After going to Virginia Beach for the Landing Day commemoration/reenactment, we were home for an evening before heading out for a series of days in Hampton at their 400th Anniversary event at the end of April/beginning of May. The first weekend of May was when the Queen came to the two Jamestowns, but the Honor Guard was off to Newport News for their commemoration ceremonies/festivals. The last day of that first weekend, we headed to Claremont, on the other side of the river in Surry County for the last day of their festival as well. After Claremont, it was back to Jamestown for a couple of days before Anniversary Weekend kicked into place at the end of that week.
(photos: The Godspeed/Elizabeth in front of some old naval ships now part of the James River "Ghost Fleet"; and Jack and Kai with ChocoTacos... mmmm.)
Between the three pre-Anniversary Weekend events, Hampton went the most smoothly. An ornery journalist insisted on making Kai a 12-yr-old stowaway in her article and was extremely frustrated that it wouldn’t be historically accurate to photograph me (a woman) on the Godspeed (since the first women didn’t arrive til later, and thus not on the ‘Speed). Newport News was fun with the presence of a DVD player at our disposal, funnel cakes, and a very excited Mayor, but the barge used as the pier to board the Godspeed (really the old Godspeed, since our new one was back at Jamestown for the Queen and we were re-christening the Elizabeth as the Godspeed for the weekend) was incorrectly ballasted and no one could actually board the ship. Sigh. That Sunday in Claremont the winds prevented the Godspeed from docking, but did not prevent the Honor Guard from thoroughly enjoying our time in the small and slightly backwoods town of Claremont.
Claremont really deserves a bit more than a mention of winds, by the way. Surry County (the county across the James River from Williamsburg/Jamestown) is sparsely populated and is constantly made fun of for being so rural, offering mostly peanut and ham farms (Smithfield – as in Smithfield Ham – is in Surry Co.). Being one of the larger towns in Surry, Claremont is mostly a bundle of beautiful but dilapidated late 19th and early 20th century homes, mostly due to the fact that Surry never really took off as the bustling shipping town that it wanted to be. But if you’re going for country charm, a la the Upper Peninsula, Claremont is a haven. The town doesn’t really have a traffic light, only a small traffic circle (with one divided “boulevard” that seemed to have been more wishful thinking), and a small convenience store that a local man informed us “doesn’t take swipies” (a.k.a. debit/credit cards) though he “reckoned the one down yonder does.” The residents also seem to take quite a bit of care in decorating their yards, but know no restraint when it comes to statues, signs, flags, and broken boats/bathtubs being used as landscaping centerpieces (in fact, the more the merrier!). The people were tremendously friendly and we happily stayed for dinner at a coworker’s house that evening before heading back to the ferry across the river.
(photos: The Godspeed trying to dock, not realizing that it'll spend the next few hours motoring in circles off shore instead; Kai and Jack ready to catch the lines; Jack leaving his mark on Don's house (a coworker who's moving to Claremont and whose crooked house suits him perfectly); a favorite collection of mine of signs in Claremont; and after having moved, us interpreting out of the back of our minivan -- seriously, gypsies...)
(photos: During an evening actually in Williasmburg, Jeff embracing his true self -- a baggywinkle lanyard we made him; and Mark as Lou Reed taking one for the team so we could get Jack on stage to do his "colored girls" routine.)
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