Vacation to Virigina: Day 3 - Williamsburg (at night)

For dinner we ate at Food for Thought, which we highly recommend for anyone visiting Williamsburg. The service was great, the food was spectacular with a unique mix of flavors, and the atmosphere was thought provoking. We were even able to pose thoughtful questions to each other based on brain teasers provided on the table.


After our enlightening dinner, we headed to Williamsburg to enlist in the Continental Army through the "In Defense of Our Liberty" evening program.

We arrived at Williamsburg with some time to kill before we our began our program. So, we explored our surroundings...

Jacob found some horses that didn't want to show their faces.

Jen became friends with TJ (Thomas Jefferson).

We found the Public Hospital...just in case we lost our minds while on vacation. (It's really a museum now.)

We found the archeological site of Carlton's Coffeehouse. It looks just like Starbucks, right?

Okay, so it doesn't look exactly like Starbuck's and we needed the sign to tell us it was a Coffeehouse.

We got into a little trouble while we were exploring...

Jen accepted her fate...

Jacob claimed he was innocent.

Not wanting to get into any more trouble, we enlisted in our program as soon as we were freed.

Other people standing in line waiting to enlist.

The experience of joining the army was intense but fun. Our group met at the Magazine and Guardhouse and entered the wooden fence as we prepared for our experience as 18th-century soldiers. At first our primary fear was that we would be hit with embers from the torch baskets (our primary sources of lighting). However, after being yelled at to form lines and stand straight we soon forgot our fear of the embers and directed all of our attention to our assigned Sergeants. Note: There would be more pictures but our Sergeants wouldn't allow us to take any pictures while we were enlisted...something to do muskets being more important in battle than cameras.

View of the fence and torch basket.

View of the Guard House.

We learned how to march (it wasn't pretty), take orders, and head into battle. Sadly, three of our soldiers were hit by a cannon ball and we suddenly forgot everything we had learned. Our Sergeant immediately yelled at us to pick up our flag and regroup. At which point we slowly got back into our orderly lines and continued marching into battle.

A female colonist stopped by to explain that many wives and children would accompany their husbands in the army. The wives would help out as nurses, do the laundry, cook, mend clothes, etc., in exchange they had the comfort of knowing that they were with their husband instead of being at home and possibly being forced to house British troops in their homes. We also learned that some women even posed as men and fought side by side with the men in battle.

At the end of the night we headed back to our hotel for some much needed sleep.