.....

Yikes!!

This is the center of the Fort......

This area is popular for having people walking about in period clothing telling stories of the life that would have been lived here in the 1600's.....

everywhere we went, we were fortunate enough to have wonderful historians that knew their stuff and sometimes said " we" including themselves in the 1600 lifestyle complete with an old English accent......very cool indeed......:-).

This was the church.  I was I had been able to get the whole building in, but I was trying to stand close enough to get the bells at the top as well.

 Everyone was expected to go.  They didn't much mind if you feel asleep during the service.  But never miss!  It was punished by no food rations for 24 hours. And the punish got worse if you continued to miss.......which could got you 6 months in the galley riding up and down the river making deliveries.  Miss again, and it was jail for you for 6 months or more afterwhich you could find yourself with an order of execution.......

Wow.....Fear God and honor the king says I!

This is the interior......not very fancy, but an important part of their lives at that time......

I don't know if they changed the scriptures on the wall every week or not.  Probably not... I think this was there just for affect. 

But I am sure that the creed was displayed so that there would be no mistake about what they stood for from a religious stand point.

when we exited the church we saw this.......

 
I, of course was curious to see what was inside.  Then I spotted "Sir Scrago McSquarely" walking through the center of the Fort.......

We joined up with each other again and headed toward the Armoury where we were met by 4 historians in period clothing.  They were explaining about the "power" of their weapons which, by the way...they promptly fired outside in the court yard. I missed them doing that twice as I had gone on to another site.

 But I learned while there that there are two different types of rods on the ceiling.  One was for pushing the pouch of gun powder into the cannon. The other that looks like a giant cork screw was for the purpose of pulling the pouch out of the cannon one it had been fired.

This served as a storage facility and was full of barrels that contains tobbacco, dried fish, animal pelts, etc that would be shipped back to Britain......

this is one shot of the interior.........

We walked over to the next building and came upon this soldier who was "house cleaning" his quarters.  The soldiers were expected to keep their area clean and in good repair. This meant sweeping the dirt out of your house every day.  It was so dusty in here that when I took the shot, there were dust particles that were reflected on the lense of the camera!
 

Here is where he would have slept when not keeping a watch......ok, my nose is burning!

Farewell my friend! 

Next stop was the kitchen area which was studded with yet another historian.....:-).  I decided to look at the bill of lading to see what they were going to ship to England.  It included "one tonne of Sassafras for 50 British pounds". 
 

there was another room with a burning fire place that we decided to venture into.  I noticed the cotton liner hanging on the wall; which the maid on the other side explained went under the armour of the soldiers to help keep them warm in the cold winter.

and here she is....:-).  The one who repeatedly used the word "we" when she spoke to us about the workings of the kitchen area, rations, church life, etc.  She even told us what would happen if we stole from her garden which was on the side of the kitchen outside.....

geeze..... touchy! ha

and she further explained that the thing hanging on the way was a REAL ham.....I have no idea how old the thing was, but I was glad I had already eaten.....thank you very much! ha

All of the houses where the historian were stationed had live fires going that they tended themselves.....

We thanked her for her time and information and headed out the back door. where we met the Fort carpenter busy making a replica "salt spoon" on a horse vice....or something like that. 

he explained to us that right across from him was the blacksmith's shop.  The blacksmith was responsible to repair ALL weapons that malfunctioned or somehow became broken.  He as a master of his trade as there were no other smiths or manufactures of the other weapons at the fort.  He had to know how to repair every single thing......or get it figured out somehow.  Unfortunately, no one was there today.  But I am told that this shop is responsible for most of the nails that were used to build this Fort......:-).  Cool-eh?
 

Here is the thingee that they use to repair weapons.......

ok.....off to the docks!

In the background was the mast of the Susan Constant cargo ship...........

In the foreground was this!  Halleluja! hahaha....my eyes were turning yellow, my back teeth were floating......my....well, you get the picture....

I noticed a nice sitting area on the way out that I didn't notice on the way in.  Must have been that yellow tint in my eyes.....haha.  Well, too much to see and no time to stop anyway......:-)

 

and there she was..........the largest of the ships sent out for deliveries....... this is a blueprint of the inners of the ship......

The ship itself.......ya'll now I had to go in -right?

This guys was a hoot!  He asked me for my arm for the picture and then instructed me to show the hand with the "bling" on it so that others would think that he had captured a rich woman....hahaha.....I DID NOT cooperate.....haha

There was a ship in the distance that had been decomissioned as it was no longer sea worthy.

And of course "Sir Scrago Mc Squarely" went to the top of the ship so that he could wax piraticle....:-).

the inside of the ship was modest and very uncomfortable.  And remember, this is long before steam or coal to heat them.  No heat, folks.....NONE.  and they were sent out in December.....
 


This is the kitchen which the cook also used as his quarters......

this is a bunk where a sailor would have slept......straw and a thin cloth.

And this is the captain's quarters......he gets to sleep on lamb's wool.....:-)

I had to climb down some very steep steps that almost caused me to change my mind.  Another tourist came up the stairs and saw the way I was staring at them and kindly said; "if you go down backward, it won't be so bad"....So, I did.....and it wasn't.....:-).  This is the belly of the ship where they stored their tools and supplies.

and here is the poor old sap that gets to stay down there in the cold all day so that people like me can come and ask him if he's cold.......haha.

Next stop, "The Discovery".......here is her bluprint.

it is much smaller than the Susan Constant.  It was only able to carry 21 men and small cargo.  Behind her was the "Godspeed" which was closed to the public.  It was just returning from a tour and had to be serviced.

This was a sailor who manned the Discovery who also used the term "we" when he spoke to us......:-).

By now, time was not on our side, so we had to hurry.  Our last stop was to be the indian villiage of the Powhatan tribe.  there are over 3500 registered members of this tribe still living today.....:-).  There were about 21,000 when the English arrived.  Makes you wonder.......hummmm.

they lived off of the land by hunting, fishing and trading.......

Chris decided to take on an ancient wolf.........

He lost.........hahaha

 This was the largest of the dwelling which would have been where the chief stayed with his wives.

 the next dwelling had a huge bear skin hanging up with various pelts of different animals ranging from what appeared to be skunks (although it may have been a badger skin) along with fox and other critters.

It was time to go and on our way out, we ran into these two historians that allowed me to take their pics while Chris was getting the story of how the huts where made.....but don't ask me.  I wasn't listening because I had become aware that it was closing time and we still had to get to the front and catch up with our host who we had not seen in at least an hour!

We hurried to the front as the sun was setting pretty quickly......

I mean the front was wayyyyyyy up front....

 We walked back through the corridor of years.....made a quick trip to the gift shop and headed back to the car.....

The sun was still setting and the sky was beautiful with the various flags waving in the wind......:-).....

We made a trip to the Super K-Mart for some food stuff for tomorrow's dinner....

We went back to our dinner spot to pick up our meals and headed back to the house....



I'm tired!  hahaha......my feet hurt. and I will be doing SOMETHING again tomorrow!

stay tuned!