Spring break!

Hard to believe that almost a month ago, we were in Williamsburg/Jamestown/Yorktown. We drove down on a Tuesday and stayed until Sunday morning. We thought we'd have enough time to see everything, but unfortunately we didn't. Some samples:

--We went to Jamestown the first day, after a crummy first night in a hotel that Rachel and I disliked. It wasn't Drew's fault; I had been so busy at work, learning a new system of workflow and writing stories on the side, that I hadn't had time to really research what we were going to do (plus, I had pitched a piece to The Post's Travel editor involving Rachel, but she never got back to me and we ended up making last-minute plans to go to Williamsburg). From now on, I'll ask if a hotel has an interior corridor vs. a door that opens right to the outside, like this one did -- and when you have boozy yahoos outside your door at 11 at night, that can be a problem. Anyway, Jamestown was unexpectedly terrific and very moving. We went to a museum and then to an archaeological area where they are still making discoveries about life back then; it was completely fascinating because the National Park Service guides are really, really into the history and know their stuff. There's a museum on site that has been open only a decade or so, and I could have spent much more time there; there was so much to learn about the incredibly harsh early days of the English, the weather, the -- seriously -- cannibalism! -- and other things.

--The second day we went to the Jamestown settlement, a re-creation of life there from the Native American perspective. We went into teepees, watched baskets being sewn, walked along the grounds, etc. By the end of our time there, I really had a good sense of what the colonialists were up against in the New World.

--The third day we went to Yorktown, where they still have the redoubts FROM THE REVOLUTIONARY AND CIVIL WARS, and it was a terrific experience. We watched a little film there and Rachel climbed on some Revolutionary War-era cannons. Then we drove into town, saw a lot of old houses that I would have loved to explore, and got to see lots of live re-creations of: Colonial-era cooking, a cannon being shot off, a lecture on medicine during the American Revolution and Civil War battles (you don't want to know), and a museum that is being renovated so we only hit the highlights (it will be reopening this October, to much fanfare). We had dinner at a place right on the water and ice cream at Ben & Jerry's nearby.

--Then we spent the fourth and fifth days at Colonial Williamsburg. We didn't do RevQuest -- the Revolutionary War spy game -- this year because there was so much more to see: live demonstrations of candle-making; a lecture about and demonstration of a printing press, etc. When we remarked to someone that it seemed so much more open this year, they said that was a conscious decision of the people who run the place; that they realized they needed to make it more accessible to serve the public, and a bunch of folks had retired and they'd gotten more money to set up more people in the act of doing things.

We had found slightly better -- just slightly -- better lodgings where a bunch of kids from a soccer tournament were staying. It was a little chaotic. But we also found some nice restaurants and generally had a great time.

Rachel was a great traveling companion throughout, especially one night when Drew and I had got into an argument and were still angry, and she made a calm little speech that I'm forgetting now, but Drew looked at me and said, "We should listen to the child," and we all had a group family hug and made up. We later found out that she had gotten the idea to do that from one of her books about how kids can deal with difficult situations, or something like that. Anyhow...we all had a blast. Best spring break trip ever.