Somehow, we actually got on the road yesterday. It wasn't just that we were leaving for six months -- we also have tenants coming in for the summer, so Cherie felt obliged to do a lot of Cleaning Out and Putting Away. And then the Enterprise isn't all that big, in fact it barely qualifies as an RV. "Class B motorhome" they call it. Anyway, many choices had to be made about what to take and what to leave behind. This is actually a very useful exercise, because you realize early on that most of your stuff is just that: "stuff". In fact, we still have unopened boxes in the basement from four years ago when we moved to Princeton. I have no idea what's in them, but Cherie claims to know. Anyway, you can guess just how critical whatever it all is to our daily lives.
We took the Interstates all the way down, stopping for lunch once we cleared the Beltway. Arriving at our lovely tree-shaded campsite, we were feeling quite relaxed until a five-minute long freight train blasted past us on the track next to our site, which we hadn't yet noticed. Until then, of course. I always wondered what it would be like to live next to a railroad track. Now I know. Ah, the joys of the road. In my limited experience, I've found that camping is often an exercise in rolling with the punches. So we buttoned up the van, turned the fan on high, and put in the earplugs. Not so bad, really. There were two or three freights, but they were much shorter than our introductory experience. Enquiring about train times from the campground manager, we discovered that Amtrak comes by once in the morning and once in the evening, that the freights are unpredictable, but not to worry because they don't sound their horns after midnight. Oh, well in that case, no problem.
Having heard about Colonial Williamsburg for years, I was curious. Was this going to be a Disney-esque theme park, or an actual preserved historical site? Turned out to be a bit of both, actually. Most of the buildings have been "re-created" i.e. rebuilt to look like what we think they really looked like. However, there were lots of real craftsmen (and women) making things by hand, like shoes, clothes, wrought iron pieces, etc. For the most part, the craftspeople seem to have learned their crafts by apprenticing to older Williamsburg craftspeople -- just like it happened long ago. This strikes me as rather quaint, and also genuine. The most fun was the tour of the Governor's "palace", which was just the residence of the colonial governor of Virginia. We were put in a group with about twenty fourth-graders from Fairfax county. The only adults were us and the four teachers. It's been quite a while since I've been exposed to the excitement and enthusiasm of 10 year-olds. The high point came as our guide was explaining that a smaller room next to the grand ballroom was often used to play cards during a ball by people who didn't want to dance. A hand shot up: "Did they play Texas Hold-em?" Now with a high-school group this would clearly have been a joke, but here the questioner was quite serious, and the guide answered very matter-of-factly without even cracking a smile. She was really good.
During the course of the afternoon, I realized that I have some sort of negative emotion about re-creations and replicas. I find myself wishing that I could see the real thing, rather than paying much attention to what I'm actually looking at. That's why Rome was such a great experience. Cherie and I went there (I for the first time) in 2007 and our hotel was right across the plaza from the Pantheon. I just looked out the window, and there it was. The exciting thing was the idea that the building had been in continuous use for 2000 years. A replica could not have that effect.
Well, the third freight of the evening having just rumbled by, I think it's time to turn in. Tomorrow we head for Raleigh, NC to visit some friends.
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