It was a cloudy morning with the threat of rain. We checked the weather reports and Saturday looks like a better day for a visit to Colonial Williamsburg. We decided to take a drive to Yorktown on the Colonial Parkway that runs between Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown today. The Colonial Parkway is a 23-mile long, scenic, winding road through the countryside.
It was a beautiful drive lined with lush greenery on a road that had a sidewalk-like surface.
The road brought us to the banks of the York River.
We had been to Jamestown and Yorktown in 2011 by boat and had explored those towns by renting a car, so we were somewhat familiar with the area. On the river, we saw a working crabbing boat and a barge moving down the river.
We continued on under these beautiful arched sections of highway to Yorktown.
We followed the road to the Yorktown Victory Monument and the waterfront.
The monument was authorized by the Continental Congress just after the news of surrender reached Philadelphia in 1781. It was completed in 1884. Yorktown is where the last battle of the Revolutionary War took place and where the British surrendered.
From there, we drove down to Riverfront Landing. There is a paved walkway that takes you along Water St. past the beach to the shops and restaurants.
A few things had changed since our last visit here, but most things were the same. This wooden replica of a ship sat in front of the Watermen’s Museum.
We wanted to go back to the Yorktown Pub. It was a cool place back in 2011 and it hadn’t changed much.
We ordered 2 “jars” of beer and our favorite bar food–loaded nachos.
We enjoyed that immensely and needed a little walk to wear it off. We walked along the waterfront past 2 touring schooners–Alliance and Serenity–that were docked at the pier.
We stopped to read the informational display boards along the way.
This was a new addition to the waterfront area–shops and eateries of all kinds.
There weren’t many people milling about on this cloudy day, but as the sun began to peak through, the day improved greatly after lunch. We walked as far as this swing bridge over the York River. It swings open to allow ships to pass through.
We turned around there and headed back on the Parkway to the campground. As I said earlier, the sun was out more now, so we were able to enjoy some outdoor time with Auggie back at our campsite. He seemed to enjoy it!
Bob worked on cleaning out the storage compartments in the trailer and I wrote in my blog. We hung out with Auggie for most of the afternoon watching more campers arrive for the weekend. We ate a later dinner after having a big lunch and Auggie got his walk. The sky was lit up with streaks of pink and blue as the sun was setting.
We’ll get an early start for Colonial Williamsburg tomorrow. Tomorrow would be our last day of touring on this trip. We will be starting our drive home on Sunday. It will take us 4, 200-mile driving days, to get home. We’re not looking forward to going home, but it’s time. Our good neighbors have been kind enough to watch over our place, collect the mail, water my plants, and other small things that we asked of them. You can’t ask for better neighbors than that and we appreciate them so much!
