June 10, Tuesday –Total Submergence

The reason I picked this state park was that there was a free ferry across the James River to the populated Virginia peninsula; home of the “Historical Triangle.” Known otherwise as …. Jamestown, Williamsburg and Yorktown.
Early in the morning I drove the 8 minutes on farm roads to the ferry landing and captained the vessel across the river. I was amazed at the passenger list. Middle class cars and trucks drive by evenly split black and white drivers. This was the going-to-work crowd and everyone knew everyone else. For thirty minutes is was a flash party: people of both colors laughing and talking – mostly bitching about the insanely hot weather, amen. I could stop smiling as I watched this mobile community traverse the river to a forested other bank. Where were the shoreline houses? Where were the condos? Where were the docks and boats? What I saw were three sailing vessels representing the vessels that brought the people to Jamestown. The lack of development blew me away.
After successfully landing the ferry, I drove up a wooded two-lane road to what is called the Colonial Parkway and drove 20 miles to the other side of the peninsula to visit the town where the British Cornwallis surrendered to the George Washington after the siege of the port town basically ending the Revolutionary War. So I had seen where the Civil War had started at Ft. Sumter and the Revolutionary War had ended in Yorktown. I’ve learned and have seen SO much!! In Yorktown I walked the historic streets and went into the house owned by Thomas Nelson, Jr, one of the signers of our Declaration of Independence. His house (he was not there during the British occupation) had the honor of still having a cannon ball stuck in its brick wall from the America artillery during the siege.
Soon after lunch I succumbed to the blister heat and headed back to my RV. And I must confess that I left the A/C on all the time that I was gone. (I found that it took 3 hours of continuous running to drop the temp from 95 to 76 so I just let it cycle on and off and let it run while I’m gone.)