What I did on my Summer Vacation
Jul. 29th, 2011 09:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catlinyemakerPart 1
We had planned to go north for the summer, back to Maine and New Hampshire. Spend the summer months in the cooler states and stay out of the killer heat (not that it would have worked, this year, but that was the plan.) Last year J’s work diverted us to GA in July, and I wanted a more comfortable summer. But the same thing happened this year; he had to be in North Carolina at the end of July. There went our northern loop. J said as long as we had to be in the South in the heat, we could at least get some fun out of it, and he actually scheduled vacation time for the middle of the month.
So the whole month, pretty much, was paybacks to me for having to give up my nice cool summer plans for a hot Southern summer. Not that I am complaining. We spent the tail end of June and the beginning of July at Chippokes State Park in Surry, VA, just a short and picturesque ferry ride across the James River from Jamestown settlement and colonial Williamsburg. We got very lucky; initially I’d thought we would have to go into a private campground for the Fourth, but a single site opened up at the state park that weekend and I got it! Chippokes is a beautiful park, and the RV sites look recently upgraded, paved and level with a nice gravel yard. The only knocks on the place are the lousy internet connectivity and the ants we seem to have picked up there. The park has a huge pool with a separate diving area which we heartily enjoyed, and weekend events which sounded fun.
We largely gave those events a pass because we (I) were too busy taking the ferry over to Williamsburg every day and sightseeing. We bought passes for Colonial Williamsburg, and J joined me in touring the colonial triangle on the weekends. Being there over the holiday was great; they run special programs all that week, naturally enough. The street vignettes were fascinating and a bit schizophrenic; on Saturday, at 11 am Benedict Arnold and the occupying British exhorted the crowd and at 11:30 General Washington came riding up the street to address the citizenry before marching to siege Yorktown. I think my favorite part of visiting Colonial Williamsburg was talking to the tradesmen. I slipped into the milliners shop to escape the heat and stayed for at least 30 minutes, listening to the tailor discoursing on the fashions and furbelows of the era.
From Surry we headed south a bit to a stopover campground in Shawboro, NC. It was a pleasant week at a lovely campground with pretty much nothing around. It’s the first place we’ve been at for a while where they insisted on helping us back in, but I can understand why: the sites are huge but the actual parking pads are very narrow, edged by a concrete patio on one side and railroad ties on the other. The helper was really nice about it and actually helpful, which was good. The campground had a large pond/small lake, and the sites were half back in and half pull in (a utility area with separate power and water for each rig between each pair of campsites) so everyone would have a good view through their large window whether motorhome or towable. We caught up on the laundry and did some much needed cleaning and generally took care of business in preparation for VACATION!
We had planned to go north for the summer, back to Maine and New Hampshire. Spend the summer months in the cooler states and stay out of the killer heat (not that it would have worked, this year, but that was the plan.) Last year J’s work diverted us to GA in July, and I wanted a more comfortable summer. But the same thing happened this year; he had to be in North Carolina at the end of July. There went our northern loop. J said as long as we had to be in the South in the heat, we could at least get some fun out of it, and he actually scheduled vacation time for the middle of the month.
So the whole month, pretty much, was paybacks to me for having to give up my nice cool summer plans for a hot Southern summer. Not that I am complaining. We spent the tail end of June and the beginning of July at Chippokes State Park in Surry, VA, just a short and picturesque ferry ride across the James River from Jamestown settlement and colonial Williamsburg. We got very lucky; initially I’d thought we would have to go into a private campground for the Fourth, but a single site opened up at the state park that weekend and I got it! Chippokes is a beautiful park, and the RV sites look recently upgraded, paved and level with a nice gravel yard. The only knocks on the place are the lousy internet connectivity and the ants we seem to have picked up there. The park has a huge pool with a separate diving area which we heartily enjoyed, and weekend events which sounded fun.
We largely gave those events a pass because we (I) were too busy taking the ferry over to Williamsburg every day and sightseeing. We bought passes for Colonial Williamsburg, and J joined me in touring the colonial triangle on the weekends. Being there over the holiday was great; they run special programs all that week, naturally enough. The street vignettes were fascinating and a bit schizophrenic; on Saturday, at 11 am Benedict Arnold and the occupying British exhorted the crowd and at 11:30 General Washington came riding up the street to address the citizenry before marching to siege Yorktown. I think my favorite part of visiting Colonial Williamsburg was talking to the tradesmen. I slipped into the milliners shop to escape the heat and stayed for at least 30 minutes, listening to the tailor discoursing on the fashions and furbelows of the era.
From Surry we headed south a bit to a stopover campground in Shawboro, NC. It was a pleasant week at a lovely campground with pretty much nothing around. It’s the first place we’ve been at for a while where they insisted on helping us back in, but I can understand why: the sites are huge but the actual parking pads are very narrow, edged by a concrete patio on one side and railroad ties on the other. The helper was really nice about it and actually helpful, which was good. The campground had a large pond/small lake, and the sites were half back in and half pull in (a utility area with separate power and water for each rig between each pair of campsites) so everyone would have a good view through their large window whether motorhome or towable. We caught up on the laundry and did some much needed cleaning and generally took care of business in preparation for VACATION!
