In Williamsburg

 All of a sudden it is like springtime here! The sun is out and the temperature is in the high seventies.  Our room at Market Square Inn is almost exactly half way between the Capitol building and the College of William and Mary.  In the mornings we walk down near the College to the Blackbird Bakery and get Hot Cross Buns for our breakfast.  Then we walk and visit cottage industries, colonial houses, and historic public buildings. We have been having a great time!

We had a nice visit at the tailor shop where we could talk fabric and sewing!  The tailor was charming.

Our visit to the Capitol Building was filled with history.  Though reconstructed after its destruction by a lightening fire, the present building sits on the same foundation as that occupied by George Washington, Patrick Henry, and many other Revolutionary era leaders.  Much of the structure of our nation was hammered out right here in this place.

As spring comes forward there is more and more outside activity here since numbers of visitors grow with warmer weather.  We had horses and oxen working all around us as we took our walks everywhere.

Trish and I ended each day with dinner at an historic tavern.  On our last night there was a Lenten Season organ concert at Bruton Parish Church and we ended our evening there.  All of our time was splendid!

Williamsburg

 This weekend I have an event in Richmond, Virginia, so, instead of driving home and back, we decided to stop for the days in between in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia.

The first developed capital of Virginia, eighteenth century Williamsburg was rescued from gradual historical erosion by John D, Rockefeller, Jr., beginning in 1920 and today exists as the country’s largest museum of American history.  Both outdoors and in dozens of original and restored building both the political history and the ordinary ways of life in our Colonial era are to be experienced here.

Trish and I are staying in a Colonial tavern right on Duke of Gloucester Street where we can walk everywhere easily and also return to our room when needed.  There were many taverns in the day as the taverns were not only for food but also for overnight accommodations when people came to the capital on business.

There are gardens, both for vegetables and flowers, behind many of the houses.  They are mostly open and welcoming to visitors and a reminder that we are in the beginning of spring.

The brickwork and woodwork in these buildings is exquisite and so complicated.  As we admire the beautiful construction work, we are very aware that is was the product of mostly slave labor. Even for enslaved workers there has to have been pride in these chimneys, walls, and finish work.

We finished our day watching the fife and drum corps display their role from Court to battlefield.  We have two more days here to soak in history, food, and beauty.

Winterthur

 Yesterday Trish and I spent a lovely day at Winterthur House and Gardens near Wilmington, Delaware. In the early 1800’s, this land was farm land of E. I. DuPont.  After making great fortunes in the manufacture of gunpowder, his grandson, H. F., begin his own lifelong passion of collecting American furniture and accessories.  The house has nearly 200 rooms and houses a collection of 90,000 objects.

While the house does have bedrooms for H. F., his wife and daughters, the majority of the gradually added rooms were designed specifically to hold his collection.  There are multiple parlors, bedrooms, dining rooms, and miscellaneous rooms filled properly with period American pieces.

We first had a self-guided tour of the fourth and fifth floor rooms.  Then we went on a special guided tour of the third, sixth, and seventh floors.  By that time our eyes were full!

There is even a courtyard (formerly an indoor badminton court) there four full facades from transported historic houses create a village square.

This is the kind of place where you can visit over and over again.  We will certainly come here more than once.  Besides, as the season warms, there are 1,000 acres of land and gardens to explore!

Norman Rockwell Museum

 This weekend we visited with our dear friends, Put and Nannie Brown, in West Granby, Connecticut.  On Saturday Trish and I drove, with them, up to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, to visit the Norman Rockwell Museum.  Stockbridge was Rockwell’s home through the last years of his life and the museum contains more of his original work than is assembled anywhere in the world among with originals of all his magazine covers.

We got to visit up close with some favorite remembered Saturday Evening Post cover illustrations as well as become acquainted with original work we had never seen before.

Looking back historically, we now see how daring Rockwell was with some of his work.  The original painting of Ruby Bridges on her first day of integrated school was accompanied by a video of Ruby herself recounting that day and her confusion with it all.  It was remarkable for the time for Rockwell to render his interpretation of this event and more remarkable for the Post to feature it in the cover.

We also saw Rockwell poke fun at himself as he uses himself as a boy as the model for the tall kid with glasses (in the left) in a series of seasonal sports works.

In all, we had a wonderful afternoon.  Our legs wore out before our imaginations!

Snow Bound

 Every spring Trish and have trips to Connecticut where I hold week long storytelling workshops.  Last week was the first of the workshops for this year and we met at the Trinity Retreat Center outside West Cornwall, Connecticut.

We had a lovely group of a dozen participants.  On Tuesday evening it started snowing and continued all through that night, all the following day, and most of the night after that.

We met in an octagonal room with windows on all sides, so, through our meeting days, we were watching beautiful snowfall at the same time.

By the time we got up on Wednesday morning, the power was out and the road in to the Center was obscured.  There was enough generator power to run the kitchen, but we had no lights or other power in the rest of the building.  Luckily there was older oil heat that brought warmth to the baseboards and kept us comfortable.  

We had a charming snowed-in time.  We had food and warmth and one another and our workshop time was wonderful.

By Friday all the power was back on and the snow was beginning to melt, so, we could depart with no difficulty.  The timing of the snow fall was perfect for our week.  We are wondering if the weather might arrange the same thing for next time we are here!

Back on the Road

 As we are now well into this new year of 2023, it is obvious that the slowdowns of COVID are done with and our schedule for work and travel is back to normal.

Trish and I were to leave on Saturday for a workshop week in Connecticut, but we had gale warnings on the weather forecast for that day. Since there had been some cancellations of ferry operations for wind earlier in the week, we decided that we should go ahead and leave on Friday afternoon to be sure we were not trapped the next day.

We took an afternoon ferry and traveled on up to Kitty Hawk to spend the night with a head start. We ended up right on the beach there and our room gave us a great view of the wind and water the following morning at sunrise.

There was a lot of wind, but the scene was beautiful.

After breakfast we headed on north.  

We were taking the Eastern Shore route and, when we got to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, all of the large trucks and other high-profile vehicles were being turned back due to high winds on the Bay.  We were allowed to cross with instructions of  “no more than forty-five miles an hour and no passing on the bridge.”  The winds and waves were high and we were glad we were in our SUV and not anything bigger or towing a trailer.  It was a relief to get to the other side.

We finished the day by taking the Cape May - Lewes Ferry to New Jersey, which turned out to be a rough trip for such a large ferry.  

Glad that we made the day-early head start, we settled for the night.

The rest of the trip was easy and beautiful!

Azalea Festival

 We have just finished the 27th Azalea Storytelling Festival in LaGrange, Georgia. This is a marvelous community wide event that I am at every year.  This year I was joined by Adam Booth, Dolores Hydock, and the Rev. Robert Jones.

At Azalea they bring two of us in early in the week to do community outreach. This year Robert and I arrived early. We performed for schools, churches, civic clubs, and other community organizations prior to the festival itself.  One of my outreach sessions was to tell at the St. Peter’s Catholic Church Friday Luncheon following Friday Mass.

By Friday we moved to the beautiful Callaway Auditorium on the LaGrange College campus.  Following a warm welcome by Dr. Susanna Baxter, President of the College, we had six performance sessions running from Friday evening through sacred stories on Sunday morning.

Here we see Dolores on the Callaway stage.

This is the second year to be back live following the COVID hiatus.  The audience was so happy to be here. It is growing back to pre-COVID levels. 

Next year we will be back with Josh Goforth and two other tellers the first weekend in March.