Our RV Adventures

This morning we got an earlier start than usual, heading up to Webster to try Mackey’s Bar & Grill, a place we’d seen along the Interstate. They advertise ‘Upscale Comfort Food” so we thought we’d give it a try.

I had a 5 vegetable plate with Corn on the Cob, Fried Okra, Fresh Sautéed Cabbage, Texas Rice, and Green Beans Almandine.

I thought my veggies were really good, very well seasoned, and perfectly cooked, especially the cabbage.

Jan had the Fried Catfish and Fried Shrimp Platter. She said hers wasn’t as good as a couple of other seafood places around here.

I said “Duh, their motto is ‘Upscale Comfort Food’, not ‘Upscale Seafood’.” You don’t got to Red Lobster and order steak, and you don’t go to Outback and get the seafood.

I  heard the guy at the next table raving about much he liked his Pot Roast with Roasted Potatoes and Carrots.

Now that’s comfort food.

Leaving Mackey’s we headed up to the next exit so Jan could pick up some more baby clothes that were on sale at Carters. Then it was off to the storage room to drop off some things and pick up some Christmas decorations.

Next we went by Brandi’s to pick up the mail. Brandi and Lowell were out eating lunch, but I needed to get my tag renewal stickers that had come in from South Dakota.

After that, we stopped off at Chris’ and then it was on to Wal-Mart…again. It seems like we were just here yesterday. And we were.

It seems like we always need something else from Wal-Mart.

Getting back to the park, Jan wanted to go up to the park laundry to do some heavy rugs. While she did that I wanted to go ahead and take a walk. I decided to try and push it up a bit and do two miles, and I did it in 44 minutes, not too bad.

That was about it for today.

Below is the rest of our visit to the Williamsburg-Jamestown area from last year.

Thought for the Day:
“But Officer, I wasn’t speeding. I was qualifying.”

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Jamestown and Yorktown . . . and Yorktown

Posted on July 2, 2009

Today was our last full day in Williamsburg, VA and we wanted to tour the Jamestown Settlement of 1607, you know, Captain John Smith, Pocahontas and all that.

And we also wanted to tour the Yorktown Battlefield, one of the last big battles of the Revolutionary War.

But first, we had to move our coach.

When we made our reservations we knew we might have to move into an overflow site for our last day, since they were full.  We were hoping they would have a cancellation so we wouldn’t have to move, but no such luck.

The overflow site had 30 amp power and water, but no sewer. No problem for just one day.

We moved with no problems, until I tried to plug into the power connection.  As soon as my EMS (Electrical Management System) tried to put power to the coach, it shut down because the voltage dropped to 98 volts.  I went to the office and told them about the problem and they said they’d look at it while we were gone.  So we headed out to the Jamestown Settlement about 10 miles down the road.

They have a very nice complex here, consisting of a museum/exhibit building,

a replica Powhatan Indian village,

Powhatan Hut Interior

replicas of the 3 ships that the colonists used to come to Jamestown,

The "Susan Constant"

The "Godspeed" and the "Discovery",

and a replica of the settlement fort itself.

The biggest building in the place was the church, which was also the community meeting area.

Jamestown Church

I can only imagine that the pews were so hard and uncomfortable to keep you from falling asleep during the services.

Jamestown Church Pew

Jamestown Dedication

After lunch at the Red City Chinese Buffet we headed out to the Yorktown Battlefield.

And then we discovered a slight problem.  There are two Yorktowns.

One is called Yorktown Victory Center.  This is the one that is advertised everywhere, and that we had bought tickets to when we bought our Williamsburg and Jamestown tickets.

But when we got to the area we found that the actual Yorktown Battlefield was not the Victory Center, but was a National Park run by the National Park Service.  And of course, had a separate admission fee.

But it was really worth it, walking the grounds, climbing the earthworks, and looking out over the actual battlefield.

Yorktown Battlefield

Here Washington, Lafayette, and the French Navy offshore surrounded the British Army under Gen. Cornwallis, and pounded them to pieces with cannons and mortars, and then attacked the British lines until Cornwallis surrendered his 8,000 troops on Oct. 19, 1781.

This was the last big battle of the Revolutionary War, although the War itself dragged on for another 2 years.

We did have an interesting talk from a guide about living and dying during the Revolutionary War.  He talked about the clothing the soldiers wore, the food they are, the weapons they use, and the medical care they got, but probably wished they hadn’t.

Yorktown Seminar

While we listened to the guide, a small, furry visitor came out of the bushes beside us.  The large groundhog looked around and then started grazing on the grasses.  He didn’t seem too worried until about a dozen screaming kids went running for him, then he skedaddled back into the thick bushes.

Yorktown Groundhog

And finally, we drove the 7 mile loop that circles all the different positions and battle areas.

After this we headed over the Yorktown Victory Center, which turned out to be basically a museum complex about the Battle of Yorktown, but not really near the battleground.

They did have a interesting timeline display covering the lead up to the Revolutionary War.  The other thing they had was a replica of the town of Yorktown.

After we finished up at the 2nd Yorktown, we headed back to the coach, stopping off at Hooters for another hot wing fix.

Arriving back at the coach we found we still had power problems.  They apparently hadn’t sent anyone to look at the problem. After I talked with the office, they said they’d send someone.

In the meantime I started to try to improvise something by pulling power thru an extension cord from a nearby empty site.

But while I was doing that, I started up the generator to run the A/C’s because the coach was pretty hot.  I hadn’t done it earlier because the people in the next site were in a tent and my generator exhaust was pointed right into their tent.  But they had gone out for the evening so it was OK.

The first plug I tried wouldn’t work because it had a reversed hot/neutral and my EMS wouldn’t accept it.

The 2nd plug I tried seemed to work, for a few minutes, and then suddenly my EMS unit went ‘WHOOOMP”! and just died.

Great!  Now I couldn’t get any power to the coach from the shore power.

And now the generator sounded different.  In checking I found that I had lost half the feed from the generator, so some outlets wouldn’t work, and only the front A/C was getting power. This just gets better and better!

I had heard there was a way to easily bypass the EMS, but I didn’t know how and it was too late (10 pm) to call anyone.  And of course the neighbors next door showed up, so I had to shut down the generator.

So we would have to try to make it thru the night using just the vent fans to keep us cool.  Luckily it was supposed to fairly nice so hopefully it wouldn’t be a problem.

I still don’t know what happened to the EMS, but I’ll try to find out more tomorrow.

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