An Afternoon in Jamestown

I've been itching to explore all the history we have surrounding us for awhile now. Pretty much since we arrived here. For one reason or another we haven't done a lot of the "touristy" stuff yet. Saturday I was itching to get out of the house and the weather was finally a bit warmer than it's been for weeks so we packed up the baby and took the ten minute drive down to Jamestown Settlement. 

(Jamestown Settlement is where they have built a museum along with outdoor replicas of some of the things that might have been seen at that time. Historic Jamestown is next door and is the actual sight where they landed/lived. We were able to get in to Jamestown Settlement for free b/c we are residents but Historic Jamestown is a National Park sight so we'll make our way over there when we have a few bucks to spend).

Before you go inside there is a nice pathway that you can walk around with flags of all 50 states and some information about becoming a state. 

The museum was AMAZING. Seriously, coolest museum I have ever been to. They had it set up in three different parts: Powhatan Indians, Africans and English. You walk in and it's like you're walking into an Indian forest, it even feels kind of muggy like you're outside. There were all kinds of artifacts and information from everything from food and clothing to religion and gender roles. They had little telephone like things that you could pick up and listen to what they believe the Powhatan language to have sounded like. You move along to their African exhibit which is this months special exhibit. After that you enter the English section which is set up to feel like you are walking down a street in 17th century England. Again they had the little phones so that you could hear what the English sounded like back then. There were little rooms you could go into that showed what a poor English persons home was like and then a rich persons. As you continue through the museum there are more exhibits showing what life was like as time went by up until today. I was SO impressed with the museum. We didn't have a lot of time to spend there before our tour began so we will definitely be going back one of these days just to spend some time in the museum. (Pictures weren't allowed, hence the no pictures of the really really cool museum). 

I guess you can normally walk outside alone but they don't have a lot of staff in the winter so the only way to see the outside is by going on a 90 minute tour. The tour was split into three parts. We first started at the Powhatan Village, then made our way down to the James River to see three ships and then finished with the Colonists forts.

Powhatan Village:

(They usually have quite a few dressed up "actors" outside during the busy season. We only saw a few and this dude cracked us up because he did NOT look or act the part at all. It was great).

The ships:

So happy to finally be out of the stroller and don't you love how we can't get this kid to keep a pair of shoes on his feet for more than 30 seconds. 

Look at that icy water! It really has been cold the last two weeks.

The captains quarters.

Colonist Forts:

Inside the church

We'll definitely be coming back sometime during the Spring when the trees have bloomed and the snow is gone. Even with the bits of snow and cold it was a great afternoon out. How lucky are we to be surrounded by so many cool things! Next stop: Yorktown!