Last Days of the Gypsies

After the festivals in Urbanna and Charles City County, the gypsies had their final festival with the Godspeed visiting New Kent County for a couple of days. The first day was just for school kids and an event in the afternoon for seniors only. We had a ton of kids of various ages, and through a bit of disorganization, the day went well. The festival itself was a collection of people from all over the county with booths on crafts, archaeology, alpacas, taxidermy, agriculture, history, music, and even animal skinning (my favorite). I made friends with the little old man that was apparently an award-winning skinner and hide-tanner. His display was right next to our tent, so we were able to really enjoy the shock-value squeals of the kids next to us as Charles skinned a beaver and gave the feet and teeth to the kids. It was particularly fun since he also gave me a couple of tails and a foot to take back and use at Jamestown. (photos: Paddock Lane and the pop of marvelous foliage that we had all given up on this fall due to the drought and late season heat; the back of our house and some color; alpacas in New Kent County, including one that seems to be pretty hungry; me in an alpaca hat to go with my other cold weather gear; and me with some of the taxidermy temporarily stored in our tent.)





After work, we went back to Williamsburg where I quickly cleaned and got ready to head to Hampton. I’d been wanting to go to a monster truck rally for a while (since I’d never been to one before), and having seen the commercials on television, had gotten a group of people to go to the Monster Jam show that evening. Heather, after having recently moved to Connecticut, came out to play since she was in the area for the day. Everyone finally got to the Hampton Coliseum, none of us having ever been to a monster truck show. It was an interesting crowd that seemed to have its own kind of silly culture, but I loved it! It was an event that I enjoyed immensely, though I’m still not sure why. After Monster Jam, we all headed to a pub in downtown Hampton to hang out and apparently have a table hockey tournament until it was time for us all to go home (since most of us had to work the next day, anyway…). (photos: Grave Digger and another truck crushing some cars; Scott, Lindsay, and David at the rally -- David being particularly excited, of course; some of the motocross at Monster Jam, really one of the coolest parts of the entire experience; and fans cheering like they mean it for Grave Digger, the superstar of monster trucks. Videos on my YouTube page, linked on the right side of my blog.)




The second day was quite busy (and I a bit tired), though I was able to periodically check the UM-OSU football score throughout the day. The ship had to leave early since the President was coming to one of the plantations in the area in commemoration of the First Thanksgiving (in 1619 in Virginia, not the 1620 one in Massachusetts). After chatting all day long with visitors, the Honor Guard regrouped to have one last beverage and one last group dinner at the local (and delicious!) Italian restaurant on site. (photos: Me waiting for the festival to open, resting but not sleeping; the Godspeed at her docking with the cypress trees and their foliage in the background; Charles' skinned beaver; and Jack and my scarf unwinding after festival clean-up at the end of the day.)




The following few days were busy in the run-up to Thanksgiving. My dad came down to visit and spend the holiday with me, arriving that Wednesday night. I had to work on Thanksgiving as part of the big program Foods and Feasts (all of our interpretive sites cook… a lot…), so my dad followed his inspiration to drive to Virginia Beach before coming to explore Jamestown that afternoon. After work, we cleaned up before heading to the Whitehall Restaurant in Williamsburg for a delicious Thanksgiving dinner (though I’d already had one official dinner at work, along with all of the other food I’d been eating all day). (photos: Thanksgiving dinner number #1, courtesy of the Jamestown Settlement café; Kris at one of the cookfires in the Indian Village; Don mixing instead of cooking (something about fire on a wooden pier and ships); me really excited about roast duck and scalded oysters; and Terry explaining to Dawn and some visitors about something delicious he cooked.)





(photos: Me examining my turtle soup with some visitors; Mary with the head of the hog butchered in the Fort that morning; and Thanksgiving dinner #2 that evening.)



The next day the Honor Guard had to march in a parade in Reston, VA (just outside of DC), so we were up early to drive north. My dad had agreed to come with us and, along with a couple of local volunteers, swell our meager ranks for the parade. My dad hadn’t ever done costumed/interpretive work and found the costuming interesting, to say the least. I had a hard time keeping myself from giggling (as, apparently, did my grandma when she saw the photos of my dad in costume). After the parade, we drove back to Williamsburg after food and beverage stops in Richmond and went to bed early. (photos: Mike training Dad before the parade; the Honor Guard in the parade with me as ensign; and look at me wave.)



I was sick on Saturday and spent most of the day in bed until meeting my dad later in the afternoon for a bit of shopping in Merchant’s Square. That evening, he wanted to hang out with my friends and the Honor Guard at the pub. We got a fair amount of people to come hang out, though the evening continued quite late and was indeed fun. Sunday morning was spent taking my dad to the airport before coming back to Williamsburg to relax and recover from the holiday weekend.

So I'm A Jerk...

So I'm a jerk. Yup, I pretty much suck for not having updated my blog for the past ever and having been a big slacker before that. It has indeed been busy, though I've said that before and all. Anyway, in an attempt to prevent the hole I've been digging myself for the past two months, I'm going to set the goal of getting this all updated by the end of the week. In the mean time, please enjoy the following snippets of my recent life and the video as included below (and recommended to me by Katie)...

Recently and currently:

• Enjoying musically: the Juno soundtrack and Buddy Holly
• Reading: The Golden Compass trilogy, Stephen Colbert book, and curatorially-approved education materials
• Eating: cheese -- and lots of it
• Watching (movie-wise): Juno, Atonement, The Darjeeling Limited, Ed Wood, and The Commitments
• Watching (TV-wise): victorious UM football bowl games, election coverage, bad tv marathons, occasional conspiracy theory History Channel-esque specials
• Doing: looking for creative things to do in off-season W'burg (e.g. bowling, long walks all over the place, voyages to the ocean, etc.), planning ridiculous yet affordable road trips, and training in the new job
• Avoiding: lethargy, energy inefficiency, spending money, and bad tv marathons

Steph the Sailor (kind of... with oysters...)

So in the last days of October, I left on the Godspeed from Jamestown, sailing with her to Urbanna for the 50th Oyster Festival. Urbanna annually has its big oyster hullabaloo, the official oyster hullabaloo of the commonwealth. We left on a Monday morning bright and early to sail down the James River to Hampton at the mouth of the James before heading the next day up the Chesapeake Bay to Deltaville near the mouth of the Rappahanock River and on Wednesday just a smidge up the Rappahanock to Urbanna. I'd never been sailing and was a bit nervous, since my little bit of sail training had been months earlier, but the crew all helped me extensively, and before being more than a few miles from Jamestown, I was climibing the rigging for the first time getting the sails ready to be set.

Being on the ship, we were split into two watches and assigned to one of the two larger masts. When my watch was on duty, we all rotated keeping lookout for little boats that might forget to not hit us (and other things in the river that might be dangerous to us), taking our turn at the helm, and generally being useful on deck. Also, when we were setting, taking in, or adjusting sail, my watch was assigned to the fore mast and spritsal (the front half of the ship, essentially). Also, we had our basic duties of helping to come into port, clean the ship both above and below decks, etc. On the way, it was really neat to have all the bits of info that I'd only been slightly exposed to be put into such practice, helping me to understand and remember the setting of sails and function of a ship more than ever. When at the helm, I got to steer the ship past the Elizabeth River and Norfolk on the first day, into a small fleet of sailboats in the bay on the second day, and into the Rappahanock (under the direct center of a bridge! that one got me the first beverage of the evening) while doing sailing maneuvers that the captain had me order. In all, it was a lot of fun and I'm quite hooked! (photos: The view up the main mast of the sails and the King's Colors; Little John keeping watch on the bowsprit; Gene and Little John at the helm; the compass (and some cool reflections); and John and Julie in the galley.)





(photos: Doug, Julie, and Todd relaxing while our watch was off duty; the captain and me steering the ship; the view from the quarterdeck; Jack as he looked on Halloween, ready to scare kids at a haunted house; and the hold of the ship where most of the crew stayed for during the sail.)





Coming into Urbanna, while trying to quickly furl a sail but furl it well, I jammed my thumb pretty well. Jack of course made fun of me to no end for that one, only a couple of months or so after having bruised my finger on the same hand. That night we went up into town looking for a place to celebrate Halloween, but apparently everything closes down around 8pm on a Wednesday night in Urbanna. Bummer. The next day, we had a few hundred school kids come through for programming, and in the afternoon went on a short promotional sail (which I was determined to go on, injured hand or not) before going out on the town that evening for dinner and live music. Jack was staying on a boat in the middle of the river, but the owners had taken the dinghy and Jack had to sleep in the tent on a pile of blankets (I was staying on the ship, so no problem there). (photos: Dan the Man awaiting the school kids; Mike giving a group of kids an orientation to the ship after I taught them all about navigation and exploration; the Northern Neck Chantey Singers; the view from my bunk on the ship in the morning; and Jack in the morning after having spent the night in the tent.)





Friday started the public programs for the Oyster Festival, so it was pretty busy with about 1500 people coming to the ship that day, though it was mighty cold and windy from the Noreaster blowing off the coast. We saw their massive fire engine parade that eveneing (over 80 firetrucks from all over the state) before again going out that evening. Saturday was the last day of the festival and I actually got to go out to explore and try some of the oysters. It was super crowded, especially with the big parade (a 45-minute parade, half consisting of shriners in every kind of mini automobile possible). After the day with over 2000 visitors, we waited until they opened the streets to traffic so that we could go to a big post-festival party where I slurped my first oysters (both raw and scalded) and Jack showed me how to eat my first crab (which parts to eat, which parts to pick off). Finally, after the next day cleaning up, it was back home to completely unwind and take sleep -- a lot. (photos: The giant oyster from the parade on the final day of the festival; hillbilly shriners; and a shriner in his mini semi.)



I was home for a few days, a couple of which were spent at work, before prepping to go back out to another festival in Charles City (between Williamsburg and Richmond). The first day there was more ridiculous amounts of school kids followed by a day of public visitation on Saturday (albeit pretty darn cold). Friday night was Steph's birthday, so some of us went out for a late night BBQ and bowling. Regardless, when I got back Saturday evening, I fell asleep almost immediately. (photos: A really excited David for a rather massive banana pudding at Steph's birthday dinner; Steph, Lindsay, and David at dinner; Lindsay bowling; and David feeling a bit nerdy.)




Fall has indeed arrived at last with leaves falling and frost advisories abounding. My tomatoes are still trying to pull through a bit longer and the interpretive staff in the Indian Village are decked out in furs too. Sally and I have been using our wood stove a TON and have even spent an evening making curtains to better insulate our house (my motivation, at least). I've been also trying to plan where I want to go work-wise, etc., as well as organizing my plans for the holidays. Again, busy, but when is that new? I'm loving the cold though!

Visitor from the North -- Amongst the Fun!

So coming into the later part of October, it was still hot though getting into the 60s at night and leaves were only hinting at changing still. However, little bits here and there showed signs of a coming fall, like the sale of cider and fresh donuts at a concert in Charlottesville to the fact that I actually could wear my leather leggings and furs at work and not be super uncomfortable. However, I was still adament about dressing for October and not for the weather at hand and was often made fun of for my wishful thinking.

A really exciting part of the month was when Jenny came down to visit for a few days. She came down on a Monday evening and we began a few days of extreme fun, complete with activity checklist. Tuesday we went to both Yorktown and the Jamestowns, complete with biker bar and a cookout in the evening. Jenny enjoyed bonding with Jack's new hedgehog Norman, who we apparently wore out with the excitement for days afterward. Wednesday we ventured to Berkeley Plantation (home of Col. Benjamin Harrison, signer of the Declaration of Independencen and father/grandfather of two US Presidents, site of the first Thanksgiving, site of the composition of Taps, and about twenty other firsts). A storm blew in during the middle of our tour of Berkeley and continued through most of our day trip through Richmond and movie outing that evening. The next and final day we spent seeing the final orientation video (in all, we'd watch a total of five museum orientation films in three days) at Colonial Williamsburg, a 1950s 45-minute VistaVision saga. After a quick visit at CW, we stopped at the home-cooking deliciousness of the Carrot Tree before taking Jenny to the airport. (photos: Me, Pocahontas, and Jenny at Historic Jamestowne; Jenny loves John Smith; Jenny and I beating that steadily beating drum; also later doing the horrid smell dance moves from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"; and Jack and Norman.)





(photos: The recycle bin at our house the morning after our cookout; me on the lawn of Berkeley Plantation; Jenny doing a kartwheel on the plantation lawn due to her excitement; looking up the terraced gardens to the main house; and Jenny touching a tree hundreds of years old!)





(photos: The bathroom sign at Colonial Williamsburg; showing our love to Thomas Jefferson in Merchant's Square; and Jenny in front of her favorite house in town.)



After Jenny's visit, I had to go to get cracking on assembling my Halloween costume since Lindsay's big Halloween party was the next night. I went as Tippi Hedren from "The Birds" and had to find both a 60s-esque dress and lots of fake birds. After work that Friday, we assembled our outifts, rendezvouzed at our house to carpool down to the party, and had quite a good time and we've still been piecing together stories weeks later. The night after the Halloween party, it was back to Don's house for another burger burn/haunted house expedition. The local Claremont-ites went all out on their haunted house, though after six days in a row working, plus the tremendous pace of Jenny's visit, followed by more work and active evenings, I was getting to be exhausted. Unfortunately, when my day off came around, I was to be heading to Urbanna for the Oyster Festival with work, but this time by boat! (photos: Heather and Morris as Jack Frost and some sort of WWI fighter pilot; David and Mark as Skeletor and Nacho Libre; Callie and me as Elastagirl and Tippi Hedren; Joe as Fabio (complete with goose and bloody nose -- an incident that happened at Busch Gardens Williamsburg); and Lindsay and Sally as Mugatu from "Zoolander" and Jessica Biel from "Flashdance".)





(photos: Jeff and Varia as Miami Vice and Varia; Callie negotiated a ride on a scooter from Lindsay's friend dressed as Hansel from "Zoolander"; and Jeff, David, Lindsay, and Varia.)